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Title: Crossing the River by Caryl Phillips ISBN: 0-679-75794-5 Publisher: Vintage Books USA Pub. Date: 01 January, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00

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Average Customer Rating: 4.75 (4 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: These are human stories not race stories
Comment: Eventhough the book is composed by four different unrelated stories, of a black evaegelist in Liberia, a black woman heading for a new life in California during the pilgrimage of the XIX century, the Captain of a slaves trading vessel, and a G.I in England during the II World War; for me there is a phrase that encompass most of the sadness and despair that goes with a life that other persons have damaged and limited due to the shade of your skin and not because of your actions and omissions.

"The young evangelist preached with all his might, but Marta could not find solace in religion, and was unable to sympathize with the sufferings of the sun of God when set against her own private misery".

Rating: 4
Summary: Excellent
Comment: I love Phillips' writing style in this historical fiction. I read it ten years ago, and it is still one of my favorites that I lend out to friends with positive response.

Rating: 5
Summary: Desperately heartbreaking vignettes of the African diaspora
Comment: Caryl Phillips' Booker Prize shortlisted "Crossing The River" (CTR) about the emergence of an African diaspora arising from the slave trade with the African colonies is a collection of seemingly unrelated vignettes spanning over 100 years which share the same emotional core. Each of the four segments making up CTR is a cry from the soul, which poignantly if not bitterly captures the essence of the cultural dislocation suffered by those sold to foreign lands. Some, like Nash in "Pagan Coast", imbibe the Christian values of their colonial masters but experience the pull of their native calling when they are set free and returned as missionaries. Others like Martha, from "West", suffer the misery, indignity and hopelessness that only chattels should know. Phillips isn't out to demonise the white man. He leaves it to us to judge. How do we doubt do-gooder Edward's sincerity in making Nash into a new man ? But then there is also skipper James Hamilton's indifference to the cruelty meted out to slaves in the title segment. The final segment "Somewhere in England" doesn't seem to belong but it does. The strong emotional resonance that these stories evoke is what binds them together. Phillips also displays his literary genius and stylistic versatility in using different styles for the different segments. His Conrad-influenced prose in "Pagan Coast" boasts some of the most beautiful and fluent writing ever. On "Somewhere in England", he comes across like a contemporary novelist using prose punctuated by thought fragments. "CTR" brings four separate but all desperately heartrending stories together. The names of the three children - 2 boys and a girl - sold to slavery by their father in an act of desperate foolishness and named Nash, Martha and Taylor, all make their appearances. They are the countless nameless who consititute the African diaspora today. CTR is a brilliantly constructed and devastatingly powerful piece of work. Nobody interested in serious literature should miss it !