Daughter

by Asha Bandele

Book Overview

Daughter, a penetrating novel by Essence editor asha bandele and chosen by Black Issues Book Review as Best Urban Fiction for 2003, follows a young woman through life that changes in one night from a horrific incident with police brutality.

At nineteen, Aya is a promising Black college student from Brooklyn who is struggling through a difficult relationship with her emotionally distant mother, Miriam. One winter...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0743417984
• ISBN13: 9780743417983
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Scribner Book Company
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.53 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.0" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

One of the BEST books ever .....

I have finished reading this book and it IS one of THE BEST books I have read in MY LIFE. This will be my new gift book for the women friends in my life. Ahhh ..... it had truly captured my heart. If you have a daughter, if you are a daughter, if you know a daughter, if you plan on having a daughter ..... BUY THIS BOOK! It is about a woman who's daughter is killed by the police. It goes into her life and the relationship, or lack of relationship she had with her daughter. It is about not holding back. It is about words never said. It is about regret. It is about LIVING regardless of the heartbreak. It is about love lost ..... BUT having the courage to still get up and LIVE. It is about having a voice regardless of the shame. It is about the shame and sharing the story of shame. Oh, it is about LIFE. I love it. It has touched something deep inside of me. I am so full of emotions when I think about the many messages of this book. Oh, and the writing is so GOOD. Asha is one hell of a writer. I can't wait for her to write more.

amazing

I haven't read a book like this in a LONG time. I cried like haven't cried before. Here is an author who has the gift. This book captured my relationship with myself and my mother. I have found my favorite author, who I dare say is better than Toni morrison. You will NOt be disappointed in reading this book. Hopefully in the future this book will be required reading in college.

Secrets and Lies Can Kill

Daughter is one of those soul-stirring works that seizes your attention. It compels you to glimpse into your own life and seek change within yourself. Thought-provoking, loving, and moving, asha bandele has written a novel about the relationship between a mother and daughter who never really knew one another -- until it was too late.Miriam is the giving mother who would do anything to ensure Aya's needs were met. Yet, she wasn't the kind of mother who gave hugs freely, said "I love you" just because, or allowed herself to speak openly with her daughter. She felt the less Aya knew about her past, the less hurt and disappointed she would be.Aya, at the opening of the novel, is a 19-year-old college student who made excellent grades and did what she was told. Although she loves her mother dearly, her only wish is to know who her father was. All she's ever really known about Bird was that he was a Vietnam War veteran.Bird was so much more than that, as we find out. Miriam has a past with Bird that goes a lot deeper than Aya could ever know. But sadly, she never finds out because her life is tragically taken from her by police who mistakenly kill her. And Miriam not only grieves for her daughter, but grieves for things she's always known but could never tell Aya.bandele's writing is superb and one could almost lose herself in the lyrical, surreal writing from a writer who seems destined to be one of our most renowned Black authors.

TOUCHING

Its been a long time since I read a book that touched me the way Daughter has. After reading The Prisoners Wife I was looking forward to reading asha bandele's next book. One Sunday while attending the 5th Ave Book Fair in NYC I had the pleasure of meeting asha and her daughter. I was fortunate to have her autograph my copy of Daughter. I couldn't wait to start reading and once I started I wasn't dissapointed. I was swept up in the story of Miriam and Aya. As a mother with 2 daughters I understand the delicate balance of the mother/daughter relationship. asha bandele is as very talented writer and I look forward to reading more from her.

Glorious. Literary poetry

I have been waiting on this book from asha bandele. I loved Prisoner's Wife and she didn't let me down with "Daughter" This book is like literary poetry. The story of a mother and a daughter, grieving and LOVE...will leave it at that so as not to give it all away. But, I will say that "Daughter" is for people who appreciate not only a gripping and moving story, but also long for stories told with beauty, vivid imagery, poetic language and resonance. Like in Ms. bandele's other book, "The Prisoner's Wife", she has the ability to not only tell the story but fill you up with the emotion of characters. Feel what they feel and really take the reader into the world of the characters. So many books today by other contemporary writers are shallow and empty but after I finished reading I thought, "Ok, this is a real writer with things on her mind worth reading" The kind of writer that only comes around every once in a great while. bandele is truly gifted with the the use of language and storytelling. Glorious.