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Rhys, Jean, 1890-1979.
Birth name: Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams.
Dominican-born British author of Welsh and Dominican Creole descent. Her experience as a West Indian outsider
in European society is reflected in her literary perspective as a voice for the disposessed. Her literary career
was interrupted by a quarter century of withdrawal, and dramatically reignited by the appearance of Wide Sargasso
Sea, her most famous work, in 1966.
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Wide Sargasso Sea. 1966.
A re-imagining of the story of Bertha Mason (here Antoinette Cosway), the "madwoman in the attic"
of Charlotte Brontė's classic novel
Jane Eyre
(1847). The first part, narrated by Antoinette,
tells of her early life in Jamaica to the time of her arranged marriage. The second, alternating between
her point of view and that of her husband, tells of their married life in Dominica, relating the failure of
the marriage and Antoinette's descent into madness amid mutual mistrust. The remaining section deals with
her period of imprisonment in her husband's English mansion and decision to commit suicide.
Winner of the W. H. Smith Literary Award in 1967, and of the Cheltenham Booker Prize for 1966 in 2006.
Adapted to film in 1993, opera in 1997, and television in 2006.
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Posted
Jan. 20, 2012,
and last updated
Jun. 7, 2013.
Please report any errors to the compiler.
Published by Fleabonnet Press.
The source list data is public domain.
Additional material © 1999-2013 by Brian Kunde.
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