Little Bee: A Novel

Chris Cleave is a lovely gentleman, but that's not why I'll remember this interview for a long, long time. No, I'll remember it because Chris Cleave is an artist with a mission: He wants to bring his writing to the service of social issues. 

Any reader who has already finished Cleave's latest novel "Little Bee" will understand what he's trying to do. The story of a young Nigerian girl whose chance encounter with a British couple on a beach changes all of their lives permanently, "Little Bee" examines a host of problems in several societies. The remarkable thing about the novel is not its recognition of these problems; any newscast could tell us those. Cleave's achievement is in creating singular and authentic voices that breathe life into the characters living through those problems.