Face: The Play Book

In what he has described as the "new East End"--Caribbean and African and Asian people, but also a lot of the old white community who have extended families the same way that we always had"--Benjamin Zephaniah is something of a poet hero: a "black spokesman and political poet" according to critic, John Walsh. Set in this East End of fish and chips and curry, rap clubs and racism--"Many of the shops had metal shutters on their windows and doors to protect them from racist attacks"--Face is the story of Martin Turner and his "gang of three": their reactions when "something terrible" happens to Martin's face. Aimed (probably) at older children and teenagers, the novel skirts allegory. After a night in a local rap club--when Martin has to overcome a certain sense that blacks are "just different"--the (joy)ride accident which destroys his face propels Martin into a world where he has to learn to "deal with other people's prejudices". It's a world of pain, sometimes hatred, which, if anything, Zephaniah underplays here: this is Martin's tale of winning despite the odds. But that discretion may well help to jolt the imagination towards one of the underlying visions of Face: an East End where the white teen boys know they're not going to "get away with a racist remark here". --Vicky LebeauRead More