As I said, a powerfully bold book that deserves reading. The way they are viewed as unwanted, criminals in the making, as people who are taking away jobs and resources that should be awarded only to citizens. The beauty of the writing, because believe me this young author can write! A timely subject, immigrants, refugees trying to circumvent a system that is stacked against them. I finished this book with a big Wow, stunned by this story and the devestating turn it took, though at the end hope of a kind it once again found. Thdy had hope, until it was taken away.I discovered this book on Kirkuses list of books that were good but had been largely passed by. She gave them hope that if they stayed out of trouble, they had a chance. Showed then the monarch butterflies and other beauties of nature. Yet, she showed them beauty too, tired as she was, she took them for picnics at the creek, called Rouge. They had to raise themselves, learn how to navigate where they lived, stay away from those with bad reputations which would do them harm. She had to work three jobs, long bus rides, to take care of Frances and Michael. Examples were raised.'Their mother came from Trinidad, but others in Toronto, in the housing unit called the Park came from many other places. History beaten back by the provision of clothes and yearly school supplies. Fears were banished by the scents from simmering pots, denigration countered by a freshly laundered tablecloth. All around us in the park were mothers who had journeyed far beyond what they knew, who took day courses and worked nights, who dreamed of raising children who might have just a little more than than they did, children who might reward scsrifice and redeem a past. In this timely and essential novel, David Chariandy builds a quietly devastating story about the love between a mother and her sons, the impact of race, masculinity and the senseless loss of young lives. But one sweltering summer night the hopes of all three are violently, irrevocably cut short. While Francis aspires to a future in music, Michael dreams of Aisha, the smartest girl in their school, whose eyes are firmly set on a life elsewhere. Coming of age in the outskirts of a sprawling city, the brothers battle against careless prejudices and low expectations. Michael and Francis are the bright, ambitious sons of Trinidadian immigrants. LONGLISTED FOR THE SCOTIABANK GILLER PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE FOR POLITICAL FICTION WINNER OF THE ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE 'A brilliant, powerful elegy from a living brother to a lost one, yet pulsing with rhythm, and beating with life' Marlon James, Winner of the Man Booker Prize

Brother by David Chariandy