Search results for ""Author Alecia McKenzie""

'An elegantly written and emotionally engrossing work of fiction.' Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, OtherAn emotional, tender and funny novel from award-winning author Alecia McKenzie that asks, what does family mean to you?Seeking solitude after a personal tragedy upends his world, artist Chris travels to his mother's homeland, Jamaica, in a bid to find peace. He expects to spend his time painting alone, coming to terms with his loss and the fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated 'family' with their own startling stories. Can they help him to become whole again?Told from different points of view, this is an utterly compelling and deeply relatable novel from the winner of two Commonwealth literary prizes. Fans of Girl, Woman, Other and The Vanishing Half will love this book about friendship, community, chosen family, and healing after trauma.What readers are saying about A Million Aunties:'This is a wonderful story about the families we're given and those we make for ourselves. A life-affirming read.' Louise Hare, author of This Lovely City'This warm and wise story celebrates the importance of community and belonging.' Woman's Own'A tender novel.' Hello'Have you ever not wanted a book to end? Were disappointed that the characters are gone from your life?... Makes you yearn for more.' New York Journal of Books'An absolute delight!... Trust me - if you enjoy character-driven, multicultural fiction, you're going to want to get your hands on this book ASAP.' Reader review'Emotional, enthralling and heartfelt... A story of loss and the infinite types of love.' Woman's World'Pulls you in and holds you right till the end. It's strongly written with a delicate touch.' New West Indian Guide'Tender... An emotionally resonant ode to adopted families and community resilience.' New York Times'This big-hearted narrative of love, loss and family is handled with grace and beauty.' Publishers Weekly'A beautiful book for anyone who knows there is more to family than blood relations.' Book Culture

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'An elegantly written and emotionally engrossing work of fiction.' Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, OtherAn emotional, tender and funny novel from award-winning author Alecia McKenzie that asks, what does family mean to you?Seeking solitude after a personal tragedy upends his world, artist Chris travels to his mother's homeland, Jamaica, in a bid to find peace. He expects to spend his time painting alone, coming to terms with his loss and the fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated 'family' with their own startling stories. Can they help him to become whole again?Told from different points of view, this is an utterly compelling and deeply relatable novel from the winner of two Commonwealth literary prizes. Fans of Girl, Woman, Other and The Vanishing Half will love this book about friendship, community, chosen family, and healing after trauma.What readers are saying about A Million Aunties:'This is a wonderful story about the families we're given and those we make for ourselves. A life-affirming read.' Louise Hare, author of This Lovely City'This warm and wise story celebrates the importance of community and belonging.' Woman's Own'A tender novel.' Hello'Have you ever not wanted a book to end? Were disappointed that the characters are gone from your life?... Makes you yearn for more.' New York Journal of Books'An absolute delight!... Trust me - if you enjoy character-driven, multicultural fiction, you're going to want to get your hands on this book ASAP.' Reader review'Emotional, enthralling and heartfelt... A story of loss and the infinite types of love.' Woman's World'Pulls you in and holds you right till the end. It's strongly written with a delicate touch.' New West Indian Guide'Tender... An emotionally resonant ode to adopted families and community resilience.' New York Times'This big-hearted narrative of love, loss and family is handled with grace and beauty.' Publishers Weekly'A beautiful book for anyone who knows there is more to family than blood relations.' Book Culture

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'An elegantly written and emotionally engrossing work of fiction.' Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize-winning author of Girl, Woman, OtherAn emotional, tender and funny novel from award-winning author Alecia McKenzie that asks, what does family mean to you?Seeking solitude after a personal tragedy upends his world, artist Chris travels to his mother's homeland, Jamaica, in a bid to find peace. He expects to spend his time painting alone, coming to terms with his loss and the fractured relationship with his father. Instead, he discovers a new extended and complicated 'family' with their own startling stories. Can they help him to become whole again?Told from different points of view, this is an utterly compelling and deeply relatable novel from the winner of two Commonwealth literary prizes. Fans of Girl, Woman, Other and The Vanishing Half will love this book about friendship, community, chosen family, and healing after trauma.What readers are saying about A Million Aunties:'This is a wonderful story about the families we're given and those we make for ourselves. A life-affirming read.' Louise Hare, author of This Lovely City'This warm and wise story celebrates the importance of community and belonging.' Woman's Own'A tender novel.' Hello'Have you ever not wanted a book to end? Were disappointed that the characters are gone from your life?... Makes you yearn for more.' New York Journal of Books'An absolute delight!... Trust me - if you enjoy character-driven, multicultural fiction, you're going to want to get your hands on this book ASAP.' Reader review'Emotional, enthralling and heartfelt... A story of loss and the infinite types of love.' Woman's World'Pulls you in and holds you right till the end. It's strongly written with a delicate touch.' New West Indian Guide'Tender... An emotionally resonant ode to adopted families and community resilience.' New York Times'This big-hearted narrative of love, loss and family is handled with grace and beauty.' Publishers Weekly'A beautiful book for anyone who knows there is more to family than blood relations.' Book Culture

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Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize 2012.Dulcinea Evers, a young Jamaican artist who has reinvented herself in the USA as the flamboyant Cinea Verse, has died in unclear circumstances. But who was Dulcinea? Her friend, Cheryl, who is carrying her ashes back to New York from her Jamaican funeral, has one story, but the narratives of the other people in Dulci's life suggest that not even Cheryl's version is the whole one. In the words of Dulci's angry, disappointed father, her ineffectual mother, her middle-aged married lover and the angry wife who came after her with a machete, the art critic husband whom she used to get American residency, and Cheryl, the friend who has her own secrets, facets of Dulci begin to emerge: talented, reckless and, as we see when Aunt Mavis begins to speak, fundamentally alone. And it is Aunt Mavis, the solitary and reluctant seer, who understands the true challenge of Dulci's gift.In telling Dulci's story through those who speak to her, Alecia McKenzie has skilfully organised a narrative that is both multi-layered in offering deepening cycles of understanding, and has the onward thrust of progressive revelation. There is space, too, for readers to come to their own conclusions.Alecia McKenzie was born and grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. Her short stories, Satellite City, won the Commonwealth Writers regional prize for the best first work in 1993.

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Fear and bitterness pollute the ground from which the characters of these stories, mostly young and female, struggle to grow. With so many 'bad seeds', mostly male, taking root around them, with sexual violence, neglectful and brutal fathers, jealousy, lies and prejudice obscuring their light, their blossoming is always under threat. But in these diverse, subtly constructed stories, there is often a glimmer of hope: in a girl's tentative resistance to general prejudice about 'madmen'; or in the silence on a phone line between estranged friends, where forgiveness may or may not come. In the stories set in Jamaica life is hard, and the comforts of 'away' are idealized. But in the cold of the streets of the North, there is no passport to success for the people of yard. Only their resilience, optimism, humour and friendship (and the comforts of beer and ganja) help them make their way. And in the 'diaspora dance' of the different immigrant nations struggling to find their place in Europe or North America, new connections and new possibilities are being created. But if these stories are coolly unsentimental, there is also room for humour and moments of joy, as when Marie, a middle-aged Jamaican reggae singer, finds the sweet flavour of cane juice lingering on her young Brazilian lover's tongue.Alecia McKenzie was born and grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. Her short stories, Satellite City, won the Commonwealth Writers regional prize for the best first work in 1993.

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