‘Rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader’s heart’ — Maya Angelou. Winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize for Literature 2018, Maryse Conde’s sweeping epic is a novel of family, treachery, rivalry, religious fervour and the turbulent fate of a royal African dynasty. The year is 1797. The kingdom of Segu, born of blood and violence, stands at the height of its power — yet Dousika Traore, the king’s most trusted advisor, is gripped by dread. He can feel change bearing down from two directions at once: Islam advancing from the East, the slave trade pressing in from the West. Together these forces will tear apart his country, his village and the lives of his beloved sons. ‘A stunning reaffirmation of Africa and its peoples… It’s a starburst’ — John A. Williams. Bernardine Evaristo, herself a Nobel laureate, captures the novel’s hold on the reader perfectly: ‘Maryse Conde is an extraordinary storyteller who brings the history of an African kingdom alive as vividly as if it existed today. . . This is a great novel: unputdownable and unforgettable.’
ISBN 13: 9780241293515
Author: Maryse Conde
