Longlisted for the Orange Prize 2011 'Haunting' Telegraph 'A story for all the senses' Aminatta Forna 'A superb family epic . . . vivid, beautifully original' The Herald Set in 1950s Sudan, Lyrics Alley is the story of the powerful and sprawling Abuzeid dynasty. With Mahmoud Bey at its helm, the family can do no wrong. But when Mahmoud's son, Nur - the brilliant, charming heir to his business empire - suffers a near-fatal accident, his hopes of university and a glittering future are dashed. Subsequently, his betrothal to his cousin and sweetheart, Soraya is broken off. As British rule is comin... continue
Read the story that has inspired millions The desert, I remember. The shrieking hyenas, I remember....I remember playing soccer with rocks, and a strange man telling me and my brother Tewolde that we had to go on a trip and Tewolde refusing to go. The man took out a piece of gum and Tewolde happily traded it for his homeland.... So begins the remarkable true story of a young boy's journey from civil war in east Africa to a refugee camp in Sudan, to a childhood on welfare in an affluent American suburb, and eventually to a full-tuition scholarship at Harvard University. Following his father's a... continue
A sensuous, textured novel of life in a refugee camp, long-listed for the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction On a hill overlooking a refugee camp in Sudan, a young man strings up bedsheets that, in an act of imaginative resilience, will serve as a screen in his silent cinema. From the cinema he can see all the comings and goings in the camp, especially those of two new arrivals: a girl named Saba, and her mute brother, Hagos. For these siblings, adapting to life in the camp is not easy. Saba mourns the future she lost when she was forced to abandon school, while Hagos, scorned for his inabilit... continue
Moving from Khartoum, Sudan, to Washington, D.C., and then across the US in a road trip unlike any other, this is a book about music, friendship and the desire for home
While researching the life of Imam Shamil, a nineteenth-century Muslim leader who led a resistance against Russia during the Caucasian War, a history professor discovers that one of her students is descended from the historical figure and also possesses his priceless sword.
Although they work in the same department at Aberdeen University, she as a translator, he as a lecturer in Postcolonial Politics, Sammar and Rae live in worlds divided by simple facts