Waiting in the Twilight

by Joan Riley

When Adella, a talented seamstress, moves to Kingston, Jamaica, life seems to promise much: a respectable career and the chance of professional status. Instead, she falls in love: first with a young policeman, then with Stanton, whom she follows to England... yet he too deserts her. She resolves to buy a home of her own, but in the end even this is taken from her by The Council.

Now a grandmother crippled by a stroke, Adella waits patiently for her husband to return. Haunted by memories of the past, she assesses what has been achieved.

This is the moving story of a woman's struggle for dignity against a background of urban racism. Riley pulls no punches in her effort to portray 'the forgotten and unglamorous section of my people' within a system which 'openly and systematically discriminates' against them.

Genres: Fiction

165 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Joan Riley (born 26 May 1958) is a Jamaican-English author. Her 1985 novel The Unbelonging made her "the first Afro-Caribbean woman author to write about the experiences of Blacks in England".

She was born in St. Mary, Jamaica, the youngest of eight children, and received her early education on that island before emigrating to the United Kingdom in 1976. There she studied social work at the University of Sussex and the University of London. She has worked at a drugs advisory agency and wrote about the experiences of Caribbean women.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty interesting, but not a favorite. But Riley's portrayal of the Caribbean's place in Britain is a very interesting, and often under-explored, genre.

[Angela]

Excellent story about Adella's struggle in Jamaica and arrival to England.