Brother

Product Description "A brilliant, powerful elegy from a living brother to a lost one, yet pulsing with rhythm, and beating with life." --Marlon James "Highly recommend Brother by David Chariandy--concise and intense, elegiac short novel of devastation and hope." --Joyce Carol Oates, via TwitterWINNER--Toronto Book AwardWINNER--Rogers’ Writers’ Trust Fiction PrizeWINNER--Ethel Wilson Prize for FictionEsquire Best Books of the YearKirkus Best Books of the YearGuardian Best Books of the YearNew York Public Library Best Books of the Year Aspen Words Literary Prize FinalistPEN Open Book Awards LonglistOrwell Prize for Political Fiction LonglistThe Believer Book Awards Longlist “Every sentence feels like a polished stone.” ―Entertainment Weekly“Elegiac and incendiary” ―Boston Globe“A dwarf star of mourning and regret” ―Wall Street Journal“Elegant, vital, indubitably dope” ―Guardian“An important, vital and groundbreaking book” ―Medium“An absolutely mammoth literary talent” ―KIESE LAYMON“Riveting, composed, charged with feeling” ―MADELEINE THIENIn luminous, incisive prose, a startling new literary talent explores masculinity, race, and sexuality against a backdrop of simmering violence during the summer of 1991. One sweltering summer in the Park, a housing complex outside of Toronto, Michael and Francis are coming of age and learning to stomach the careless prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and brown ancestry. While their Trinidadian single mother works double, sometimes triple shifts so her boys might fulfill the elusive promise of their adopted home, Francis helps the days pass by inventing games and challenges, bringing Michael to his crew's barbershop hangout, and leading escapes into the cool air of the Rouge Valley, a scar of green wilderness where they are free to imagine better lives for themselves. Propelled by the beats and styles of hip hop, Francis dreams of a future in music. Michael's dreams are of Aisha, the smartest girl in their high school whose own eyes are firmly set on a life elsewhere. But the bright hopes of all three are violently, irrevocably thwarted by a tragic shooting, and the police crackdown and suffocating suspicion that follow. Honest and insightful in its portrayal of kinship, community, and lives cut short, David Chariandy's Brother is an emotional tour de force that marks the arrival of a stunning new literary voice. Review "Skillfully, by travelling at once inward, into the intimate lives of his characters, and outward, connecting the diasporic community to a wider world of postcolonial migration . . . Chariandy suggests it may be possible to endure, and even to thrive." - New York Times Book Review "With shrewd insight and graceful economy, [Chariandy traces] loss in paragraphs so clean and pared down, every sentence feels like a polished stone." - Entertainment Weekly "A sobering account . . . [and a] searing novel about the two sons of Trinidadian immigrants who dream of better lives." - Time "An exquisite novel, crafted by a writer as talented and precise as Junot Díaz and Dinaw Mengestu. It has a beating heart and a sharp tongue. It is elegant, vital, indubitably dope--the most moving book I’ve read in a year." - Dina Nayeri, Guardian "Crackles with electric energy . . . An important, vital and groundbreaking book. You really need to read it. It's that good." - Medium "In this time of gross American injustice, summer's breakout immigrant tearjerker comes from an unexpected place . . . the Toronto neighborhood of Scarborough. Wide-eyed Michael and his cynical brother Francis are taught by their Trinidadian mother to strive against the odds, even as her own broken state belies her cherished ideals." - Vulture "A tightly constructed and powerful novel." - The Millions "An enthralling and timely read." - Independent "A breathtaking achievement . . . A compulsive, brutal and flawless novel that is full of accomplished storytelling with not a word spare.