Womens Prize For Fiction Winner
Property
by Valerie Martin
Summary
On a Louisiana sugar plantation a bitterly unhappy wife narrates her entanglement with the enslaved woman her husband abuses and favours. Martin writes from inside a cold, complicit mind, refusing easy sympathy and exposing how slavery poisons every intimacy it touches. The novel is a chilling study of ownership, jealousy and the moral rot of the antebellum South.
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Historical Context & Significance
Valerie Martin, an American writer, won for a slim novel praised for its unflinching first person voice.