Hand Me Down World By Lloyd Jones

Hand Me Down World is the 12th book by New Zealand author, Lloyd Jones. Ines is a black woman who works as a hotel supervisor in Tunisia until a series of events compels her to make her way to Berlin. Those events and the stages of her harrowing journey, her arrival and stay in Berlin, her arrest and imprisonment, are told by people she encounters along the way, and eventually, by Ines herself. Thus the reader first sees events from the point of view of observers: another hotel worker, a police inspector, a truck driver, a snail collector, a chess player, an alpine guide, a pastor, a film researcher, a poet, a blind man and his ex-wife, and a zoologist. These accounts are often contained in anecdotes about the observer’s own life. Then Ines (an assumed name) relates her own story, and it becomes apparent how much influence a person’s own history, self-interest, pride and honesty affect their version of events. This is a powerful story, beautifully written, with an uplifting ending.