Recommendations
Recent recommendation
Dancing in the Dark
Adult Fiction | Published by Secker | Hard cover | £18.99
Reviews
Caryl Phillips provides a compassionate portrait of this enigmatic figure…this beautifully wrought novel is a fine and captivating read
Bernardine Evaristo, The Times
Caryl Phillips’s powerful examination of race and identity is realised with great delicacy. This is a fine fictional interpretation of the little-known life of a man who nevertheless features in the annals of American theatre as one of the great comedians of his age. Underneath the humiliating blackface daub, a history is uncovered of pre-1920s Harlem: routine race attacks, segregation in parks, hotels, streetcars and the theatre itself, where the white audience applauded in the best seats while the black theatregoers had to make do with the so-called “nigger-heaven” of those furthest away from the stage.
The Independent