No Woman No Cry (English)

As the wife of the reggae superstar Bob Marley, Rita Marley had to endure more than the usual invasions of privacy by journalists and autograph seekers. She narrowly escaped death during an assassination attempt on her husband; meanwhile, he openly conducted affairs with a revolving cast of women, fathering children with many of them. The story of these and many other tribulations is atmospherically recounted to coauthor Hettie Jones in Rita Marley's memoir of her years with the great reggae musician, NO WOMAN NO CRY. What is initially a sweet love story starts to go awry once Bob Marley's popularity starts to surge--Rita's accommodation with her husband is the stuff of classic novels, but his treatment of her, which goes beyond infidelity to include beatings, shows the much-lauded singer's dark side. Beset by creditors and freeloaders in equal numbers after his untimely death from cancer in 1981, she finds dealing with the trappings of her late husband's fame a harrowing burden, but, with a survivor's instinct, she emerges with his legacy and her self respect mostly intact. Told in the matter of fact language of a worldly wise matriarch, NO WOMAN NO CRY is a fascinating account of the flip side of the Bob Marley myth. minimize