FOREIGNERS

Caryl Phillips has compiled three biographies of black men struggling to make their way in a white world in England. The accounts date from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries. The first and third sections—about a Jamaican boy “given” to Samuel Johnson and a stowaway from Nigeria who ends up in England—make for the best listening. They are narrated by a single performer and a full cast, respectively. Each is riveting because the linguistic skills of the performers give a vivid sense of the time and place of the man being documented. The second section, about Randy Turpin, a mixed-race boxer from Wales, is predominately spoken as a third-person narrative in an American accent. But individual characters are presented with distinct British accents. This makes the middle section a jarring experience overall. P.R. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: NOVEMBER 2008]