This Other Eden: A Novel
By
Paul Harding
A tender, exquisitely written portrait of a tiny island civilization near Maine’s coast victimized by government officials. Paul Harding’s captivating novel is based on the mixed-race fishing community of Malaga Island, settled in the late eighteenth century by a mix of freed slave and white immigrants. Harding celebrates the stamina and ingenuity of the islanders, and the struggles of a young missionary-teacher whose desire to help the islanders is frustrated by the prejudice and ignorance of the mainlanders in power. It is an important story, and Harding privileges it with writing that sings with emotional resonance and descriptive vivacity. This is especially true of the author’s depiction of Ethan, a boy with raw artistic talent whose fair skin affords him the opportunity to inhabit the mainland but whose innocence of the world denies the pursuit of his art.
A tender, exquisitely written portrait of a tiny island civilization near Maine’s coast victimized by government officials. Paul Harding’s captivating novel is based on the mixed-race fishing community of Malaga Island, settled in the late eighteenth century by a mix of freed slave and white immigrants. Harding celebrates the stamina and ingenuity of the islanders, and the struggles of a young missionary-teacher whose desire to help the islanders is frustrated by the prejudice and ignorance of the mainlanders in power. It is an important story, and Harding privileges it with writing that sings with emotional resonance and descriptive vivacity. This is especially true of the author’s depiction of Ethan, a boy with raw artistic talent whose fair skin affords him the opportunity to inhabit the mainland but whose innocence of the world denies the pursuit of his art.
A tender, exquisitely written portrait of a tiny island civilization near Maine’s coast victimized by government officials. Paul Harding’s captivating novel is based on the mixed-race fishing community of Malaga Island, settled in the late eighteenth century by a mix of freed slave and white immigrants. Harding celebrates the stamina and ingenuity of the islanders, and the struggles of a young missionary-teacher whose desire to help the islanders is frustrated by the prejudice and ignorance of the mainlanders in power. It is an important story, and Harding privileges it with writing that sings with emotional resonance and descriptive vivacity. This is especially true of the author’s depiction of Ethan, a boy with raw artistic talent whose fair skin affords him the opportunity to inhabit the mainland but whose innocence of the world denies the pursuit of his art.