The Atlantic Sound.The Atlantic Sound by Caryl Phillips Caryl Phillips (born 13 March 1958) is a British writer with a Caribbean background, best known as a novelist. He is now professor at Yale University and a visiting professor at Barnard College of Columbia University. He was born on St. Alfred A. Knopf, October 2000, $26.00, ISBN ISBN abbr. International Standard Book Number ISBN International Standard Book Number ISBN n abbr (= International Standard Book Number) → ISBN m 0-375-40110-5 With a novelist's penetrating, proactive insight and a historian's careful and acute eye for detail, the Caribbean-born, London-raised Phillips explores the breadth of slavery's legacy along one of the major routes of the slave trade slave trade Capturing, selling, and buying of slaves. Slavery has existed throughout the world from ancient times, and trading in slaves has been equally universal. Slaves were taken from the Slavs and Iranians from antiquity to the 19th century, from the sub-Saharan , from Liverpool, England through Accra, Ghana to Charleston, South Carolina South Carolina, state of the SE United States. It is bordered by North Carolina (N), the Atlantic Ocean (SE), and Georgia (SW). Facts and Figures Area, 31,055 sq mi (80,432 sq km). Pop. (2000) 4,012,012, a 15. . Phillips weaves his own witty and distinctively British observations through the affecting, beautifully reconstructed stories of three figures from the past. In the first of Phillips' three stories, he recreates African trader John Ocansey's lonely trip from the Gold Coast to an even more lonely stay in late 19th century Liverpool. Alongside Ocansey's experiences, Phillips gives his own sharply humorous impression of Liverpool and provides an illuminating history of the city's involvement with the slave trade, and its guilt-ridden effort to bury its place in slavery's past. The structure of Phillip's work reveals the brilliant use of time and place. In Ghana, Phillips pairs his interactions with American Pan-Africanists coming "home" to Africa with his account of an African minister in 18th-century Accra, who turned a blind eye to the slave trade flourishing around him. Cleverly moving back and forth in time, Phillips draws parallels across the African Diaspora The African diaspora is the diaspora created by the movements and cultures of Africans and their descendants throughout the world, to places such as the Americas, (including the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America) Europe and Asia. . By juxtaposing the horrors of a forced exodus with the joy and hope of a voluntary one, Phillips shows how that which was lost over the course of the slave trade can never be regained. Phillips' last chapter is the story of J. Waties Waring, a white judge in Charleston, who integrated the Democratic primary in 1947. This story of the integration of humanity taking root in the law is set against Phillips' search for remnants of the "pest houses" where slaves were "seasoned" upon first taking root in this country. Phillips writes: "Almost one-third of all Africans who entered the North American North American named after North America. North American blastomycosis see North American blastomycosis. North American cattle tick see boophilusannulatus. world in captivity passed through the gateway in Charleston, South Carolina." The Atlantic Sound is a deft and deeply moving history of African American African American Multiculture A person having origins in any of the black racial groups of Africa. See Race. survival. Phillips' work is a significant contribution to the discourse on black history and culture. Victoria Bond is an English major in her senior year at Vassar College. |
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