The Story Archive

A Distant Shore

Caryl Phillips · 2003 CE · Novel · English · Contemporary

Dorothy, a retired schoolteacher living alone in a new housing estate in northern England, and Solomon, an African refugee who becomes her neighbour, tell their stories in alternation. His account moves back through war and flight, hers through a life of quiet disappointment. The author, born in St Kitts and raised in Leeds, won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for it.

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Attributes

Genre
PsychologicalPolitical
Theme
Isolation & AlienationRace & IdentityExile & HomecomingLoss of InnocenceMemory & Time
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
WandererEveryman
Form
Nonlinear / FracturedPolyphonic
Symbol / motif
The ThresholdThe House
Conflict
vs Societyvs Self
Mode / tone
RealistElegiac
Culture / tradition
English

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