Best books… Afua Hirsch
Journalist, broadcaster and author Afua Hirsch picks her favourite books. Her book Brit(ish) is published by Jonathan Cape at £16.99. She is talking at the Chalke Valley History Festival in Wiltshire on 1 July (www.cvhf.org.uk) Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, 1966 (Penguin £7.99). The first time I read this book – about Bertha, the mad wife in Rochester’s attic in Jane Eyre – I hated it. I’d wanted to know more about this intriguing, tragic West Indian character, but Jean Rhys’s book about the perils of white creoles in the Caribbean left me confused. Re-reading it again as an adult was like night and day. It’s a masterpiece.
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot, 1860 (Vintage £8.99). Maggie Tulliver is one of my female heroines – compulsive, impulsive, loving, loyal and punished by a conservative society for being too principled, too clever and too brown. Growing up, it was the closest I got to a literary character I could relate to.
The Famished Road by Ben Okri, 1991 (Vintage £9.99). This book turned me into a lifelong lover of magical realism. It’s a hypnotic story about a spirited child who cannot turn away from the mortal realm. As well as being an incredible piece of writing, it’s a genius device for exploring contemporary Nigerian political and social reality.
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison, 1977 (Vintage £9.99). It’s hard to choose a favourite Toni Morrison book because she is such a prolific master. But I loved the lyricism of the prose in this book, even the names of the characters – First Corinthians, Milkman, Pilate. She has a unique ability to conjure the American South through the eyes of unforgettable African-American protagonists.
One Hundred Years of
Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez, 1967 (Penguin £8.99). The scope of this book – following a Colombian family over seven generations – is remarkable, as is its ability to tell devastating stories with a magical compassion that brings home the repetitions of history and the injustice of a rigged political economy. One of the greatest books of all time.