The Africa of his ancestry, the Caribbean of his birth, the Britain of his upbringing, and the United States where he now lives are the focal points of award-winning writer Caryl Phillips’ profound inquiry into evolving notions of home, identity, and belonging in an increasingly international society.

At once deeply reflective and coolly prescient, A New World Order charts the psychological frontiers of our ever-changing world. Through personal and literary encounters, Phillips probes the meaning of cultural dislocation, measuring the distinguishing features of our identities–geographic, racial, national, religious–against the amalgamating effects of globalization. In the work of writers such as V. S. Naipaul, James Baldwin, and Zadie Smith, cultural figures such as Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Marvin Gaye, and in his own experiences, Phillips detects the erosion of cultural boundaries and amasses startling and poignant insights on whether there can be an answer anymore to the question “Where are you from?” The result is an illuminating–and powerfully relevant–account of identity from an exceedingly perceptive citizen of the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A New World Order

The United States

Introduction: The Burden of Race
Native Son by Richard Wright
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Marvin Gaye
Fatheralong by John Edgar Wideman
James Baldwin: The Lure of Hollywood
Amistad

Africa
Introduction: Dispatches from Africa
The Fortunes of Wangrin by Amadou Hampaté Bâ
Nadine Gordimer: The Beat of History
J.M. Coetzee: Life and Times of John C.
The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness by Wole Soyinka

The Caribbean
Introduction: The Gift of Displacement
St. Kitts: 19 September 1983
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
The Arkansas Testament by Derek Walcott
C.L.R. James: Mariner, Renegade and Castaway
Edouard Glissant: Promiscuities
V. S. Naipaul
Patrick Chamoiseau: Unmarooned
Following On: The Legacy of Lamming and Selvon

Britain
Introduction: A Little Luggage
Ignatius Sancho: A Black British Man of Letters
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Prophet in Another Land
The Pioneers: Fifty Years of Caribbean
Migration to Britain
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Extravagant Strangers
Leeds United, Life and Me

Conclusion: The High Anxiety of Belonging


© Michael Eastman
Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies, and brought up in England. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction. His novel Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, and an earlier novel, A Distant Shore, won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His other awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and currently lives in New York. View titles by Caryl Phillips
“[Phillips] writes wonderfully crafted, deeply meditative treatises on the black experience in a global and historical sense. . . . [He is] intellectual and reflective but always interesting and informative.” –Quarterly Black Review

“One of the literary giants of our time.” –The New York Times

“Phillips takes us on a lucid transatlantic flight in search of what he–someone from the ‘African diasporan world’–might call home. . . . His insight sparkles in every line as he lays bare his cultural upbringing.” –The Independent

About

The Africa of his ancestry, the Caribbean of his birth, the Britain of his upbringing, and the United States where he now lives are the focal points of award-winning writer Caryl Phillips’ profound inquiry into evolving notions of home, identity, and belonging in an increasingly international society.

At once deeply reflective and coolly prescient, A New World Order charts the psychological frontiers of our ever-changing world. Through personal and literary encounters, Phillips probes the meaning of cultural dislocation, measuring the distinguishing features of our identities–geographic, racial, national, religious–against the amalgamating effects of globalization. In the work of writers such as V. S. Naipaul, James Baldwin, and Zadie Smith, cultural figures such as Steven Spielberg, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Marvin Gaye, and in his own experiences, Phillips detects the erosion of cultural boundaries and amasses startling and poignant insights on whether there can be an answer anymore to the question “Where are you from?” The result is an illuminating–and powerfully relevant–account of identity from an exceedingly perceptive citizen of the world.

Table of Contents

Introduction: A New World Order

The United States

Introduction: The Burden of Race
Native Son by Richard Wright
Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
Marvin Gaye
Fatheralong by John Edgar Wideman
James Baldwin: The Lure of Hollywood
Amistad

Africa
Introduction: Dispatches from Africa
The Fortunes of Wangrin by Amadou Hampaté Bâ
Nadine Gordimer: The Beat of History
J.M. Coetzee: Life and Times of John C.
The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness by Wole Soyinka

The Caribbean
Introduction: The Gift of Displacement
St. Kitts: 19 September 1983
A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid
The Arkansas Testament by Derek Walcott
C.L.R. James: Mariner, Renegade and Castaway
Edouard Glissant: Promiscuities
V. S. Naipaul
Patrick Chamoiseau: Unmarooned
Following On: The Legacy of Lamming and Selvon

Britain
Introduction: A Little Luggage
Ignatius Sancho: A Black British Man of Letters
Linton Kwesi Johnson: Prophet in Another Land
The Pioneers: Fifty Years of Caribbean
Migration to Britain
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
Extravagant Strangers
Leeds United, Life and Me

Conclusion: The High Anxiety of Belonging


Author

© Michael Eastman
Caryl Phillips was born in St. Kitts, West Indies, and brought up in England. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction. His novel Dancing in the Dark won the 2006 PEN/Beyond Margins Award, and an earlier novel, A Distant Shore, won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His other awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and currently lives in New York. View titles by Caryl Phillips

Praise

“[Phillips] writes wonderfully crafted, deeply meditative treatises on the black experience in a global and historical sense. . . . [He is] intellectual and reflective but always interesting and informative.” –Quarterly Black Review

“One of the literary giants of our time.” –The New York Times

“Phillips takes us on a lucid transatlantic flight in search of what he–someone from the ‘African diasporan world’–might call home. . . . His insight sparkles in every line as he lays bare his cultural upbringing.” –The Independent

PRH Education High School Collections

All reading communities should contain protected time for the sake of reading. Independent reading practices emphasize the process of making meaning through reading, not an end product. The school culture (teachers, administration, etc.) should affirm this daily practice time as inherently important instructional time for all readers. (NCTE, 2019)   The Penguin Random House High

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PRH Education Translanguaging Collections

Translanguaging is a communicative practice of bilinguals and multilinguals, that is, it is a practice whereby bilinguals and multilinguals use their entire linguistic repertoire to communicate and make meaning (García, 2009; García, Ibarra Johnson, & Seltzer, 2017)   It is through that lens that we have partnered with teacher educators and bilingual education experts, Drs.

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PRH Education Classroom Libraries

“Books are a students’ passport to entering and actively participating in a global society with the empathy, compassion, and knowledge it takes to become the problem solvers the world needs.” –Laura Robb   Research shows that reading and literacy directly impacts students’ academic success and personal growth. To help promote the importance of daily independent

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