Foreigners

By: Caryl Phillips

Narrated by: Caryl Phillips

Award-winning author Caryl Phillips shares the stories of three foreigners - displaced black men struggling to find a place in a white world. Each man's story is based on truth, re-imagined from a set of unique perspectives. Francis Barber, a Jamaican forced into slavery as a child, becomes the manservant and friend of literary legend Dr. Samuel Johnson. Randy Turpin beats Sugar Ray Robinson in 1951 to become, for a short time, middleweight champion of the world. David Oluwale, stowed away on a ship bound for England from West Africa, has dreams of becoming an engineer. Each man soon falls from grace, becoming just another face with the wrong color skin.

©2007 Caryl Phillips (P)2008 Recorded Books

Stunning range of writing style

Stories based on personal facts and societal truths each written in a different style that accentuate the lived experiences of each time they depict.

The treatment of David O

A complex story that shares the lives of three black men. It’s said to be a book of fiction but sadly these stories run too close to the truth. Listening to this audio book was somewhat of a challenge for me, due to varied voices of narration that made the story both fascinating and intriguing. Excellent story writing and telling.

Just not for me

I was intrigued by the initial story, about Samuel Johnson's manservant, but it was pretty depressing in the end. And I just couldn't care less about boxing, so I only listened to a part of that story; it bored me to tears. The third one wasn't much more engaging, and I gave up.