Bibliography

Uncle Brother unfolds a tale of unflinching devotion against a tapestry of neglect and exploitation.

Under the curious eyes of a succession of children glimmer fragments of stories that interlock to produce the saga of Nathan Deoraj  brother, uncle and teacher. The young boy on an early twentieth century cocoa estate in Trinidad begins his own story, and soon the opportunity for education and Nathans own passion for books opens the way to a brilliant future. Then a crippling loss reshapes his path.

But the very limitations that close on him provoke him to unleash his mind into the awakening consciousnesses around him. Others who have taken up the tale reveal how Nathans subsequent choices lead to a recharting of countless lives, and to the forging of connections that cross Caribbean social divides. Yet, running alongside Nathans devotion to family and community are stories of those children who had no Nathan. Resentments arise and smolder, shocking injustice leads to tragedy, and, in old age, Nathan must tap yet deeper reserves of strength and endurance.

Uncle Brother speaks to audiences of all ages in and beyond the Caribbean by exploring bonds between children and older family members, and, uniquely, between a girl growing to awareness in the light and shade of a powerful male relative. Then, threading the tale of the living legend are cries for help from a child who enters the story late in Nathans life, when nothing more should have been required of him.

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Bibliography

The Caribbean Heritage Series is designed to publish historic re-publications of ""Trinidad Literary Roots"" and comprises four Trinidadian novels published between 1838 and 1907. This second volume in the series presents two novels, Adolphus, a Tale and The Slave Son. Adolphus was first published in 1853 and was probably written by a Trinidadian mulatto, thus making it the first Trinidadian, and possibly the first West Indian, novel written by a mulatto and the first novel written by someone born and reared in Trinidad. A dramatic nineteenth-century tale, originally published in the newspapers of the day, Adolphus, traces the adventures of a mulatto son of a black slave women raped by a white man. Raised by a kind Spanish-Trinidadian padre, Adolphus grows into a handsome, well-educated, noble character. Later falling in love with Antonia Romelia, he manages to rescue her from a villainous kidnaper and they flee to Venezuela where they are free to marry. The Slave Son was originally published in 1854 by Chapman and Hall, and according to the author's foreword, it was inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin and was written to support the abolitionist movement in the United States