Little Bee
By Chris Cleave
Anchor Canada
This is a story you won’t soon forget. It is a tale of two women. Little Bee is Nigerian, and Sarah is from Kingston-on-Thames, in Britain.
They are very different people because Little Bee is really just a girl, who lives in constant fear.
In her mind runs plans, adjusted for circumstances, for how she can kill herself, if the men come. She has seen unspeakable things and has good reason to be afraid.
Her family is gone and she is alone in the world.
Sarah is the editor of a high fashion magazine, named Nixie. She has a small son, Charlie, who spends all his time dressed as Batman, and all his energy fighting “baddies.” His Batman persona is all important to him. He’s a boy with very busy parents and he gets his attention where he can.
Sarah has a husband Andrew and a lover named Lawrence.
Little Bee is one of those girls with deep-down smarts, who believes that someone who reads and can speak English like Queen Elizabeth, might have a better chance in a very tough world. She works hard to become those things.
These two women meet under tragic circumstances when Sarah and Andrew’s holiday in the sun turns very ugly.
Sarah, who has so far seemed to be a selfish person, is called to act in a very brave way on Little Bee’s behalf.
Andrew, Sarah’s husband is a newspaper columnist. He’s full of self importance and (on the same sunny holiday) is called to make a sacrifice, and he refuses.
Little Bee (not her real name) manages to escape her troubled country, but when she arrives in England, is put into detention.
The most likely thing to happen to her, as to all such detainees, is to be sent back into extreme danger. She has no papers, so she has little hope.
When she manages to escape the detention centre, it is with Yvette, from Jamaica, a girl who uses humour to see her through, the nameless girl with a purse full of papers, (though not the right ones), and the girl in a yellow Sari.
Yvette knows no one in England, but she has a plan.
Little Bee reconnects with Sarah and Andrew and comes to love ‘Batman’.
We have high hopes for Little Bee, because she has found a sponsor. If she does not attract the attention of the Police, there is a chance for blending in and enjoying freedom.
This is not a true story, but one which could be true and faithfully reflects the life that illegal immigrants face in Britain.
It was written after the author’s visit to a British detention centre, and may change the way you think of refugees.
The author asks, in the flyleaf of this book, that readers to not divulge the ending to friends.
Little Bee had begun to forget her suicidal plans.
Sarah has taken up her cause, she cannot lose, can she?
Peggy Freeman is a freelance writer living in Red Deer.