How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories [Paperback]

Tiphanie Yanique (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 2, 2010

An enthralling debut collection from a singular Caribbean voice

For a leper, many things are impossible, and many other things are easily done. Babalao Chuck said he could fly to the other side of the island and peek at the nuns bathing. And when a man with no hands claims that he can fly, you listen.

The inhabitants of an island walk into the sea. A man passes a jail cell’s window, shouldering a wooden cross. And in the international shop of coffins, a story repeats itself, pointing toward an inevitable tragedy. If the facts of these stories are sometimes fantastical, the situations they describe are complex and all too real.

Lyrical, lush, and haunting, the prose shimmers in this nuanced debut, set mostly in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Part oral history, part postcolonial narrative, How to Escape from a Leper Colony is ultimately a loving portrait of a wholly unique place. Like Gabriel García Márquez, Edwidge Danticat, and Maryse Condé before her, Tiphanie Yanique has crafted a book that is heartbreaking, hilarious, magical, and mesmerizing. An unforgettable collection.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The effects of colonialism throb in Yanique's vivid debut collection. The chilling title story is set in 1939, when the Trinidadian island of Chacachacare was still used as a leper colony; the narrator, a 14-year-old orphan with leprosy, befriends a curious boy her age, Lazaro, whose mother was murdered there when he was a baby, and whose troubled relationship with the nuns leads him to a terrible retribution. The Bridge Stories are elucidating snapshots of islanders struggling to carve out lives for themselves on St. Thomas and elsewhere amid an exploitative tourist economy. Yanique frequently dips into rich, fanciful vernacular, such as in Street Man, a beautiful, sad glimpse at a doomed love affair between a college student and a St. Croix local. In the affecting novella, International Shop of Coffins, Yanique depicts characters of mixed African/Creole/Indian descent torn between the white and island worlds in all their complexity and conflictedness. A smattering of dark humor leavens the tense narratives as Yanique penetrates the perils and pleasures of lives lived outside resort walls. (Mar.)
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From Booklist

In her debut short-story collection, Yanique, a native of the Virgin Islands, offers magical and mysterious tales about how people seek to or fail to penetrate the hard and soft differences between themselves. In the title story, inhabitants of an island leper colony must bear their disease and its isolation but cannot bear sacrilege. Interwoven stories of a bridge between islands illustrate how casually lives cross, though few connections are made for a woman in a burka, a fisherman, and a beauty queen. A St. Croix drug dealer takes up with a college girl who spends more than half the year in the U.S. Two women play out the intergenerational and mixed-race tensions between their families. A Ghanaian boy grows up in Britain struggling to overcome an emotional sickness that lingers into adulthood. A coffin shop in the Virgin Islands offers imported wares that are often works of art, evocative of life back in Ghana for the Catholic priest who frequents the shop and is its greatest source of business on his recommendations. Lovers of the form will appreciate this collection. --Vanessa Bush

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Graywolf Press; Original edition (March 2, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 155597550X
• ISBN-13: 978-1555975500
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,660 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intriguing, March 29, 2010

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BookBargainsandPreviews.com "www.bookbargains... (New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories (Paperback)

This is an intriguing collection of stories on off-beat topics that will pique your curiosity. While the title story is about people living in a leper colony, this book is full of stories about so much more. It's all about people in tough places, struggling to find meaning and purpose. The author's use of dark humor gives this book a unique flavor.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Refreshingly different author with a unique way of putting words on paper., November 19, 2010

By 

Grigori Efimovich Rasputin "The Mad Monk" (St Petersburg, Russia) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories (Paperback)

I really like this writer's style. I sometimes enjoy reading short stories. This book was suggested via an interview with the writer on NPR some months ago.

When I finally got around to getting it I was surprised and delighted by the freshness of the author's point of view. The stories have the usual points of interest but are tinged a the unique taste of humor. Spicy but not too hot. Great!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Travesty of the Term: Broken English, December 23, 2010

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Anonymous - See all my reviews

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This review is from: How to Escape from a Leper Colony: A Novella and Stories (Paperback)

This collection of short stories was absolutely sensational. An excellent read. I would suggest this debut compilation to anyone. The perspectives of her characters has a tragic beauty which compels the reader to transcend their predispositions and judgments and attempt to understand a way of life so very unique to the Virgin Islands. Yanique's command of vernacular as a literary device is astounding in the short story "Streetman" as well as in her "Bridge Stories" and the "Saving Work".