The Skin I'm In
It is depressing to think after all the campaigns to raise awareness on this issue of race and colour in America, especially during the civil rights movement in the 1960s, that this issue won't go away. But that is why novels on the subject are still relevant. Set in an American inner city area, The Skin I'm In explores the issue of skin colour and peer pressure. Maleeka is taunted at school by her fellow pupils about her dark, black skin, though ironically many of her tormentors are themselves black or of mixed parentage. A new teacher arrives in the school -- a successful business woman on temporary secondment to the school -- whose face is disfigured by a white blotch. Her self confidence and willingness to tackle the problems posed by petty discrimination based on disability, colour or class make an impact on Maleeka and change her life but not before a good deal of conflict. The Skin I'm In is written in the racy authentic language of the streets and mirrors the fraught, dysfunctional relationships that seem to permeate all segments of inner-city school society, and further afield. Maleeka's English project on a slave girl's experiences on the Atlantic crossing is a useful ploy to provide, obliquely, some attempt at an historical backdrop, but could, I think, have been pursued in greater depth. This is however a fine first novel by a promising young writer which will no doubt strike some chords on this side of the Atlantic.