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In the Castle of My Skin

George Lamming · back to the book

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24 books with the same feel

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Deep Rivers

Jose Maria Arguedas · 264 pages

BildungsromanComing of AgeCultural IdentityClass Struggle
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Annie John

Jamaica Kincaid · 148 pages

Since her first, prize-winning collection of stories, *At the Bottom of the River*, Jamaica Kincaid's work has been met with nothing short of amazement. *The New York Times* hailed her "prophetic power" and the *Los Angeles Times Book Review* said: "No one else seems to be writing quite this way right now." With *Annie John*, the story of a young girl coming of age in Antigua, Kincaid tore open th

BildungsromanCaribbeanComing of AgeColonialism
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Abeng

Michelle Cliff · 167 pages

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-

CaribbeanColonialismBildungsromanComing of Age
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Texaco

Patrick Chamoiseau · 401 pages

Of black Martinican provenance, Patrick Chamoiseau gives us Texaco (winner of the Prix Goncourt, France's most prestigious literary prize), an international literary achievement, tracing one hundred and fifty years of post-slavery Caribbean history: a novel that is as much about self-affirmation engendered by memory as it is about a quest for the adequacy of its own form. In a narrative composed

CaribbeanColonialismCultural IdentityClass Struggle
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Bless Me, Ultima

Rudolfo Anaya · 252 pages

Ultima, a curandera, one who cures with herbs and magic, comes to Antonio Marez's New Mexico family when he is six years old, and she helps him discover himself in the magical secrets of the pagan past.

BildungsromanCultural IdentityComing of AgeLyrical Prose
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Wide Sargasso Sea

Jean Rhys · 189 pages

Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of citsion's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". A sensual and protected young woman, the narrator grows up in the lush, natural world of the Caribbean. She is sold into marriage to the cold-hearted and prideful R

CaribbeanColonialismClass StruggleCultural Identity
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Studs Lonigan

James T. Farrell · 819 pages

[William V. Lipton][1] from Ann Arbor, MI says: "This is both a coming-of-age novel and a social history. Set during the 1920s and 1930s, it follows Studs as he grows through his teen years in Chicago. It shows the influences on urban children, the stresses on families and the American society during that time. The characters and dialogue are captivating." ([on Flashlight Worthy][2]) [1]:

BildungsromanComing of AgeClass StruggleClassics
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

James Joyce · 228 pages

Stephen Dedalus grows up in Dublin, feeling different from the other boys. His childhood and adolescence are shaped by bullying, his father's weaknesses and the growing realization that in order to make his way in the world he must reject a conventional life and boecome an artist. Penguin Popular Classics are the perfect introduction to the world-famous Penguin Classics series — which encompass

BildungsromanComing of AgeLyrical ProseClassics
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The House on Mango Street

Sandra Cisneros · 110 pages

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A coming-of-age classic, acclaimed by critics, beloved by readers of all ages, taught in schools and universities alike, and translated around the world—from the winner of the 2019 PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature. The House on Mango Street is the remarkable story of Esperanza Cordero, a young Latina girl growing up in Chicago, inventing for he

BildungsromanComing of AgeCultural IdentityLyrical Prose
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We the Animals

Justin Torres · 144 pages

"An exquisite, blistering debut novel. Three brothers tear their way through childhood-- smashing tomatoes all over each other, building kites from trash, hiding out when their parents do battle, tiptoeing around the house as their mother sleeps off her graveyard shift. Paps and Ma are from Brooklyn--he's Puerto Rican, she's white--and their love is a serious, dangerous thing that makes and unmake

BildungsromanComing of AgeCultural IdentityLyrical Prose
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The Power of One

Bryce Courtenay · 518 pages

Follows Peekay, a white British boy in South Africa during World War II, between the ages of five and eleven, as he survives an abusive boarding school and goes on to succeed in life and the boxing ring, with help from a chicken, a boxer, a pianist, black African prisoners, and many others.

BildungsromanColonialismComing of AgeCultural Identity
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Paradise

Abdulrazak Gurnah · 256 pages

BildungsromanColonialismComing of AgeLyrical Prose
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The Mimic Men

V.S. Naipaul · 275 pages

"A profound novel of cultural displacement, The Mimic Men masterfully evokes a colonial man's experience in a postcolonial world. Born of Indian heritage and raised on a British-dependent Caribbean island, Ralph Singh has retired to suburban London, writing his memoirs as a means to impose order on a chaotic existence. His memories lead him to recognize the paradox of his childhood during which he

ColonialismCaribbeanCultural IdentityLiterary Fiction
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Martha Quest

Doris Lessing · 319 pages

BildungsromanColonialismComing of AgeLiterary Fiction
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The Outsiders

S.E. Hinton · 192 pages

According to Ponyboy, there are two kinds of people in the world: greasers and socs. A soc (short for "social") has money, can get away with just about anything, and has an attitude longer than a limousine. A greaser, on the other hand, always lives on the outside and needs to watch his back. Ponyboy is a greaser, and he's always been proud of it, even willing to rumble against a gang of socs f

BildungsromanClass StruggleComing of AgeClassics
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This Side of Paradise

F. Scott Fitzgerald · 256 pages

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's romantic and witty first novel, was written when the author was only twenty-three years old. This semi-autobiographical story of the handsome, indulged, and idealistic Princeton student Amory Blaine received critical raves and catapulted Fitzgerald to instant fame. Now, readers can enjoy the newly edited, authorized version of this early classic of the

BildungsromanComing of AgeLyrical ProseClassics
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Purple Hibiscus

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie · 307 pages

“One of the most vital and original novelists of her generation.” —Larissa MacFarquhar, The New Yorker From the bestselling author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists Fifteen-year-old Kambili and her older brother Jaja lead a privileged life in Enugu, Nigeria. They live in a beautiful house, with a caring family, and attend an exclusive missionary school. They're completely shielded fro

BildungsromanColonialismComing of AgeLyrical Prose
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Not Without Laughter

Langston Hughes · 313 pages

Our greatest African American poet's award-winning first novel, about a black boy's coming-of-age in a largely-white Kansas town When first published in 1930, Not Without Laughter established Langston Hughes as not only a brilliant poet and leading light of the Harlem Renaissance but also a gifted novelist. In telling the story of Sandy Rogers, a young African American boy in small-town Kansas, an

BildungsromanComing of AgeCultural IdentityClassics
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Saville

David Storey · 506 pages

BildungsromanClass StruggleComing of AgeLiterary Fiction
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A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Betty Smith · 443 pages

The beloved American classic about a young girl's coming-of-age at the turn of the century, Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn is a poignant and moving tale filled with compassion and cruelty, laughter and heartache, crowded with life and people and incident. The story of young, sensitive, and idealistic Francie Nolan and her bittersweet formative years in the slums of Williamsburg has enchant

BildungsromanComing of AgeClass StruggleClassics
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Masters of the Dew (Caribbean Writers Series)

Jacques Roumain · 192 pages

CaribbeanClass StruggleLyrical ProseClassics
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Of Time and the River: A Legend of Man's Hunger in His Youth

Thomas Wolfe · 912 pages

This book continues the story of Eugene Gant, the protagonist in Look Homeward Angel. If you have read and liked Angel you should definitely follow through and read this(vol 1 and 2). Autobiographical in nature..

BildungsromanComing of AgeClassicsLiterary Fiction
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The Color Purple

Alice Walker · 274 pages

The Color Purple is a 1982 epistolary novel by American author Alice Walker which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Award for Fiction. The novel has been the frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2000–2009 at number seventeenth because of the sometimes explicit content, particula

ColonialismClass StruggleCultural IdentityLyrical Prose
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Middlesex

Jeffrey Eugenides · 544 pages

A unique coming of age story. While the main character in this novel is dealing with gender identity issues the main focus of this brilliantly written story is the confusion we all face as we grow into the person we were meant to be. The reader finds himself identifying with the main character's experiences. This is a brilliantly written story. The prose is honest in a way that few authors dare t

BildungsromanComing of AgeCultural IdentityLiterary Fiction

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