Hachette Livre

Hachette Reading Group Guides

Welcome to our Reading Group guide for The Other Hand by Chris Cleave. We invite you to consider and discuss the following questions when reading this book:

  1. ‘Britain is proud of its tradition of providing a safe haven for people fleeting [sic] persecution and conflict’. Why do you think Chris Cleave chose this UK Home Office statement as the book’s epigraph? How does it fit with Little Bee’s experience of British attitudes towards her as an asylum seeker? What effect does the spelling mistake have on your interpretation of the statement, if any?
  2. ‘Excuse me for learning your language properly. I am here to tell you a real story. I did not come here to talk to you about the bright African colours’ (p.15). Little Bee is keen to avoid the stereotypes of postcolonial writing. Is she successful? Is hers an original voice? Why is Little Bee so determined to speak the Queen’s English?
  3. Why does Charlie pretend to be Batman? Is it significant that he finally removes his Batman costume at the end of the novel and, if so, why?
  4. ‘We all had identities we were loath to let go of . . . We were exiles from reality, that summer. We were refugees from ourselves’ (p.34). What does Sarah mean by this? Are Sarah, Little Bee and Charlie’s ‘true’ identities reinstated by the end of the novel? If so, how? What is the relevance of names in the book?
  5. ‘This is the human triumph. This is called, globalisation’ (p.6). What does The Other Hand have to say about globalisation?
  6. Why does Little Bee insist that ‘we must all see scars as beauty’ (p.17)?
  7. ‘ “Of course I’ll get you a feature on refugees, if you really want it. But . . . it isn’t an issue that affects anyone’s own life, that’s the problem” ’ (p.286). What does The Other Hand have to say about the West’s attitude towards Africa? Why does Andrew describe modern Western life as ‘too antiseptic’ (p.133)?
  8. The Other Hand is overshadowed by Little Bee’s foreboding that ‘the men are coming’. Who are these men? Is it always men who cause the suffering? Lawrence says men are ‘a little more house-trained’ in Europe (p.261). Does this prove to be the case? Do ‘bad’ men differ in Britain and Nigeria?
  9. Do you find it surprising that Chris Cleave, as with his last book Incendiary, chose females as his protagonists? Are his portrayals of women convincing? How do they compare to his depictions of men?
  10. What is the significance of the book’s title?
  11. Little Bee directs her narrative to a British ‘you’ and occasionally to an imagined chorus of Nigerian village girls. What is the effect of these conversational techniques, and how do they contribute differently to our understanding of Little Bee and her story?
  12. ‘Your system is cruel, but many of you were kind to me’ (p.69). How is Little Bee treated as an individual, as opposed to as a generic ‘asylum seeker’? What does this tell us about Chris Cleave’s attitude to British asylum policy, if anything? Were you surprised by Lawrence’s attitude towards Little Bee (p.172), considering his job with the Home Office? Did The Other Hand make you think differently about asylum seekers?
  13. ‘Me talk like a ooman who swallowed a ooman who talk nice. Me dumb, yu nuh see it?’ (p.106-7). Is Yevette ‘dumb’? How do she and Little Bee differ in their survival tactics? Whose is the most effective, do you think?
  14. Whose narrative do you prefer, Sarah’s or Little Bee’s? How do the two women differ in their perceptions, attitudes and writing style? Are there any similarities? Why do you think Chris Cleave chose to narrate his book from these two different perspectives?
  15. ‘And my father said, We should be thanking you sir, you have really put our village on the map, this is our first road traffic accident . . . And my father and my uncle lived very happily in that place until the afternoon when the men came and shot them’ (p.120). How does Chris Cleave interweave comedy and horror in The Other Hand? What is the effect of his technique on your reading experience, and what impact does it have on the story?
  16. Were you surprised by the novel’s ending? Would you describe The Other Hand as a bleak book? A political treatise? A melodrama? Or something else?

Current Reading Group Titles

  1. The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce by Paul Torday
  2. The Disappeared by Kim Echlin
  3. The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite by Beatrice Colin
  4. Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker
  5. The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
  6. Testimony by Anita Shreve
  7. Home by Marilynne Robinson
  8. The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti
  9. City of Thieves by David Benioff
  10. Remembering The Bones by Frances Itani
  11. The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
  12. Lies by Enrique de Heriz
  13. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaardner
  14. Sorrows of an American by Siri Hustvedt
  15. Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
  16. Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn
  17. The Sisterhood by Emily Barr
  18. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
  19. The Rose Labyrinth by Titania Hardie
  20. The Return by Victoria Hislop
  21. A Small Part of History by Peggy Elliott
  22. A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley
  23. Scapegallows by Carol Birch
  24. Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
  25. Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat
  26. Radiance by Shaena Lambert
  27. Rose of Sebastopol by Katharine McMahon
  28. The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
  29. Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott
  30. The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle
  31. Golden Age by Tahmima Anam
  32. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
  33. The Keep by Jennifer Egan
  34. The Saffron Kitchen by Yasmin Crowther
  35. Pirate’s Daughter by Margaret Cezair-Thompson
  36. The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
  37. April in Paris by Michael Wallner
  38. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday
  39. The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
  40. Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet
  41. Red River by Lalita Tademy
  42. The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox
  43. Rosetta by Barbara Ewing
  44. The Mathematics of Love by Emma Darwin
  45. The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld
  46. The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell