Black Cherokee: A Novel (Canadian Edition)

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Synopsis
Queenie meets Frying Plantain in this courageous coming-of-age story, set in the 1990s, about a mixed-race Black girl fighting for recognition in a South Carolina Cherokee community that refuses to accept her ancestry as legitimate.On the rain-swollen banks of the River Etsi in South Carolina, Ophelia Blue Rivers—six years old in 1992—catches frogs and stretches to reach the swaying sunflowers. She&’s an orphan raised in a rustic cabin by her Grandma Blue, a descendent of the Black Cherokee Freedmen. Caught in deep currents of history that she doesn&’t understand, she is, as her grandma says: &“half Black, half Cherokee, and all mixed up.&” While Ophelia may not always understand where she came from, there&’s no mistaking where she&’d rather be: caught in the warmth of Grandma Blue&’s cabin, listening to bedtime Cherokee legends as collard greens hiss in the frying pan. But one day, a tall stranger with a black denim jacket and a charming smile appears, and his arrival shatters Ophelia&’s world. She finds herself whisked away from all she knows to live with her Auntie Oba, the boisterous woman she had only met in rumours. So begins Ophelia&’s spirited, at times harrowing, search for home and family—a journey that takes her from a majority-white high school to the inner sanctum of a Black evangelical church to the throbbing dance floors of underground Southern clubs and to a final, devastating encounter with the scion of a wealthy, white family. She must ask herself: What does it mean to belong when the terms of that belonging come at such a high price? With dazzling language, keen insight, and an unforgettable voice, Black Cherokee is not only an astonishing novel but a profound meditation on race, identity, and coming of age from a major literary talent.
Copyright:
2025

Book Details

Book Quality:
Publisher Quality
Book Size:
272 Pages
ISBN-13:
9781668024560
Related ISBNs:
9781668024553
Publisher:
Scribner Canada
Date of Addition:
Copyrighted By:
Antonio Michael Downing
Adult content:
No
Language:
English
Has Image Descriptions:
No
Categories:
Literature and Fiction
Submitted By:
Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:
This is a copyrighted book.

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