Author Q & A
Here is a full author Q&A about LITTLE BEE / THE OTHER HAND – everything from the true stories surrounding the novel right through to discussion of its characters and themes. These are the questions that readers and interviewers have been asking me, and I’ve tried to answer them as best as I can. I hope you’ll find this helpful.
Thanks to all the readers who’ve sent me questions. Thanks to Bond Street Books and Simon & Schuster for their input too. Special thanks to Daniel Goldin at Boswell Books – some of the best questions are from an interview I did with him. If you have any suggestions for how I can make this page more useful, please let me know via email or via the comments box. If you or your book club have a question, I’ll do my best to answer it. If you’ve arrived at this page you’ve come quite far, so thank you for being interested.
Is the novel based on a true story?
No, but there’s one true story in particular that made me determined to write the novel. In 2001 an Angolan man named Manuel Bravo fled to England and claimed asylum on the grounds that he and his family would be persecuted and killed if they were returned to Angola. He lived in a state of uncertainty for four years pending a decision on his application. Then, without warning, in September 2005 Manuel Bravo and his 13-year-old son were seized in a dawn raid and interned at an Immigration Removal Centre in southern England. They were told that they would be forcibly deported to Angola the next morning. That night, Manuel Bravo took his own life by hanging himself in a stairwell. His son was awoken in his cell and told the news. What had happened was that Manuel Bravo, aware of a rule under which unaccompanied minors cannot be deported from the UK, had taken his own life in order to save the life of his son. Among his last words to his child were: “Be brave. Work hard. Do well at school.”
It’s quite common for novels to change titles when they cross the Atlantic. I like both the titles the novel is published under. “The Other Hand” is a good title because it speaks to the dichotomous nature of the novel, with its two narrators and two worlds, while it also references Sarah’s injury. “Little Bee” is a good title too, because the novel is really Little Bee’s story, so it’s a straightforward and an honest title. Also I like it because it sounds bright and approachable – and my aim with this novel was to write an accessible story about a serious subject. I like the fact that the novel has two titles. I like it when divergent choices are simultaneously right. While we’re on the subject, I like my name. I think “cleave” might be unique in having two synonyms that are antonyms of each other. You see? I’m doomed…
Did you have a personal reason to write the novel?
Yes, there was a chance encounter that really shook me up. Around fifteen years ago I was working as a casual labourer over the university summer vacation, and for three days I worked in the canteen of Campsfield House in Oxfordshire. It’s a detention centre for asylum seekers – a prison, if you like, full of people who haven’t committed a crime. I’d been living within ten miles of the place for three years and didn’t even know it existed. The conditions in there were very distressing. I got talking with asylum seekers who’d been through hell and were likely to be sent back to hell. Some of them were beautiful characters and it was deeply upsetting to see how we were treating them. When we imprison the innocent we make them ill, and when we deport them it’s often a death sentence. I knew I had to write about it, because it’s such a dirty secret. And I knew I had to show the unexpected humour of these refugees wherever I could, and to make the book an enjoyable and compelling read – because otherwise people’s eyes would glaze over.
Was it your intention to change people’s minds about asylum seekers?
Readers are smart and I’m not in the business of lecturing them. I see my job as providing new information in an entertaining way. Readers will then use that information as the spirit moves them. I think the job is important because there’s something you can do in fiction that you don’t have the space to do in news media, which is to give back a measure of humanity to the subjects of an ongoing story. When I started to imagine the life of one asylum seeker in particular, rather than asylum seekers in general, the scales fell from my eyes in regard to any ideological position I might have held on the issue. It’s all about exploring the mystery and the wonder of an individual human life. Life is precious, whatever its country of origin.
What could Little Bee do if she was allowed to stay as a permanent citizen?
I think Little Bee could do anything she set her mind to, because by definition she is a survivor. When I was a teenager in the 1980s, we thought of asylum seekers as heroes. The hundreds who died while trying to cross the Berlin Wall, for example. Or the pilots, performers and scientists who defected from the Soviet Union. Or the heroes of previous generations – Sigmund Freud, who fled to London to escape the Nazis, or Anne Frank, who could not flee far enough. Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Joseph Conrad – all of them refugees – I could go on and on. When horror and darkness descend, asylum seekers are the ones who get away. They are typically above average in terms of intellectual gifts, far-sightedness, motivation and resilience. These are the people you want to have on your side. It will be a monument to our hubris if we allow ourselves to start thinking of them as a burden.
The quote is “Britain is proud of its tradition of providing a safe haven for people fleeting [sic] persecution and conflict.” I took it from Life in the United Kingdom, which is the text book given to immigrants preparing for their citizenship test in the UK. It covers British history, government and etiquette. It offers the excellent advice “If you spill a stranger’s drink by accident, it is good manners (and prudent) to offer to buy another.” Less gloriously, though, its summary of British history is rather selective, and the work as a whole is riddled with inaccuracies and typographical errors. My belief is that if a refugee is prepared to walk away from a regime that has imprisoned and tortured her, flee to the UK, apply for asylum, and commit to memory the contents of the text book we make compulsory for her, then for our part we should at least be prepared to have that text book professionally copy-edited. The typo in that opening quotation is a nice example of a bureaucracy that is pretending to care, but not pretending very hard.
Are refugee detention centres a necessary evil? Given the chance, what would you change about them?
I hope all evil is unnecessary. Most of the UK immigration detention centres are run for private profit by secretive companies. So, firstly, I’d take the profit motive out of detaining asylum seekers – because they are human beings, not a cash crop for investors. Second, I’d limit the time for which asylum seekers can be detained. As it stands they can be held in the detention system for a long time – sometimes for years – while the Home Office shuffles their paperwork. This destroys their mental health. Thirdly I’d stop the detention of refugee children. The UK Chief Inspector of Prisons wrote in a 2008 report: “The plight of detained children remained of great concern. While child welfare services had improved, an immigration removal centre can never be a suitable place for children and we were dismayed to find cases of disabled children being detained and some children spending large amounts of time incarcerated.” That same report also stated: “Escort vehicles with caged compartments were inappropriately used to transport children.” Surely I’m not the only one who wants to cry when they read that.
Has your depiction of the immigration detention centre got you into any hot water in the UK?
No, not at all. First, because the UK is still one of the best places in the world to practice the art of free speech. That’s something truly great about Great Britain, and it’s a civil right we defend through regular exercise. We don’t have a constitution or a bill of rights to enshrine it, so we must practice it in our lives until it becomes an inbred instinct of a free people. Second, I think my depiction of a British immigration detention centre is accurate in the salient respects. It’s based on research and it would be hard to take issue with it on factual grounds, so people haven’t. That’s not to say that everyone likes me for doing it, but frankly that’s their problem and not mine. The British treatment of asylum seekers brings shame and ignominy on the nation. I didn’t invent that treatment. I’m trying to focus attention on it.
How did writing Little Bee differ from your experience with your previous works?
I’ve only published one previous novel, which is called Incendiary (2005). Incendiary is about the emotional climate that brought us the “War on Terror”. As a writer one is easily frightened when the West declares war on a noun, but at the time I felt it acutely because our first child had just been born and I hated the way our elected leaders were so clearly making his world a more dangerous place. When I get scared it tends to come out as dark comedy, or layered irony – anyway, Incendiary was how it came out. I wrote the draft in six weeks in early 2004, after the Madrid bombings and while the Abu Ghraib torture story was breaking. I went into a room in Paris with a coffee maker and a radio and I came out six weeks later with a beard and a manuscript, not really knowing how I’d done it.
The new novel [Little Bee / The Other Hand] came out of a sense of my own complicity in some of the evils of the world. I’d moved on from considering myself as an outraged – and blameless – observer, which I guess is where I was at with Incendiary. A year on, I realised that people like me are often part of the problem. I began to think about my life, and how it is relatively easy, and how it is therefore relatively easy to ignore the suffering of others. And since suffering is the rule rather than the exception in the world, it’s not an easy moral question to duck as a writer. So I decided to address it directly, by imagining the most striking example of someone who is dispossessed – Little Bee – coming to ask for a help from someone – Sarah – who is a little bit more like me. I never plot my work in advance, so I was very interested to discover how the moral ambiguities would play out.
As a writing task, this novel was harder than Incendiary. I did a year of research. I interviewed asylum seekers and people involved in their cases, I researched the oil conflict in Nigeria, and I familiarised myself with Nigerian English and Jamaican English. It was a lot of work before I even started writing. Then the book took nearly two years to write.
I’m able to do it because I have good readers. I can have my characters explore some fairly dark humour – for example, listing methods for a young Nigerian girl to kill herself at a garden party hosted by the Queen of England – while trusting my readers to understand that I am not making light of a serious theme. Rather, I am offering up a dark theme to the light, so that it may be examined. This is the only way I know to tell a serious story about current events without it becoming a lecture. And when I interviewed refugees and asylum seekers while researching this novel, I found that some of them use humour in this way too. These are people with very painful stories to tell. They have learned that in order to survive, they must get people in positions of power to listen to – and believe – their stories. And they have further learned that such people are more likely to listen if they make their stories entertaining, by showing the joy of their lives as well as the tragedy. They are the masters at telling their stories – because if they don’t get that balance right, they die. That’s motivation, right there. As far as storytelling goes, they’re playing in the major leagues. Novelists are amateurs by comparison.
Why does Little Bee talk about how she would have to explain things to “the girls back home”?
The “girls back home” are the novel’s Greek chorus – they are a foil in whose imagined reaction the cultural dissonance experienced by Little Bee can be made explicit. It’s a good device because it feels more natural than having Little Bee go around talking straight to camera and saying “Wow, I’m freaked out by this. And this. And this.” Much better for us to have Little Bee’s thoughts after she has understood the situation and can explain it to the “girls back home” from a position of superior knowledge. This allows us to appreciate the cultural gulf, whilst allowing the narrator to be knowing rather than tragic.
I look at human culture the same way science fiction does, but I look at it through the wrong end of the telescope. In sci-fi an ordinary protagonist discovers an extraordinary world, and the genre is exciting because of the emotional dissonance. But my thing is contemporary realism, so I’m always showing the ordinary world to what is effectively an extraterrestrial protagonist. It’s fun to do. Through this lens the most mundane events – Little Bee drinking a cup of tea in Sarah’s kitchen – acquire an immense significance and a certain beauty. Also, the things in our culture that are sad and ignoble – the fact, for example, that we can enjoy our freedom while imprisoning and deporting those who ask to share in it – appear in sharp focus through the eyes of an alien narrator. We have become accustomed to viewing our own actions in soft focus, but the alien narrator has not yet acquired this cultural immunity. She sees us as we can no longer see ourselves.
How do you expect readers to react to Andrew’s actions on the Nigerian beach?
I don’t have a preconception of how readers will react to that scene. My aim was to create a scene that was perfectly morally ambiguous, and in which the reader might quite justifiably side with either Andrew or Sarah. Andrew isn’t such a bad guy. What he fails to do on the beach is what most people would probably fail to do, myself included. Once Andrew realizes he’s made the wrong choice, it’s too late for him because the moment has passed and he is condemned to spend the rest of his days regretting that he failed life’s test. Sarah is lucky, really. She’s not inherently more moral than her husband, but just at that one critical moment she happened to do the right thing. This means that she can look back on her actions on the beach without too much guilt or shame. She can move on with the rest of her life while Andrew must enter a terminal decline. It’s ironic because Sarah’s infidelity is the reason the couple find themselves on the beach in the first place. And yet her premeditated affair goes unpunished by life, while Andrew’s momentary failure of courage dooms him forever. Life is savagely unfair. It ignores our deep-seated convictions and places a disproportionate emphasis on the decisions we make in split seconds.
Is Charlie/Batman based on your own children?
Charlie is based on our oldest boy, who was four years old when I started the book. For six months he would only answer to “Batman”. For a whole week I just listened to him and took dictation, which certainly beat going out to work for a living. Charlie’s “goodies / baddies” worldview is endearing but of course it’s naive and he’s not in the book as an example of an ideal morality. Charlie is in the novel for two reasons. First because he’s funny and loveable – he gives the novel an emotional centre; a reason for the adult protagonists to not simply walk away from the situation and disperse. Second, Charlie is a study in the early formation of identity. Little Bee is a novel about where our individuality lies – which layers of identity are us, and which are mere camouflage. So it’s a deliberate choice to use the metaphor of a child who is engaging in his first experiments with identity – in Charlie’s case by taking on the persona of a superhero.
After nearly two years with this project I realised that the strongest perspective would be a dual one. This is a story of two worlds: the developed and the developing, and of the mutual incomprehension that sometimes dooms them to antagonism. So by taking one woman from each side of the divide, and investing each with a compulsion to understand the other, I was able to let the story unpack itself in the mind of the reader. This was a huge breakthrough for me. One shouldn’t underestimate the role of the reader in this novel. I wanted to write a story that was never made fully explicit; which relied on the reader’s interpretation of the characters’ dialogue. Once you trust the reader with the story, the writing is really fun to do.
It’s not without its technical challenges, of course. As a man it requires concentration to write from a female perspective, but I see that as an advantage. If I’m consciously writing someone so different from myself, then I’m protected from the trap of using my own voice to animate the character. It forces me to listen, to think, and to write more precisely. Using two narrators is difficult though. To differentiate their vocabulary, grammar and idioms is quite straightforward if you make an effort to understand and inhabit the characters, but the hard thing is how you handle the overlaps and the gaps in the characters’ knowledge. When both narrators have witnessed an event, which one will you choose to recount it? Or will you let both of them tell it, and play with their different perspectives on what they’ve seen? When you use your narrators in series, you need to work to make it not feel like a TV show with bad links between segments. But when you use them in parallel, you need to take pains to avoid the text feeling repetitive.
Add into the mix the fact that the story is not told in linear time – the first half of the book is working backwards into history, while the second half works forwards into the future – and it quickly gets complicated. The trick is to make it read smoothly. It’s scary how many drafts you go through till you achieve something that reads simply.
Why is Sarah so much harder to like than Little Bee?
I like Sarah, but I’m also glad when people don’t. I like them for not liking her, because it probably means they have a strong moral sense and don’t suffer fools gladly. But maybe they should give her a break. Sarah’s not perfect, that’s for sure. But actually when you look at what she does, it’s very noble. She sacrifices herself, both mentally and physically, in order to save the life of a stranger. To my mind that excuses a lot of her shitty behavior – the adultery, the cynical day job, the aloofness. By contrast her husband, Andrew, is a moral paragon in his world, and yet when real life suddenly arrives to test him, he is found wanting. I also think Sarah inevitably suffers by proximity to Little Bee, who is much easier to like. If Sarah is more twisted, I think it’s because her path through life has necessarily been more convoluted. Little Bee’s life is extremely harrowing but it is also very simple – she is swimming very hard against the current, struggling to survive and not to be swept away. Sarah doesn’t have the luxury of knowing in which direction she should swim. And so she takes some bad directions, makes some bad choices in her life, but ultimately her heart is good and she proves it.
Is the ending meant to be tragic or hopeful?
I trust the reader to have their own idea of the characters and of their destiny. The problem with novels is that they are like the real-life relationships they describe: they are readily begun, and they never reach a definitive end where the whole thing achieves completion. So, being quite committed to realism, I trust the reader to see that. I have unusually great readers, I think. I get lots of email that makes me realize the level they’re operating on, and that I can trust them more and more in my future work. I don’t need to lay everything out or make everything obvious. I like it when readers bring their own inner life to the party.
What other writers do you like?
I admire Cormac McCarthy most among the living writers. It’s hardly an original position to take, but what can I say? What can anyone say about a man who has given us such an incredible body of work over several decades and who can then, in his seventies, write “The Road”, a novel which would tip the scales when weighed against all of his previous work?
I also like writers who can make me laugh while telling a compelling story. For this reason I love the work of John Steinbeck. It’s his little novels I like more than the important ones. Whenever I’m feeling low I go back and read the scene from Cannery Row where Doc orders a beer milkshake.
There are also some writers whose work I like and who aren’t as widely read as I think they should be. I think Howard Jacobson is among the greatest British writers, and his novel “Kalooki Nights” is one of the best of the last ten years. Alex Wheatle writes superb stories steeped in the street life and the vernacular of South London, and his new novel “The Dirty South” is excellent. And Ross Raisin is definitely one to watch in Britain. He’s an excellent writer with strong principles, and his first book “God’s Own Country” is great.
Why do you write novels anyway?
I do it because I don’t know much about the world and I want to find out more. I enjoy the work of educating myself through research, and then I enjoy the process of writing. Novels are incredibly intricate engines, and if you change one little piece here, it can throw the whole thing out of equilibrium way over there. So you spend half your time with tweezers and a jeweler’s eyepiece, and the other half with safety goggles and a lump hammer. And eventually, usually around three in the morning, the thing just clicks into gear and runs. It’s the most uplifting feeling. I get it about once every three years.
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I found The Other Hand hugely touching and compelling. Like other readers, my only regret is reading it far too quickly. I was incredibly greedy with it and gobbled my way through with no self-restraint whatsoever. Disgraceful. Some of the sentences are so beautiful I feel I must go back and reread them to do them justice.
But in addition to the book, the posts from readers on this website have also moved me. As someone who has worked with refugees in the UK since 2000, it is immensely heartening to see that so many people have been moved to action by this book. So thank you to Chris, for bringing the voices of refugees to those who might not otherwise hear them, and thank you to all you readers for opening your hearts and minds to this issue.
But please do not let yourselves fall prey to Sarah and Andrew’s consuming guilt about ‘not having done enough’. Please do something, however small, to support refugees.
You can give time, by writing letters to MPs, volunteering or protesting.
You can share your wealth by giving money to support charities that work with refugees or by giving goods like winter coats, toiletries and phone cards that are desperately needed by destitute asylum seekers.
You can give your passion by writing to the press in response to inaccurate and hysterical reporting of asylum, or by challenging the misconceptions you might hear amongst colleagues and friends.
There is so much to do. Please do something.
There is a whole list of simple things you can do here: http://www.refugee-action.org.uk/RAP/whatcanido.aspx and http://www.refugeeweek.org.uk/simple-acts
And a range of campaign actions here: http://www.refugee-action.org.uk
In relation to this book, the campaign against the detention of children led by the Children’s Society and Bail for Immigration Detainees is particularly relevant: http://www.biduk.org
Whatever you do to stand up for refugees, thank you.
Dear Chris,
Reading The Other Hand has taken me to places I would not have imagined when it was first recommended to me…
My mother is a refugee… Once completing the novel I was moved to sharing with her some of my own work with young African refugees from the Sudan and Uganda… I had not thought of doing this previously but was moved to do so by your work…
This proved to be a significant conversation for both of us and has opened the way to many more stories being shared…
Both my mother and I thank you dearly.
Hi Chris,
I have just finished your novel ‘the other hand’ – I can really only echo what others above have said – that I found it a truly fantastic piece of work. The characters are so real and imperfect.
I unfortunately don’t agree there was happy ending for Little Bee – no! Lawrence didn’t ride up the sand in his white charger.
Any well disciplined group of soldiers that would shoot near a small white boy (surely understanding the diplomatic incident his injury might cause) definitely meant business. I only hope her death was quick and merciful and that she didn’t have to endure the horrors and humiliations of her older sister.
For me the gift of this book is that it invades one’s own cosy middle class, cocooned world and forces one to look at oneself and one’s values. I can only hope that I can hang on to this feeling long enough to make some substantive change.
Thank you again.
Dear Chris, I really appreciated reading The Other Hand. I think one of the things I liked most about it was the fact that while telling the story of Little Bee which is compelling and courageous and epic, it also explored the lives of Sarah, Andrew and Lawrence who are mundane and not terribly heroic and just like most of us in the Western world. It really raises important questions like: how do you live once you have heard the stories? How far will people go not to hear the stories? Is there some way to live bravely and constructively with these two worlds and not be destroyed as Andrew was.
I really appreciate your efforts and look forward to reading more of your work in the future.
Thanks Jodie, I’m really happy you got something out of the book. I think you put your finger on it perfectly when you say “how do you live once you have heard the stories?” That’s exactly the question I was grappling with when I was doing the research. I still really struggle with it, to be honest. The people I most admire are the veteran campaigners on this issue. Some of them have been campaigning for 20 or 30 years. They tend to take things one step at a time, and to think in terms of small, concrete actions they can do. Making one donation, writing one letter to a member of parliament, or helping one refugee with their situation. They do that, and then they do the next thing. That kind of patience and determination is not generally seen as heroism, but I reckon it might be.
Wow, what an awesome book! I can’t remember laughing out loud so much and being so inspired and moved at the same time. I fell in love with Little Bee and Sarah and can’t stop thinking about them. Also, loved the Jamaican girl—-she cracked me up! Thank you, thank you for writing it and I look forward to more of your incredible writing!
well!! thankyou , what a book. i have just finished ‘the other hand’, i congratulate you on a such a beautifully written book. i have learnt soooo much and feel very privilidged to be where i am today. i have been reading the Q&A’s and regarding the ending i feel hopeful for little bee but also fear. please can you write a follow on!! i am still thinking about sarah batman and little bee and will find it very hard to settle into another book. i have e mailed all my friends about the book, and have told them they have to buy it cause they are not getting their hands on my copy in fear of loosing it , and also because you deserve the recognition. thanks for writing it, best wishes janet.
p.s i think ‘the other hand’ should be in the national curriculum
All I can add to previous comments is that I had no idea. I consider myself to be educated and well versed in current affairs but I had no idea that such atrocities can be allowed to continue both in our “holding facilities” and in countries that we are told are moving towards democracy.
Your style is captivating and the narrative emotive. Thankyou for such an enlightening and intelligent piece of work.
Hi Chris
I have just finished your novel and all I can really say is wow! I love reading and never thought I’d find a book which I enjoyed and which affected me like ‘Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel, but ‘the other hand’ has gone straight to the top in my mind! It made me laugh out loud and sob out loud (and get through half a roll of loo roll). I thought it was beautifully written and intelligent without using overly complex language and trying too hard as some writers do. Also, Batman so reminds me of my son (I was in a blind panic when he went missing!!) Anyway, I could go on but I won’t, a masterpiece you should so rightly be proud of! Thank you!
Her premeditated affair goes unpunished by life, while Andrew’s momentary failure of courage dooms him forever. Life is savagely unfair.
This particularly struck me when reading this post, as it chimes with something Sebastian Barry said at the Grauniad book club thingie a few weeks ago – about everything being undone in, and unfolding from, a single moment, a solitary event. The trick is always to do that subtly and to make it feel inevitable and inexorable without being melodramatic (Thomas Hardy, I’m looking at you with your wretched letters under doormats, bleuch). I’m so excited to see that people are beginning to sit up and take notice of this book – I read both The Other Hand and Incendiary last year and loved them. Bravo, and thank you.
HI Chris-
I don’t pick up many books to read- Between work, kids and home I just dont have the time. So when I do, I do my best to make sure it is something I will want to read past page 1. Immediatly, your language and writing captivated me. I write when I ‘can’ and am always amazed to see true talent with language.
When Little Bee spoke of wanting to be a British pound- It immediatly put me in her mind, her emotions and her self image- although I usually go for non contemporary reads I put it on the counter just as immediatly.
I must commend you on her beautiful beautiful voice- easily my favorite part of the book. Her descriptions, her comparisons- How did you learn that thought process so well? Did you listen to people who spoke this way or did this just come to you as you wrote?
Thanks very much for your efforts- they shine through-
Shoshanna
The bottom half of page nine in Little Bee is the most beautiful piece of writing I have ever read. I wept when I read it. And again when I read it out loud to whoever would listen. Even now when I think of the words, I choke up with feeling.
I can honestly say that those string of words healed something deep inside of me that nothing else seemed to be able to. Thank you so much for the gift of your writing. I will always treasure those thoughts.
Best of luck to you and all your endeavors.
Keri
When I was in the store, I was just looking for a book to read. I’m one of those people that picks the book because of the cover, and since it was bright orange, I picked it up. Reading the back description, I had no idea what it was about, and I thought, well even though buying the book means I have falled for the ” I won’t tell you, you just have to read it” trap, I secretly hoped it would be bad so that the next time I saw a book with that “pickup line,” I could say thats a cheap line because the books are usually not that special. But unfortunately, your book was special. And bizarre. I lived in Nigeria for a while, and so when I started reading it and it talked about the “weh” and just the way they talk, I really actually read it twice because it just seemed really unlikely that it was about Nigeria. I thought it was a book about two women and some love affair between the husband of one of them. But my ignorance has mislead me many times previously. Anyway, the whole point of this rambling is, I loved the book, I will look at refugees very differently, but I wished the part about Nigeria and the oil war was less “fictional” to use the same words I believe Kasia did, because from what I know, I believe the “oil war” is a lot less simple and has a lot less to do with the oil companies than you suggest in the novel, and I think a lot of readers might think that what actually happens. But I may be wrong, and so I hope you can tell me more about why you chose Nigeria and where you got the information from.
Thank you and sorry for making it so long!
well chris what can I say that hasn’t already been said. Like others I picked up your book not knowing what to expect. I thought I was reading a book written by a woman, your charactors really lived and died on those pages. it is hard not to picture a “happy ending”, we want to believe that humankind is kind. If this was made into a film it would fictionalise it too much and I fear people would want to look forward to the dvd. Action is what is needed and our hearts and minds opened to do something however small. I for one will be looking at ways I can do something contructive to help those like Little Bee. Ive still got indegestion from reading this, like others I finished reading it in a week-end, never done this with a book before. Like the book I too felt moved by the comments and thoughts of your readers and I am proud to join in with their comments. Like to say the cover is brilliant who ever designed it. It is the imprint of the last page, Batman becomes Charlie standing on the beach, superb
Hi Chris,
Thank you for such a thought provoking novel. I had not given any thought to assylum seekers bar the information given us in the media. It is my turn to choose this months book for our reading group and wish to share The Other Hand with my friends so that we can discuss it. I loved the way it was written, and found it drawing me into both Little Bees and Sarahs worlds.
It is a captivating book. Thank you
Little Bee is a fabulous book, really captivating and offers insight into what immigrants often go through,unfortunately. I am Jamaican living in the US and I go home every year. Yvette is hilarious, Love her, Lived with Yvettes most of my life however, her experiences are not the experiences of the average Jamaican. There are individuals in Ja. who get involved with the “baddies”, I am packing my green swim suit and going back to Ja. to visit my family this summer as I do every summer.
I have recommended this to my friends and will be reading all your books. Can’t wait for Little Bee II. Thanks for capturing our colourful personality and sence of fashion. Love it!!
So good you wrote this book. In todays world of wars and displacement, torture, and horror, I am concerned about governments blocking refuggees who have ‘made it’ through to a supposed safe place. In Australia the majority of residents are arrivals from other countries or their decendants in the past 200 years but somehow they show no compassion for the forlorn arrivals in unseaworthy boats who have lost all and manage to travel onwards.
It is not a simple solution but I feel the huge amounts of money spent on the rounding up and detention of human beings could be used in a far more humane way. In our airports everyday, thousands of people arrive as visitors and are not subjected to such suspicion and incarceration.
I struggle daily with the position the world is in and zone in on nature, my children and art to help me stay sane. Thank you for writing this book and opening the minds and hearts of people worldwide. Peace and love, Janey.
just finished “little bee.” Comment…..when bee addresses her issues with lawrence, in the kitchen, I don’t think the conversation was real, in that the way you described bee, up to that point, bee wouldn’t have talked up to lawrence. you characterized bee as being somewhat shy, yet here she was telling lawrence how she was going to do this, or that, to him. bee seemed to me to be totally out of character at that point. it’s your story though. your story can be anything you want it to be, as i’m certain you’re aware of.
Thanks Sondra. Well, that’s me told!
Have just finished The Other Hand and it absorbed me from beginning to end – wonderful juxtaposition of wit and humour with the hard-to-take stuff. Having worked in Nigeria from time to time, the language and tone is bang on and you capture all that those of us who know the country both love and tear hair out about it and the people! What an indictment of the asylum screening system and attitudes in Little Britain. Could take issue with the direct role you allude to of the un-named oil companies – those majors with which I had contact tried hard to act ethically in a a difficult (albeit rewarding) political, commercial and working environment.
Nuff said – a wonderful book – my wife couldn’t believe it was written by a man – take that as a compliment! Thank you so much.
WOW….what a read..I found myself telling the new Puppy “not now” and my husband “just a minute”. I just didn’t want to stop reading…thank you for taking me away from everything for awhile…Susie..Little Bee
Just finished reading “The Other Hand”. I had already bought it. Then, a few weeks later, it was chosen as our book club choice for the month. I was hooked from page one. Your writing is just so clever! I have underlined so much of the book- profound, ironic, funny, deeply sad. It opened up a whole world of asylum seekers that I knew little about. I laughed; I cried; I sat with my hand over my mouth making sure I was still breathing. Well done! The characters will stay with me. I will respond differently to news items on refugees. As a small-time writer, I am inspired & more than a little jealous of your gift. Keep up the good work.
Thank-you, Helena
I have just finished reading “The Other Hand”; my eyes are still moist. I puzzled while reading whether you were male or female. Pardon my ignorance. Just discovered you are male writing as female. I will recommend your book to friends. My motivation to read your book was reading an article in Australian ‘Daily Telegraph’ that said Nicole Kidman was trying to buy the rights to the book to make a film of it. Was wondering was this true. Asking my local library tomorrow if they have”Incendiary” . Ta Maz.
Literally just finished reading “Little Bee”, which left me sad, speechless, and so thankful for wonderful books such as yours. As I know no one else who is reading it right now, I searched for your site for answers and comfort from you and your reading community. If you could share – “off the record” – your vision/wish for Sarah and Little Bee right now, what do you think happens next? Thank you so much-
I just devoured Little Bee in only 2 days. It was one of those books that you just can’t wait to finish so you can see how the story plays out; yet you wish you could read it slowly to savor every page, every word. You are a remarkable writer and I thoroughly enjoyed this marvelous story. I told everyone I know to go out and get this book. It really is a must read! Thank you for such a great read, I’ll be looking for Incendiary next!
Dearest Chris,
I am an American living in Italy, and immigration and asylum is an enormous issue here, as it was growing up in my homestate of Texas, on the Mexican border. I just finished The Other Hand and, although I am devastated, I am also busy reccomending it to everyone I know. Thank you for such a powerful journey and the gift you have given me of feeling such FEELING, the proof we are alive. You are truly gifted–your ability to write in the first person narrative for 2 females was so acute as to convince even me, a female, that the author must certainly be “Chris”, for “Christine”, but in any event CERTAINLY, a female. So, wow. You’re THAT good. Anyway, keep the books coming and God bless. Jessica
Hello Chris,
. This is truly a master piece and I will be recommending this book for my book club readers: http://www.booksfortheseason.blogspot.com.
I bought “the other hand” at the train station, looking for an interesting book to accompany me on my journey. What I found was more than an intresting book. Needless to say before I got to my stop ( a 2.5 hour journey) I had finished the book. I couldn’t stop reading. The book is very profound. What you have described in that book, I can very much relate within my immediate experience. I also loved the way you interchanged between little Bee’s interpretation of her current happenings in London to how it would be like back home. I can realate to it all, even the exclamations
I look forward to reading some more of your work. God bless Remi
I finished The Other Hand very early this morning and can’t get it out of my mind.
Brilliant writing, and a great “light” approach to a very serious subject.
Also, I’m VERY impressed by the way you wrote this story in not one, but two women’s words. Definitely one of the best books in my “Books read in 2009″ list.
The really remarkable thing about this, is that Little Bee is far more interlligent, kind and thoughtful than Sarah . Sarah has a ‘plastic’ world – works on a glossie mag, is having an affair, is not realy an honourable person. Little Bee is deeper, scarred but knows what it takes to survive, manages an important link to Charlie immediately, is wiser. They are bound by Sarah’s one moment of selflessness. And at the end, I thought: I would swap them – Little Bee to stay here with us and teach us, and Sarah to go to Nigeria (and its conflicts) and learn humility. Ace, awesome and quite brilliant.
Chris,
I found “Little Bee” simply a fabulous, brilliantly written book. I was especially struck by one of your statements above:
“The new novel [Little Bee / The Other Hand] came out of a sense of my own complicity in some of the evils of the world. I’d moved on from considering myself as an outraged – and blameless – observer, which I guess is where I was at with Incendiary. A year on, I realised that people like me are often part of the problem. I began to think about my life, and how it is relatively easy, and how it is therefore relatively easy to ignore the suffering of others. And since suffering is the rule rather than the exception in the world, it’s not an easy moral question to duck as a writer.”
I couldn’t agree more and would offer two articles on my own blog that echo your sentiments:
http://happinessinthisworld.com/2009/02/01/evil-triumphs-when-good-people-do-nothing/
and
http://happinessinthisworld.com/2009/04/12/become-a-force-for-good/
Thank you for a truly enjoyable read and for the spirit behind your reason for writing the book in the first place.
Best,
Alex
Chris , what a wonderful and moving story . I have now passed my copy on to a friend . As someone who has always been passionate about human rights you have awoken these beliefs and have made me want to do more and find out more . Thanks .
Chris, was so excited about this wonderful new book. I love the humor and beautiful way you address such a serious issue of refugees finding refuge. Oh, how I love your lyrical timing. But I am unable to finish, because the language, most especially the f-bomb is dropped so many times. I understand there are those that express themselves this way, but, it seems such a shame to litter great literature with such trifle. I know you don’t agree, I respect your sensibilities, I just can’t believe how disappointed I am to not be able to finish it. Bummer! I will watch with hope you write one for me; one with all the beauty and human complexity, minus the colorful language. PS I have laughed over scum so many times. Even now, I am laughing.
Chris, I loved this book and have passed it on to one of my most favourite people in the world to read – my daughter. I have only told her that this book will make her cry – something she is not impressed about. However, as a 14 yr old she is hardly ever impressed with anything I do or say -but I do know she will love this.
I have also described elements of this book particularly Charlie, to my five year old son.
It’s not often that a book is so captivating and accessible to all.
Sondra- not only is Little Bee a survivor she is a fighter – who knows what we do and say if we felt threatened in this way. She may only be 16 but by that point she had already lived several lives.
Paula – finish the book you are denying yourself an unmissable treat.
Dear Chris,
I think your book should be compulsory reading for MPs and politicians in general. Here in Austria we are just witnessing another change for the worse in our asylum regulations and I feel truly ashamed of the callousness and cynicism of politicians defending those restrictions. Not only politicians. We see a frightening development towards open racism and right-wing extremism supported by media voices and the fact that a right- wing party with unveiled propaganda is sitting in our Parliament.
As I lack the courage to do something truly significant, I try to influence my students at school and teacher training college to at least examine opinions, stereotypes and prejudices. Your book will certainly find its way onto my reading lists. That’s at least something I can do. Thanks for having written it and giving me the opportunity to discuss the topic and showing my students a different approach.
Chris,
‘the other hand’
Wow what a book, thank you for writing such a powerful and thought provoking book, humour and seriousness blend so well. The story is such a moving one that I could not put your book down, sadly I have finished it within 2 days a record for me.
I agree that this should be one book that is read as part of the national curriculum, I would also go further to say that the managers of authorities you wrote about UKBA, Police and the escorting officers should read this as part of their development that way a change could occur in the way we communicate with individuals and to realise that what we take for granted may be so so different for others.
Mr. Cleave, thanks for suggesting the book on child soldiers. It’s been sitting on my bookshelf waiting for me to have the courage to read it. As I’ve been reading “Little Bee” I was thinking that would be a good next book. Although I think I’ll read something light and frothy in between, maybe the Candace Bushnell book that’s also been on my shelf for a while. My son is in Africa for the summer, and I will definitely give him this book to read when he comes home. Thanks you.
Chris,
I bought “The Other Hand” without knowing what it was about and was very shocked to meet Little Bee from Nigeria. As a Ghanaian who came to the UK over 30 years ago, it’s amazing how much I related to her thoughts about the West, especially what she would “tell the girls back home”. I read the book in two hours on the plane a few days ago and fully intend to re-read it as I am sure that, in my rush to get to the end, I missed a lot of little treasures that I will now discover.
I have known people who have been kept in detention centres for long periods of time – one was a case of missing identity and ended with an apology from the Home Secretary. I know how it can destroy confidence and can only imagine how it must feel to run away from a terrible situation looking to the west for shelter, only to find yourself a “prisoner” in a situation in which you have no idea how long your sentence will be.
It has been interesting reading the various emails from the readers and to see how willing we all are to condemn those in situations we can never really appreciate. Which is worse? Cheating on your husband or refusing to make a sacrifice to save another’s life? What makes a hero? Someone who despite cheating on her husband is willing to return to a country in which she had a terrible experience in order to support a friend?
One last note – what led you to choose “One” by U2 as the song that everyone knew and liked? I hadn’t realised that U2 were so popular in Nigeria or the rest of Africa, for that matter!!
i bought “the other hand” because it was on sale (i live abroad and i am not British so whenever i go to London, there is always a Waterstone on my path and i can’t resist going in and buying lots of books) as part of a “buy 2 and get one free” campaign. this was the 3rd one and i chose it because it had great reviews and the topic was mysteriousand if i had known what it was about, i have to be honest and say i would not have bought it. not because i do not care about asylum seekers, on the contrary i read the news everyday…in fact, the only part i find a little unbelievable in the book is the idea that Sarah and Andrew went to Nigeria not knowing about the oil war (i mean they are journalists!) because i remember very well reading about it in the newspapers and boycotting Shell because of this.
i read the book in twice, train journey at the beginning of the weekend and train journey back. both nights i could go to sleep, i was so depressed. the book is amazing because it conveys so many realities to the point of refusing to make us happy with a “happy end”. it is brave because it does not turn anyone into a heroe even if Sarah comes out better than most. you were right to make her full of flaws because in a sense it tells us that you do not have to be a saint to do something brave and that we may have our selfish little lives, it is no excuse to at some point do something heroic. at the end of the book we are left with the same of helplessness as everyone else in the book with the question: how do you live with having tried your best and failed? can our faint voices be heard enough to change the fate of things?
as Sarah says, the sum of invidivual stories can become big enough to make a difference. in my country (France) there is an uproar against the law system that sues individuals who help illigal immigrants and regularly illigal immigrants jump out of the window and kill themselves when the police comes to arrest them. the police even comes to pick up their children at the school, upsetting the other children and the parents. so i hope that soon the tide changes and our governments start to treat asylum seekers with the respect they deserve.
your book was hard to read but i don’t regret that i read it and i will buy “incendiary”
as you may understand French, i thought you might be interested in a book that will be released in a few months from now, i do not know if it’s good but it’s about the (true) story of a little Rwandan girl whose family was massacred and who now lives in France. it is written as a novel (monologue form, a little i imagine like your own book)
http://virginiejouannetroussel.wordpress.com/mi-negre-mi-romanciere-celle-qui-vient-du-rocher-ou-lhistoire-recomposee-de-vestine/
This is a brilliant story I wish it coud be heard by everyone, especially those who are too ignorant to acknowledge the other side to asylum seeking peoples stories.
I travel quite a lot, mainy to India, and I always return full of resentment to our own ‘spoilt’ culture, it is time people took notice of what is happening to people in the real world today.
Please hurry and write another story as awe inspiring as this, thanks Chris.
Wow, this is such an eye opening, interesting and thought provoking book. Totally entralling, I have not been able to put it down. This is not my normal type of read and I would not have chosen it had it not been for the back page. It got my attention and I am so glad that it did.
Thanks
enjoyed book,follow up would be good.
Dear Chris
I am a german woman married to a nigerian man and my husband is from imo state in Nigeria, since two years we live in UK . I read a lot of books to improve my english and I chose ‘the other hand’ because of the cover picture and the title, it made me curious about the book. When I read it I felt being in the story, I laught and mostly cryed a lot, the book is really, really good. But there was one word I didn’t like, “Nazi german”, I think the time is long gone and we are not that bad anymore. My husband was in an assylum home in germany and it wasn’t like a prison, they could go out any time and our government gave them money to by food or clothes and they also get papers so they can work, but yes, if they find out their story is not true they will be sent back home. Despite what I have to criticize, it is a good story, worth to read and could be true.
Good to see you’re doing some research to fill in the ???
Dear Chris,
Few years ago my professor lent me your book, Incendiary, and it turns out to be one of my most favourite books. I’d searched for your other books, but didn’t get one. Now I knew why
Please write more novels, instead of every 3 years
A week ago, by chance, when my husband and I were in Dubai for a short transit back to Europe from Indonesia, I found your new book. I wish I could tell you how excited I was finding your new book. Thank you for sharing beautiful stories to us. You make me laugh and cry at the same time.
ps: mmmm I like ‘At The Other Hand’, but I love ‘Incendiary’ more
I just want add my thanks to the many above.
Thank-you so much
Chris — Little Bee was the recent selection of our book club, and I just today finished. I must admit, I consumed it quickly. Your writing style is beyond compelling and your turn of phrase unique and enjoyable. I was delighted to learn of your website, as after I read a book, I tend to dig deeper. The above Q & A was insightful (thank you) and I always find it interesting how we readers sometimes misinterpret the writer’s actual intent, but still the impact works. You produced a masterful work, and it goes on my shelf of few books I plan to read again.
Best,
Valerie
I’ve just been to Edinburgh and watched The State We’re In about Brian Haw’s 9 year protest. I bought The Other Hand to read on my journey. Yesterday, I spoke to a friend who is working in an Asylum Detention Centre in France and heard first hand her stories about the dehumanising processes she is witnessing everyday and about her despair of being in too low a position to change them – BUT she’s still trying to.
There’s something strangely congruent about all these experiences happening at once for me.
I am so pleased that there are two great pieces of work out there that do not allow us to be comfortable, do not allow us to be passive and inspire us to change and be human.
Thank you for this human novel. And thanks to Zia Trench and my friend as well – who through their work show us the horrors we create and permit and give us the opportunity through awareness to change.
just finished reading the other hand nd, having red the comments all that’s left for me to say is THANK YOU.
Thank you so much for writing ‘The Other Hand’. I bought it at an airport because I wanted something to read during the journey.
I could not put it down any more! I really find it fantastically written. In the end I supposed Little Bee was going to be killed, but I was not too sad because she was so happy. So thank you. I love the way you did not finish the book with ‘and they lived happily ever after’ but with something more realistic.