Description
An eight-year-old girl in Jamaica is raised under the weight of disappointment and unequal expectations, where her family’s hopes for a “boy” shape her access to education, safety, and even her own sense of identity. When she joins her parents in London, she must navigate a new world of racial hierarchy, cramped domestic realities, and the pressure to accept a life others have planned for her. With determination and sharp self-awareness, she makes choices that challenge both gendered limits and the temptation to shrink her ambitions to what her circumstances “allow.” Woven through with Emecheta’s clear-eyed, emotionally forceful storytelling, the novel explores family loyalty, migration, sexism, and the struggle for agency—ultimately asking what it costs to become fully oneself.
Available Editions
paperback
G. Braziller
Published Jan 1, 1990
239 pages
ISBN: 0807612456
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Details
First Published
1990
Language
eng
Content Warnings
Content and trigger warnings for The Family by Buchi Emecheta.