The Atlantic Sound

Oct 5, 2024 5:24 AM

Author:Caryl Phillips

The Atlantic Sound

'Taut, fascinating and controversial. The Atlantic Sound may prove to be as influential today as Roots was a generation ago' Sunday Times

In The Atlantic Sound Caryl Phillips explores the complex notion of what constitutes 'home'. Seen through the historical prism of the Atlantic Slave trade, he undertakes a personal quest to come to terms with the dislocation and discontinuities that a diasporan history engenders in the soul of an individual.

Philips journeys from the Caribbean to Britain by banana boat, repeating a journey he made to England as a child in the 1950s. He then visits three pivotal cities: Liverpool, developed on the back of the slave trade, Elmina, on the west coast of Ghana, site of the most important slave fort in Africa; and Charleston in the American South, celebrated as the city where the Civil War began - not for being the city where fully one-third of African-Americans were landed and sold into bondage.

Finally, Phillips journeys to Israel where he encounters a community of two thousand African-Americans, whose thirty-year sojourn in the Negev desert leaves him once again contemplating the modern condition of diasporan displacement.

Reviews

Like Jonathan Raban and the early V. S. Naipaul, Phillips can do truly live reportage. The honesty and detail forces you to experience what the writer is going through . . . Whether he is writing fiction or non-fiction, he seems to hone every thought and word before he allows it to leave his head. That stillness beneath his words is what makes Caryl Phillips such an exceptional writer and this book so compelling

—— Yasmin Alibhai-Brown , Observer

So compelling and so original...The result is history and sociology at its most heartfelt

—— Booklist

A powerful re-examination of the salve-trade and its terrible legacy

—— Observer

A glowing, indicting, dignified and dissenting work... The Atlantic Sound is crucial, unputdownable

—— Scotsman

'A splendidly honest and vividly detailed venture into some of history's darkest corners-by a novelist who is also a superb reporter'

—— Kirkus Reviews

I was stunned and moved more than I can say

—— Gavin Elser , Sunday Herald, Christmas round up

First hand accounts of everyday experiences gleaned from close contact with Tibetan priests, politicians and peasants illuminate this moving book of modern day Tibet.

—— The Times

An enjoyably written argument

—— Sinclair McKay , Daily Telegraph

A gripping account

—— Adam Forrest , The Herald

DeGroot tells the story of the American lunar mission with verve and elegance

—— Richard Aldous , Irish Times

Fascinating, gossipy and occasionally hilarious

—— Jeffrey Taylor , Express

Ackroyd's view of Venice is not that of an infatuated lover... but more the magisterial distillation of much knowledge and reading, conveyed in prose that aspires to the glassy elegance of La Serenissima herself

—— Harry Eyres , Financial Times, Travel books of the year

Opulent, shimmering prose

—— Celia Brayfield , The Times, Christmas books

Ackroyd does Venice, his sonorous, scene painting prose advancing in rhythmic columns until no quarter of the city has escaped assimilation.

—— Ian Pindar , Guardian

Ackroyd's achievement is to bring the city back to life and help you to experience differently. Take it with you next time you visit.

—— Kate Quill , The Times

His dark tapestry ... deserves a place in every visitor's luggage

—— Independent

Ackroyd writes about Venice as an idea, with stylish meditations on such topics as time, light, water, sexuality, politics and psychopathology...he writes so well that at times he'd drive you mad - "Venice represented an idea that was itself eternal" - but if you just climb into his gondola and go where he takes you, the rewards are great indeed

—— Arminta Wallace , The Irish Times

Many books have been written about Venice by authors like Mary McCarthy and Jan Morris. Ackroyd's advantage is his poetic eye

—— Colin Waters , Sunday Herald

Ackroyd writes beguilingly as he weaves his way around the lagoon, supplying interesting details en route...

—— Jane Knight , The Times

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