The European Tribe

By Caryl Phillips

Book Overview

In this richly descriptive and haunting narrative, Caryl Phillips chronicles a journey through modern-day Europe, his quest guided by a moral compass rather than a map. Seeking personal definition within the parameters of growing up black in Europe, he discovers that the natural loneliness and confusion inherent in long journeys collides with the bigotry of the "European Tribe" -- a global community of whites caught up in an unyielding, Eurocentric history.Phillips deftly illustrates the scenes and characters he encounters, in places like poverty-stricken Casablanca, racy Costa del Sol, and peaceful Provence where he muses with writer James Baldwin over dinner about the state of the human spirit. He explores Venice through the Shakespearean outcast Othello and views Amsterdam through the eyes of young Anne Frank. The result is, as Peter Ackroyd describes it, "a testament to one man's struggle against an enemy most of us are content not to see. . . . Engaging [and] moving".

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0571198031
• ISBN13: 9780571198030
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Faber & Faber
• Length: 129 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

My Island Man

I stumbled across "European Tribe" and decided to read it not only because it was written by someone born in my island (St.Kitts & Nevis), but because it describes places that I long to visit. Caryl Phillips uses a thought provoking style to tell of his travel around the world. As I journeyed with him I enjoyed his vivid and frank language and also his analysis of the different cultures. I also appreciate Caryl Phillips' use and revelation of historical facts and theories to tell his story. I will recommend "European Tribe" to anyone interested in a black man's expereince with various cultures of the world.

A Thoughtful Analysis of European Culture

In his narrative, The European Tribe, Caryl Phillips writes about his experiences as a black British intellectual traveling mostly in Europe. He starts in Casablanca and works his way north visiting such places as Paris, Venice, and Amsterdam, finishing up in Russia before returning to England. This book was originally written in the early eighties, so Phillips is describing some places still behind the Iron Curtain. But this edition does include an afterword written in 1999. In his rational way, Phillips comments in the afterword, "Europeans are human beings. They are subject to the same insecurities, the same inability to forgive, the same prejudices, the same disturbing nationalism, the same cruelties, as any other people" (132). This is a good travelogue, but it is also an enlightening book for people whose main reading about the black experience has been from the viewpoint of African-Americans.