THE LONGEST MEMORY 最长久的记忆.pdf

Article on The Longest Memory by Ross Huggard Area of Study 1 2 Theme: Surviving Conflict THE LONGEST MEMORY By Fred D’Aguiar Article written by Ross Huggard ABOUT THE AUTHOR Fred D’Aguiar was born in London in 1962. He then moved to Guyana, where he lived until he was twelve, before returning to England. D’Aguiar has written poetry, novels and plays, and has won several prestigious awards for his work. In 1989 he won the Guyana Poetry Prize for his first collection of poetry, Mama Dot (1985). The Longest Memory won both the David Higham Prize for Fiction and the Whitbread First Novel Award. It has since been adapted for television. D’Aguiar is a Professor of English and Creative Writing, and has taught at universities in the United Kingdom and in the United States, including at Bates College in Maine and at the University of Miami. OVERVIEW The storyline is centred on the later life of the remarkable figure of an ageing, shrewd, widely respected and admirable centenarian black slave, Whitechapel, who reflects the old ways of the North American plantations. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that a sea of change is destined to sweep through Virginia and the Deep South, typified by the attitudes and actions of Whitechapel’s mixed-race stepson, Chapel, and his white master’s daughter, Lydia. The novel opens at the end of Whitechapel’s long life, as he reflects upon its painful memories and its seeming futility, ‘I’ve seen enough for one life, several lives’ (p.4) and seems to long for the release from the inner pain which has been so characteristic of his life, the release that death alone can provide him with. The intervening years are filled in by the differing voices of those around him: his white master, his old slave overseer, his second wife, his stepson, the daughter of the plantation owner, his great granddaughter and the