It is a dual narrative story about a Nigerian asylum-seeker and a British magazine editor, who meet during the oil conflict in the Niger Delta, and are re-united in England several years later.
Cleave, inspired as a university student by his temporary employment in an asylum detention centre, wrote the book in an attempt to humanise the plight of asylum-seekers in Britain.
Sales were initially slow, but increased as a result of "word-of-mouth" publicity, with the book eventually ranking 13th on the 2009 Sunday Times bestseller list.
After being detained in an immigration centre for four years, officials decided to forcibly deport Bravo and his son back to Angola the next morning.
[2] Cleave explained: I think the job is important because there's something you can do in fiction that you don't have the space to do in news media, which is to give back a measure of humanity to the subjects of an ongoing story.
[2]Using alternating first-person perspectives, the novel tells the stories of Little Bee, a Nigerian refugee, and Sarah O'Rourke (née Summers), a magazine editor from Surrey.
The trip was an attempt to salvage their marriage after Andrew discovered Sarah had been unfaithful to him, embarking on an affair with Home Office employee Lawrence Osborn.
The soldiers arrived and murdered a guard from the O'Rourkes' hotel, but offered to spare the lives of the girls if Andrew would amputate his own middle finger with a machete.
Little Bee explains that although Nkiruka was gang raped, murdered, and cannibalised by the soldiers, she was allowed to escape, and stowed away in the cargo hold of a ship bound for England.
Critics have focused on the contrast between the two, with Caroline Elkins of The New York Times commenting that Sarah might initially appear "insipid" to readers, and that when juxtaposed with Little Bee, she seems "unsympathetic, even tiresome".
[5] Tim Teeman of The Times deemed Sarah "batty, bizarre and inconsistent, and despite the tragedy she has suffered, unsympathetic", while writing that in contrast: "Goodness peppers every atom of [Little Bee's] being.
"[7] Ed Lake of The Daily Telegraph felt that "Bee's arch reasonableness and implausibly picturesque speech mean she often comes off as a too-cute cipher", and ultimately found Sarah the more convincing character.
Cleave feels there exists a "general lethargy" about the way asylum-seekers are treated in Britain, and though he believes he is not a political writer, the book begins with an extract from a 2005 UK Home Office publication entitled "United Kingdom: A Journey to Citizenship".
"[11] Although Cleave did not intend for the novel to be heavily political, he felt it was important to raise the issue, given the refugee subject matter of The Other Hand.
[5] Margot Kaminski of the San Francisco Chronicle similarly feels that the book delivered a message of anti-complacency, however believes that it does so by "bemoaning the normality of the First World in the face of the horrors of the Third.
"[2] Kaminski accused Cleave of cultural appropriation, asking rhetorically: "When a white male author writes as a young Nigerian girl, is it an act of empathy, or identity theft?
He conducted interviews with actual asylum seekers and illegal immigrants, a psychiatrist specialising in the trauma of child refugees, and members of London's Nigerian community, researching speech patterns to shape the "quirks and cadences" of Little Bee's narrative voice.
Cleave uses the girls as a Greek chorus, providing a foil to allow the cultural dissonance experienced by Little Bee to be made explicit.
[2] Through Little Bee's narration, Cleave examines human culture from the opposite perspective as science fiction does, having an extraordinary protagonist explore an ordinary world.
This contemporary realism gives a significance to mundane events experienced by Little Bee, while bringing into focus "sad and ignoble" aspects of English culture such as the detention system.
"[2] Courteau compared The Other Hand to Ian McEwan's Enduring Love observing that both novels are formed around "a single horrific encounter", and praised Cleave for his "restrained, diamond-hard prose".
[13] Philip drew a different comparison, opining that Cleave's writing style—using plain language to describe atrocities— was reminiscent of John Boyne's The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.
"[19][21] James Spackman, Sales and Marketing Director for Sceptre, was initially sceptical of the blurb, particularly disliking the use of "we" for the publisher to address the reader directly.
Once the book became a best-seller, however, he revised his stance, and now believes that the reason the blurb works is because it makes a virtue of denying the reader information, with an unusual format and "arrestingly direct" tone.
[29] It was nominated for the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize as the best book originating from Europe and South Asia,[30] but lost to Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.
"[5] James Urquhart of The Independent called the book "a powerful piece of art",[35] writing: "Besides sharp, witty dialogue, an emotionally charged plot and the vivid characters' ethical struggles, The Other Hand delivers a timely challenge to reinvigorate our notions of civilised decency".
[35] Equally, Andrew Rosenheim of Publishers Weekly found the book noteworthy for Cleave's "ability to find a redemptive grace in the midst of almost inconceivable horror.
"[36] while Jeremy Jehu of The Daily Telegraph deemed it an "elegant parable" and a "challenge to every cosy, knee-jerk liberal inclined to spout off about our shared humanity and global obligations.
"[37] A separate Daily Telegraph review, this by critic Ed Lake, took a dissimilar stance, opining that that book is "pervaded by a vaguely distasteful glossiness", and that "if Cleave is writing from great depths of feeling, he hides it well."
"[38] Teeman of The Times felt that the book was overwritten, and wished "twistedly" that it had a less positive conclusion, commenting: "With every motive and action explicitly drawn, fleshed out and explained, there is no room for mystery, ambiguity or even tension.