Tells the stories of twelve-year-old Clare Savage's ancestors, both the Black slaves on her mother's side and the white slave owners of Jamaica on her father's side

Abeng

Literature & Fiction

Cliff, Michelle

Literary

Penguin??Books

A collection of stories by a Caribbean-American author depicts characters caught in the confrontations between Black and white, male and female, and the United States and the third world

The Store of a Million Items: Stories

United States

Mariner Books

In 1858, two black women meet and later join John Brown's doomed raid on Harper's Ferry, barely escaping with their lives. Acclaimed author Michelle Cliff places an actual historical figure at the center of her powerful new novel, which brings to life the passionate struggle for liberation that began not long after the first slavers landed in Virginia. Reading tour.

Free Enterprise: A Novel

Plume

Caribbean writer Michelle Cliff, author of the highly acclaimed novel Free Enterprise, presents a brilliant collection of 10 short stories dealing with oppression and liberation. "Wonderfully rich and disturbing tales . . . a remarkable collection, a testimony to human endurance and the triumph of the spirit."

Bodies of Water

Ever since Abeng was first published in 1984, Michelle Cliff has steadily become a literary force. Her novels evoke both the clearly delineated hierarchies of colonial Jamaica and the subtleties of present-day island life. Nowhere is her power felt more than in Clare Savage, her Jamaican heroine, who appeared, already grown, in No Telephone to Heaven. Abeng is a kind of prequel to that highly-acclaimed novel and is a small masterpiece in its own right. Here Clare is twelve years old, the light-skinned daughter of a middle-class family, growing up among the complex contradictions of class versus color, blood versus history, harsh reality versus delusion, in a colonized country. In language that surrounds us with a richness of meaning and voices, the several strands of young Clare's heritage are explored: the Maroons, who used the conch shell—the abengto pass messages as they fought a guerilla struggle against their English enslavers; and the legacy of Clare's white great-great-grandfater, Judge Savage, who burned his hundred slaves on the eve of their emancipation. A lyrical, explosive coming-of-age story combined with a provocative retelling of the colonial history of Jamaica, this novel is a triumph.

Humor & Entertainment

Humor

Penguin Publishing Group

A brilliant Jamaican-American writer takes on the themes of colonialism, race, myth, and political awakening through the experiences of a light-skinned woman named Clare Savage. The story is one of discovery as Clare moves through a variety of settings – Jamaica, England, America – and encounters people who affect her search for place and self.
The structure of No Telephone to Heaven combines naturalism and lyricism, and traverses space and time, dream and reality, myth and history, reflecting the fragmentation of the protagonist, who nonetheless seeks wholeness and connection. In this deply poetic novel there exist several levels: the world Clare encounters, and a world of which she only gradually becomes aware – a world of extreme poverty, the real Jamaica, not the Jamaica of the middle class, not the Jamaica of the tourist. And Jamaica – almost a character in the book – is described in terms of extraordinary beauty, coexisting with deep human tragedy.
The violence that rises out of extreme oppression, the divided loyalties of a colonized person, sexual dividedness, and the dividedness of a person neither white nor black – all of these are truths that Clare must face. Overarching all the themes in this exceptionally fine novel is the need to become whole, and the decisions and the courage demanded to achieve that wholeness.

No Telephone to Heaven

Humor & Satire

In this poetic novel about colonialism and contemporary Jamaica, a light-skinned woman must find the courage to face the violence that can arise from oppression and divided loyalties

Dutton Adult

A collection of stories depicting America from the unique perspective of the immigrant, spotlights themes of oppression, liberation, prejudice, and compassion

Bodies of Water: 2

Cookbooks, Food & Wine

Ever since Abeng was first published in 1984, Michelle Cliff has steadily become a literary force. Her novels evoke both the clearly delineated hierarchies of colonial Jamaica and the subtleties of present-day island life. Nowhere is her power felt more than in Clare Savage, her Jamaican heroine, who appeared, already grown, in No Telephone to Heaven. Abeng is a kind of prequel to that highly-acclaimed novel and is a small masterpiece in its own right. Here Clare is twelve years old, the light-skinned daughter of a middle-class family, growing up among the complex contradictions of class versus color, blood versus history, harsh reality versus delusion, in a colonized country. In language that surrounds us with a richness of meaning and voices, the several strands of young Clare's heritage are explored: the Maroons, who used the conch shell—the abeng&#151to pass messages as they fought a guerilla struggle against their English enslavers; and the legacy of Clare's white great-great-grandfater, Judge Savage, who burned his hundred slaves on the eve of their emancipation. A lyrical, explosive coming-of-age story combined with a provocative retelling of the colonial history of Jamaica, this novel is a triumph.

Mary Ellen Pleasant, the owner of a string of hotels that double as havens for runaway slaves, and her young Jamaican friend, Annie Christmas, join John Brown's doomed raid on Harper's Ferry. 25,000 first printing. Tour.

Dutton

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cliff, Michelle. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Cliff, Michelle

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Cliff, Michelle. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Abeng

The Store of a Million Items: Stories

Free Enterprise: A Novel

Bodies of Water

Abeng

No Telephone to Heaven

No Telephone to Heaven

Bodies of Water: 2

Abeng

Free Enterprise: A Novel