On an island in the Azores, a young Portuguese boy comes of age, discovering love and literature before he departs for America
“Lewis’ style and quality of the narrative is most refreshing. Some of his descriptive passages, in the pellucid simplicity and rich imagery, ring with the lyricism of poetry.”-New York Times Book Review
Originally published by Random House in 1951, Home Is an Island is an autobiographical novel about boyhood on the Azores during the early twentieth century. Set in the mid-Atlantic, halfway between Portugal and the United States, Home Is an Island captures the simple, pastoral life in a village of the Old World where the popular imagination is permeated by the wonders of America and its promise of wealth and opportunity. This book will appeal to readers interested in America in the literary imagination, island literature, Portuguese-American literature, and Diaspora studies.
Reviews:
“There is about this novel a fine, tender, sensitive, spiritual quality, a quietness and repose quite in keeping with the simple, honest and straightforward lives of the villagers. . . . Well recommended.”-Library Journal
“It is the kind of book that is delightful to read.”-Chicago Sunday Tribune
Endorsements:
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“One does not often find a novel that reads like a poem, that tells a simple story in a simple prose, and yet is heroic, a novel of importance.”-Patricia Highsmith
From the Book:
“Lewis’ classic book remains relevant today. Home Is an Island says a lot about America and immigrants in the early twentieth century, and how they decided to come to America. It describes in countless ways how Azoreans viewed themselves as Americans long before they left the Azores.”-Congressman Devin Nunes, From the Foreword
ALFRED LEWIS (1902-1977), born on the mid-Atlantic island of Flores, immigrated to California in 1922. Having learned English only after arriving in America, he went on to study law and became a municipal judge in the San Joaquin Valley. Lewis was the first Portuguese-American writing from an ethnic perspective to claim the attention of the general reading public. He is the author of Sixty Acres and a Barn: A Novel.
