The Attic Child
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The Attic Child
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Narrated by:
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Lucian Msamati
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Nneka Okoye
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By:
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Lola Jaye
About this listen
Longlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2023.
Two children trapped in the same attic, almost a century apart, bound by a secret.
1907: Twelve-year-old Celestine spends most of his time locked in an attic room of a large house by the sea. Taken from his homeland and treated as an unpaid servant, he dreams of his family in Africa even if, as the years pass, he struggles to remember his mother’s face, and sometimes his real name....
Decades later, Lowra, a young orphan girl born into wealth and privilege, will find herself banished to the same attic. Lying under the floorboards of the room is an old porcelain doll, an unusual beaded claw necklace and, most curiously, a sentence etched on the wall behind an old cupboard, written in an unidentifiable language. Artefacts that will offer her a strange kind of comfort, and lead her to believe that she was not the first child to be imprisoned there....
Lola Jaye has created a hauntingly powerful, emotionally charged and unique dual-narrative novel about family secrets, love and loss, identity and belonging, seen through the lens of Black British history in The Attic Child.
©2022 Lola Jaye (P)2022 Macmillan Publishers International LimitedCritic Reviews
"This is important storytelling about issues of race and privilege...and a book that will stay with me for a long time." (Tracy Chevalier)
"Just brilliant." (Dorothy Koomson)
"Powerful and emotional." (Lisa Jewell)
What listeners say about The Attic Child
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Annie
- 13-10-2023
Beautiful Narrative with Great Readings
One of my favourite reads for the year!
Loved that the duel narrative was read by two distinct voices! Dikembe was brought to life by the excellent performance from uLcian Msamati with excellent expression and perfect pacing. I loved Nneka Okoye's voice for Lowra, but the repetitive questioning lilt gave the character an annoying uncertainty. i am not sure if this tone was just reflecting the writing or the voice actor was trying to bring Lowra's inner turmoil to life. but it was slightly grating.
This is a very powerful story with some excellent characters. Buried in the colourful voice of young Dikembe, the colonization documented in this book felt so personal and was so emotionally evocative it was hard to read at some points. The narration of both characters as children was so well done and interesting and I was consistently wondering how their paths could cross.
My only qualm with this book is that while the mirrored circumstances of the Attic provided a connection for while they were young, and represented so much personal pain for both of them as they grew up, the characters and the book seemed a bit lost without this commonality of storylines around the midway point and the diverging (and aging) of the characters as they emerged into seperate societies. While I understand why the author decided to end the novel in a heartwarming way, I think that through all of the heartbreak within the novel the characters had lost come of their charm and it leads me to believe these characters may not have realistically had such a celebratory finale.
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