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Hold: An Observer New Face of Fiction 2018
Michael Donkor
Moving between Ghana and London, Hold is an intimate, powerful coming-of-age novel. It’s a story of friendship and family, shame and forgiveness; of learning what we should cling to, and when we need to let go.‘You have to imagine. That’s how I told myself.’‘Imagine what?’‘Imagine that you are the kind of girl that can cope with it, even if you are not.’Belinda knows how to follow the rules. She has learnt the right way to polish water glasses, to wash and fold a hundred handkerchiefs, and to keep a tight lid on memories of the village she left behind when she came to Kumasi to be a housegirl.Mary is still learning the rules. Eleven years old and irrepressible, the young housegirl-in-training is the little sister Belinda never had.Amma has had enough of the rules. A straight-A pupil at her exclusive South-London school, she has always been the pride of her Ghanaian parents. Until now. Watching their once-confident teenager grow sullen and wayward, they decide that sensible Belinda might be just the shining example Amma needs.So Belinda is summoned from Ghana to London, to befriend a troubled girl who shows no desire for her friendship. She encounters a city as bewildering as it is exciting, and as she tries to impose order on her unsettling new world, Belinda’s phonecalls back home to Mary become a lifeline.As the Brixton summer turns to autumn, Belinda and Amma are surprised to discover the beginnings of an unexpected kinship. But when the cracks in their defences open up, the secrets they have both been holding tight to threaten to seep out…
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Copyright (#uae338caf-4121-501c-8d60-cb59e8121092)
4th Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.4thEstate.co.uk (http://www.4thestate.co.uk)
This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2018
Copyright © Michael Donkor 2018
Cover photograph © Plainpicture/R. Mohr
Cover design by Jack Smyth
Michael Donkor asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
‘Michicko Dead’ from The Great Fires: Poems, 1982–1992 by Jack Gilbert, copyright © 1994 by Jack Gilbert. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008280345
Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008280369
Version: 2018-06-07
Dedication (#uae338caf-4121-501c-8d60-cb59e8121092)
For Patrick Netherton and Grace Opoku
Contents
Cover (#u179a8575-d74f-5131-b572-b9850fe12b00)
Title Page (#u7e928307-39e4-5c59-9dbb-f5f4a3a744bb)
Copyright (#u603f9f44-af85-587e-a75d-961bb5118265)
Dedication (#u23bc19a0-6b1c-5e68-a4a2-b2f59046a03f)
Twi terms, phrases and expressions (#u2fb3e29b-b8a1-5cf6-a6ee-268feaf2c1c3)
December 2002 (#u3ad88633-3f57-535c-9015-859e79b8763d)
SPRING (#u77ba6779-02f3-55f4-bc79-b03ccd05d0fd)
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SUMMER (#u88b4c8fe-e6cf-5d56-9fc3-68d54338c665)
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AUTUMN (#u976bf1f0-bc29-53b6-95d7-5dbd487a90ed)
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WINTER (#ua91cba89-d683-56b9-a86a-f351876b364f)
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42 (#u17aa5271-47fd-51b4-8592-2a54155d8b1f)
43 (#u1b22ae25-e5cc-5c00-8ecb-46ab37b4c866)
Acknowledgements (#u5a10a9a6-14cf-5f0e-9807-f1b8430b8867)
About the Author (#ubbb5a491-f84a-5d10-8b39-73e9ecae0a8d)
About the Publisher (#u9226c7d7-653c-5036-be7b-0153400bf652)
Twi terms, phrases and expressions (#uae338caf-4121-501c-8d60-cb59e8121092)
Aane – Yes
Aba! – Exclamation of annoyance, disdain or disbelief
Aboa! – You beast!
Abrokyrie – Overseas
Abrokyriefoɔ – Foreigners
Abusuafoɔ – Extended family
Adɛn? – Why?
Adjei! – Exclamation of surprise or shock
Agoo? – May I come in?
Akwaaba – Welcome
Akwada bone! – Naughty child!
Amee – Please enter
Ampa – It’s true
Ewurade – God
Ɛfɛpaaa – Very nice
Fri hɔ! – Go away!
Gyae – Stop
Gye nyame – Traditional symbol meaning ‘only God’
Hwɛ – Look
Hwɛw’anim! – Look at your face!
