Black Speculative fiction

Book Synopsis''The forerunner of an entire school of African literary art.' Sunday TimesThose men who are history now; did they feel like this? A 1950s Hampstead pub; a freezing night. Lois can''t tear her eyes away from the haunted, restless African man in the corner. Over brandy and stew, she discovers he is in awe of her friend, Panafrica''s greatest political writer and fighter. Their meeting inducts this stranger, Udomo, into London''s revolutionary community of exiled African activists: the start of a life-changing journey. Amidst the internal politics and love affairs, Udomo is inspired by other leaders'' independence uprisings; but when he returns to his native land to overthrow the colonial oppressors, his idealism is put to the ultimate test ... Inspired by Peter Abrahams'' befriending of future African heads of state in mid-century London, A Wreath for Udomo (1956) is a radical lost classic, unforgettably expTrade Review'An African writer, a writer of the world, who opened up in South Africa a path of exploration for us, the writers who have followed the trail he bravely blazed.' - Nadine Gordimer'Abrahams explored with sensitivity and passion, the injustices of apartheid and the complexities of racial politics . An important literary voice.' - New York Times'He writes with vividness and great dignity . The forerunner of an entire school of African literary art.' - Sunday Times'With all that has been written about Africa, hardly anything has been said about the most significant people of all - the African leaders, revolutionaries one moment, Prime Ministers the next. This unusual novel, written with a close and sympathetic knowledge, gives a fascinating insight into these men.' - Observer'Intelligent and exciting . Written with skill and sympathy.' - TLS

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Book SynopsisStrange and speculative, this 1934 pan-Africanist novel conveys the complexities of Black internationalism in the interwar yearsTrade Review'Bilbija and Lubin have made an outstanding contribution to literary Pan-Africanism by reintroducing the obscure Pan-African novel of Duse Mohamed Ali. This once influential Pan-Africanist ... a significant influencer, introduced Islam and the history of Africa to members of the UNIA. His novel and the accompanying essays make a welcome addition to the field.' -- Rey Bowen, University of Chichester'A compelling addition to the canon of Pan-African creative writing from the 1930s. The engaging, informative essays by the editors show how Ali brought to life core themes of African American literature for readers in colonial Africa.' -- Stephanie Newell, George M. Bodman Professor of English, Yale University'Ali's creative intellectual productivity was a major force in early twentieth-century pan-Africanism. The introductory material by Alex Lubin and Marina Bilbija offer essential tools for today's readers to appreciate this extraordinary, yet previously inaccessible, novel and its author. Reading this text through the multi-continental circuits of both its author's travels and the novel's protagonists, we recalibrate our own grid of pan-African literary productivity.' -- Dr. Leslie James, Queen Mary University of London'In recovering this daringly speculative serial novel by Duse Mohamed Ali, Lubin and Bilbija have excavated a landmark of literary Pan-Africanism while capturing the vibrancy of transatlantic Black periodical networks in the 1930s.' -- Brent Hayes Edwards, author of 'The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the rise of Black Internationalism'Table of Contentsi. Duse Mohamed Ali, West African print culture and an emergent pan-African literary formation ii. Duse Mohamed Ali in the history of pan-Africanism, pan-Islamism, and the Third World movement 1. Ere Roosevelt Came Appendix of other writings by Ali

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022.Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying ill-fated passengers in a haunted car: a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River.Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash-reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school, but still questioning what and who he saw-has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man," who somehow appears each time he goes there.When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys's door one day bearing a cryptic note about his unusual conversations with the River Man, Nephthys must face both the family she abandoned and what frightens her most when she looks in the mirror.Creatures of Passage beautifully threads together the stories of Nephthys, Dash, and others both living and dead. Morowa Yejidé's deeply captivating novel shows us an unseen Washington, D.C., filled with otherworldly landscapes, flawed super-humans, and reluctant ghosts, and brings together a community intent on saving one young boy in order to reclaim themselves.Trade ReviewIn this beautifully written and gloriously conceived novel, Morowa Yejide reveals her mastery yet again. This novel is both contemporary and ancient, frightening and stirring, playful and wise, an unforgettable blurring of reality and genres from its haunted Plymouth automobile to the mysteries in the fog in this alternate America and hidden Washington, DC. With its lyricism and bold imagination, Creatures of Passage is unlike anything you've ever read. * Tananarive Due, author of Ghost Summer: Stories *Comparisons will be made to Toni Morrison and they will be well founded, but Morowa Yejide is in a class of her own with Creatures of Passage, a mesmerizing tale about love, loss, revenge, death, and restoration that hovers close to the edge of fantasy yet is deeply grounded in history and in a reality easily recognizable in the contemporary world. * Elizabeth Nunez, author of Even in Paradise *Although set in our recent past, Creatures of Passage is at heart a powerful ghost story about people haunted by the shadows of time and the shadows of blood. In the pages of this novel we discover a world that is fully recognizable, as concrete and real as Toni Morrison's Ohio, but also as fantastic and mythical as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Macondo. That said, make no mistake: Morowa Yejide is a masterful storyteller in her own right, able to spin and sustain an inventive tale illuminated by a singular truth, that death is 'another form of living. * Jeffery Renard Allen, author of Song of the Shank *

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Book SynopsisLonglisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2022.Nephthys Kinwell is a taxi driver of sorts in Washington, DC, ferrying ill-fated passengers in a haunted car: a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere with a ghost in the trunk. Endless rides and alcohol help her manage her grief over the death of her twin brother, Osiris, who was murdered and dumped in the Anacostia River.Unknown to Nephthys when the novel opens in 1977, her estranged great-nephew, ten-year-old Dash, is finding himself drawn to the banks of that very same river. It is there that Dash-reeling from having witnessed an act of molestation at his school, but still questioning what and who he saw-has charmed conversations with a mysterious figure he calls the "River Man," who somehow appears each time he goes there.When Dash arrives unexpectedly at Nephthys's door one day bearing a cryptic note about his unusual conversations with the River Man, Nephthys must face both the family she abandoned and what frightens her most when she looks in the mirror.Creatures of Passage beautifully threads together the stories of Nephthys, Dash, and others both living and dead. Morowa Yejidé's deeply captivating novel shows us an unseen Washington, D.C., filled with otherworldly landscapes, flawed super-humans, and reluctant ghosts, and brings together a community intent on saving one young boy in order to reclaim themselves.Trade ReviewIn this beautifully written and gloriously conceived novel, Morowa Yejide reveals her mastery yet again. This novel is both contemporary and ancient, frightening and stirring, playful and wise, an unforgettable blurring of reality and genres from its haunted Plymouth automobile to the mysteries in the fog in this alternate America and hidden Washington, DC. With its lyricism and bold imagination, Creatures of Passage is unlike anything you've ever read. * Tananarive Due, author of Ghost Summer: Stories *Comparisons will be made to Toni Morrison and they will be well founded, but Morowa Yejide is in a class of her own with Creatures of Passage, a mesmerizing tale about love, loss, revenge, death, and restoration that hovers close to the edge of fantasy yet is deeply grounded in history and in a reality easily recognizable in the contemporary world. * Elizabeth Nunez, author of Even in Paradise *Although set in our recent past, Creatures of Passage is at heart a powerful ghost story about people haunted by the shadows of time and the shadows of blood. In the pages of this novel we discover a world that is fully recognizable, as concrete and real as Toni Morrison's Ohio, but also as fantastic and mythical as Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Macondo. That said, make no mistake: Morowa Yejide is a masterful storyteller in her own right, able to spin and sustain an inventive tale illuminated by a singular truth, that death is 'another form of living. * Jeffery Renard Allen, author of Song of the Shank *

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