{"product_id":"a-view-of-the-empire-at-sunset-9780374538385","title":"A View of the Empire at Sunset","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAward-winning author Caryl Phillips presents a biographical novel of the life of Jean Rhys, the author of \u003ci\u003eWide Sargasso Sea\u003c\/i\u003e, which she wrote as a prequel to Charlotte Bront 's \u003ci\u003eJane Eyre\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eCaryl Phillips's \u003ci\u003eA View of the Empire at Sunset\u003c\/i\u003e is the sweeping story of the life of the woman who became known to the world as Jean Rhys. Born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams in Dominica at the height of the British Empire, Rhys lived in the Caribbean for only sixteen years before going to England. \u003ci\u003eA View of the Empire at Sunset \u003c\/i\u003eis a look into her tempestuous and unsatisfactory life in Edwardian England, 1920s Paris, and then again in London. Her dream had always been to one day return home to Dominica. In 1936, a forty-five-year-old Rhys was finally able to make the journey back to the Caribbean. Six weeks later, she boarded a ship for England, filled with hostility for her home, never to return. Phillips's gripping new novel is equally a story about the beginning of the end of a system that had sustained Britain for two centuries but that wreaked havoc on the lives of all who lived in the shadow of the empire: both men and women, colonizer and colonized. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eA true literary feat, \u003ci\u003eA View of the Empire at Sunset \u003c\/i\u003euncovers the mysteries of the past to illuminate the predicaments of the present, getting at the heart of alienation, exile, and family by offering a look into the life of one of the greatest storytellers of the twentieth century and retelling a profound story that is singularly its own.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCaryl Phillips\u003c\/b\u003e is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including \u003ci\u003eThe Lost Child \u003c\/i\u003e(FSG, 2015), \u003ci\u003eDancing in the Dark\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eCrossing the River\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eColor Me English\u003c\/i\u003e. His novel \u003ci\u003eA Distant Shore\u003c\/i\u003e won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize; his other awards include the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in New York.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Farrar, Straus and Giroux","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50514085806354,"sku":"9780374538385","price":17.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_91af8c04-4445-4bc9-8dc2-038104a5f2e5.jpg?v=1730972770","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-view-of-the-empire-at-sunset-9780374538385","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}