![]() It follows Laura and Alina, two friends who share an adamant conviction that they will never have children, until the advent of their mid-thirties starts to split the two Laura decides to get sterilised, and Alina becomes fixated on getting pregnant. If you’re likely to be subjected to somebody asking when you’ll be giving them grandchildren this Christmas, Guadalupe Nettel’s Still Born, translated by Rosalind Harvey, is for you. It’s this odd kind of unwinnable dynamic, where they want you to have pride in your Jamaican heritage, but they also want to be the ones who are safeguarding Jamaican heritage from you.” In an interview with The New York Times, Escoffery spoke of the contradictions of his parents’ generation – “Simultaneously wanting you to be Jamaican and also telling you you’re not Jamaican. Flitting between perspectives, the stories in If I Survive You make up a fascinating study of ‘identity’ both as it’s constructed and enforced in wider society, and within the family itself.Įscoffery is particularly good on the gulf that can emerge between generations split across cultures what it means to be the one who ‘assimilates’, and the gatekeeping that can play out on both sides. Perched between short story collection and novel, If I Survive You centres around a Jamaican family who, like Escoffery’s own family, relocate to Miami in the mid-1970s. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() There is a lot of early hype around Jonathan Escoffery’s debut, already published in the US and out in the UK in early January, and with good reason. ![]()
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