![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Kinsman's mother has lived most of her life with very little power at all even her birth, on a sugar plantation in Jamaica in the early years of the 19th century, was the result of her father, a Scottish overseer, taking what he wanted from her mother, a slave. "Although shy of the task at first, after several months she soon became quite puffed up, emboldened to the point where my advice often fell on to ears that remained deaf to it." Storytelling, he is hinting, is both habit-forming and empowering and the nuances, byways and corruptions of power are The Long Song's most significant theme. "The tale herein is all my mama's endeavour," writes Thomas Kinsman, a Jamaican publisher, introducing the book that he has encouraged his mother to write partly as a way of diverting her constant attempts to speak her story to him. T o what extent does the telling of a tale belong to its teller, and how much responsibility does he or she have to their audience? The opening pages of Andrea Levy's fifth novel suggest that when we encourage someone to tell their story, we should be prepared to surrender to their voice, however capricious it may be the subsequent narrative counters with the idea that this might be easier said than done. ![]()
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