BVBook Verdict
Essential Read

Wide Sargasso Sea

by Jean Rhys · 1966

Literary Fiction · ranked #31 in category

Set in Jamaica and Dominica in the 1830s, Bertha Mason — the mad wife in the attic of Jane Eyre — tells her own story before she is silenced and imprisoned by Rochester. Rhys's novel is one of the foundational texts of postcolonial fiction, a fierce rewriting of Charlotte Brontë's portrait of Creole womanhood from the inside.

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The verdict

Category
Literary Fiction
First published
1966 · 1960s
Author
Jean Rhys
Standing
Essential Read

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