House at Karamu

This is a memoir of the writer Beryl Fletcher’s life between the year of her birth in 1938 and 1972. It is the story of one woman’s life – but it is also the story of many others of her generation who have lived through a time of great change. The memoir also reflects on the life of her mother’s generation, women who were primarily wives and mothers. Fearful of ‘becoming her mother’ with little identity or economic power of her own, Beryl Fletcher none the less married young, eventually running away from her husband with a virtual stranger. Interspersing the intimate narrative of a woman’s life story as told by herself is the writer’s contemporary voice, describing her current life and relationship. This is a rich multi-layered memoir exploring many themes including that of place, home, sexism and the meaning of language and the fickleness of memory. Beryl Fletcher’s work has been acclaimed locally and internationally.