No Telephone to Heaven

A brilliant Jamaican-American writer takes on the themes of colonialism, race, myth, and political awakening.

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.

Author: Michelle Cliff
Publisher: Plume Books
Published: 03/01/1996
Pages: 224
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.42lbs
Size: 8.01h x 5.33w x 0.65d
ISBN13: 9780452275690
ISBN10: 0452275695
BISAC Categories:
- Fiction | Literary
- Fiction | African American & Black | General
- Fiction | Cultural Heritage

About the Author
Michelle Cliff was born in Jamaica and is the author of three acclaimed novels: Abeng, its sequel, No Telephone to Heaven, and Free Enterprise (Plume). She has also written a collection of short stories, Bodies of Water (Plume), and two poetry collections, The Land of Look Behind and Claiming an Identity They Tought Me to Despise. She is Allan K. Smith Professor of English Language and Literature at Trinity College in Connecticut and divides her time between Hartford, Connecticut, and Santa Cruz, California.