The World Is a High Hill

"Fair-skinned Beverley is ridiculed in Jamaica but has the last laugh when she returns as the wife of a diplomat. Kishwana is from the inner city but is the beneficiary of uptown benevolence. Lily’s life changes when her boyfriend leaves her for a white woman. Rosa gets a dream that she should take care of Zackie; and Valerie, with little education, turns to domestic work to eke out a living.

These are just some of the characters who inhabit Erna Brodber’s collection of short stories about Jamaican women. Engaging and absorbing, yet at once both sobering and triumphant, The World is a High Hill, demonstrates the multifaceted nature of the Jamaican woman, faced with all the trials the high hill of the world presents, at times a steeper climb for some more than for others.

The stories are preceded with an enlightening foreword by Professor Verene Shepherd and close with an equally instructive interview with the author by Professor Carolyn Cooper. In this collection Brodber departs from her usual long form novel. She remains however, an uncompromising and empowering voice in Caribbean and black literature.

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