Brown Girl in the Ring (novel)
Book cover for Brown Girl in the Ring
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| Author | Nalo Hopkinson |
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| Cover artist | Linda Messier |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction, horror, urban fantasy, magical realism |
| Publisher | Warner Aspect |
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Publication date
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1998 |
| Media type | Print (paperback) |
| Pages | 256 pp |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 37884766 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PR9199.3.H5927 B76 1998 |
Brown Girl in the Ring is a novel written by Jamaican-Canadian writer Nalo Hopkinson. The novel contains Afro-Caribbean culture with themes of folklore and magical realism. It was the winning entry in the Warner Aspect First Novel Contest. Since the selection, Hopkinson’s novel has received critical acclaim in the form of the 1999 Locus Award for Best First Novel, and the 1999 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.
In 2008, the actress and singer Jemeni defended this novel in Canada Reads, an annual literary competition broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The setting of Brown Girl in The Ring is dystopic in nature. The story takes place in the city core of Metropolitan Toronto (Downtown Toronto) after the economic collapse. Riots of the past have caused the inner city of Toronto to collapse into a slum of poverty, homelessness, and violence. While the elite and city officials have fled to the suburbs, children are left to fend for themselves and survive on the streets which are ruled by Rudy Sheldon and his posse of criminal thugs. As a consequence of the Riots, Toronto is isolated from other satellite cities in the surrounding Greater Toronto Area (North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke) by roadblocks and Lake Ontario has become a mudhole. Disappearances and murder are not uncommon, and everyone is left to either fend for themselves or bind together to provide support for each other.
In the twelve years since the Riots, the city is now ruled by a criminal mastermind, Rudy Sheldon. Rudy is commissioned to find a heart for the Premier of Ontario, who needs a heart transplant. Normally, the Porcine Organ Harvest Program is used, but the adviser of Premier Uttley encourages her to deem the program "immoral" and make a public statement of preference for a human donor instead.
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