There once was a Little England: A Story about Man's Obsession with 'Colour and Class'

ISBN-13: 9781470007546 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 352 str.

Enrico Downer

Opis

Inspired by a true story. In Barbados in the 1950s in a stratified society of whites, blacks, and half-whites, the son of a working-class family is shot and killed. It happens on the private property of an English landlord. The Englishman claims he mistook the boy for a monkey and, for his defense in a court of law, he turns to a Barbadian lawyer, a member of the race he deems inferior to his own. The lawyer is faced with his own private dilemma. Should he defend the Englishman, face the scorn of the people and pander to the upper-class to which he yearns to belong? Is it worth the approbation of the upper-class and their money to turn his back on his own? Should he swallow his pride and disregard the white man's assault on his dignity and on his race? Meanwhile the people are stung by the humiliating monkey assertion from the lips of a white man. The lawyer enters the political arena and needs the majority vote of the working-class. But he has already cast his lot with the upper-class, the wealthy and privileged minority. In different ways the tragedy impacts the lives of the dead boy's parents, a God-fearing mother who leans on her Christian faith and a grieving father determined to avenge the killing of his beloved son. With bated breath the whole island awaits the day of the trial for their sense of justice to be vindicated. They expect no less a sentence than death for the Englishman. His life is in the hands of a brilliant black barrister.