With supreme skill and reverence, capturing shards, stillness and chaos, Fatin Abbas delivers a novel that gallops close and parallel to current events in Sudan.
A dynamic, beautifully orchestrated debut novel connecting five characters caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.
A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden d... Read More
With supreme skill and reverence, capturing shards, stillness and chaos, Fatin Abbas delivers a novel that gallops close and parallel to current events in Sudan.
A dynamic, beautifully orchestrated debut novel connecting five characters caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.
A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden d... Read More
Description
With supreme skill and reverence, capturing shards, stillness and chaos, Fatin Abbas delivers a novel that gallops close and parallel to current events in Sudan.
A dynamic, beautifully orchestrated debut novel connecting five characters caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.
A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden disappearance of cook Layla, a northern nomad with whom he's fallen in love. Meanwhile, Sudanese American filmmaker Dena struggles to connect to her unfamiliar homeland, and white midwestern aid worker Alex finds his plans thwarted by a changing climate and looming civil war. Dancing between the adults is Mustafa, a clever, endearing twelve-year-old, whose schemes to rise out of poverty set off cataclysmic events on the compound.
Amid the paradoxes of identity, art, humanitarian aid, and a territory riven by conflict, William, Layla, Dena, Alex, and Mustafa must forge bonds stronger than blood or identity. Weaving a sweeping history of the breakup of Sudan into the lives of these captivating characters, Fatin Abbas explores the porous and perilous nature of borders?whether they be national, ethnic, or religious?and the profound consequences for those who cross them. Ghost Season is a gripping, vivid debut that announces Abbas as a powerful new voice in fiction.
Details
Price: $23.00
Pages: 350
Publisher: Jacaranda books
Imprint: Jacaranda Books
Publication Date: 25th July 2023
Trim Size: 162 x 238 mm
ISBN: 9781914344763
Format: Trade binding
Reviews
Immersive and astonishing, Ghost Season brings alive with brilliant specificity the South Sudanese border town of Saraaya, and an unforgettable cast of characters linked by circumstance and fate. Fatin Abbas is a remarkable writer, and this novel an extraordinary debut.
- Claire Messud, best-selling author of The Burning Girl and The Emperor’s Children
A novel that will have you gripped from the first page, Ghost Season is a haunting and necessary story, skilfully told. Fatin Abbas's writing is so evocative that it transports you to Sudan and leaves you deeply immersed and invested in the lives of each character.
This is a story of war and violence, but is also one of hope and humanity.
With Ghost Season Fatin Abbas joins a rare breed of writers who upon debut cement their status as a master storyteller.
- Samira Sawlani
[A] remarkable debut... The sense of place is powerful, the characters superbly drawn.
- Michael Sears, The Big Thrill
Abbas adds just the right amount of sense of place to paint the scene and the cultures without letting it get in the way of her characters and their stories. Ghost Season is a wonderful debut from a truly talented writer. This is an author to watch and, above all, to read.
- Michael Sears, New York Journal of Books
Abbas' first novel gets an A for its evocation of setting...
- Booklist
Abbas skillfully navigates boundaries between the disparate players and builds a fine drama out of their negotiations and bonds. Readers will be captivated by this immersive novel.
- Publisher's Weekly
a daring debut
- New York Times
A triumph of storytelling: richly imagined, finely wrought and filled with such vivid, wondrous characters. I finished this book and immediately wanted to read it again. Abbas is a writer of prodigious powers.
- Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, author of House of Stone
Utterly mesmerizing, and a brilliant depiction of the blurry psychological and physical borders that divide Sudan and South Sudan. An extremely promising and important first novel.
- Dave Eggers author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and The Eyes and the Impossible
Immersive and astonishing, GHOST SEASON brings alive with brilliant specificity the South Sudanese border town of Saraaya, and an unforgettable cast of characters linked by circumstance and fate. Fatin Abbas is a remarkable writer, and this novel an extraordinary debut.
- Claire Messud, best-selling author of The Burning Girl and The Emperor’s Children
Ghost Season travels that narrow road between austere and gut-wrenching, and does it with incomparable grace. From the first words of this gorgeous novel to the last, Fatin Abbas holds us spellbound, immersed in the lives and the world that unfolds in its pages. Beyond the debris of war and displacement, she reminds us, rests something else that can never be truly extinguished: hope.
- Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize
With supreme skill and reverence, capturing shards, stillness and chaos, Fatin Abbas delivers a novel that gallops close and parallel to current events in Sudan. The most vivid of images, the most likable of characters - Ghost Season is a compelling, detailed portrait of humanity under threat from war, climate change and personal ambition.
- Leila Aboulela, author of River Spirit
Ghost Season is a gripping debut from Fatin Abbas about the porous and perilous nature of human made borders.
- Chicago Review of Books
Author Bio
Fatin Abbas' novel, GHOST SEASON, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton (US & Canada) and Jacaranda (UK) in 2023. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, Freeman's, The Warwick Review, and Friction, and her journalism and review essays have appeared in Le Monde diplomatique, The Nation, Zeit Online, Africa is a Country, Bidoun, African Arguments and openDemocracy, among other places. She has been a Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholar (UK), a Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude and Schloss Wiepersdorf (Germany), a Writer-in-Residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation (Switzerland), a Maison Baldwin St. Paul de Vence Writer-in-Residence (France), an Austrian Federal Chancellery/KulturKontakt Artist-in-Residence (Austria), as well as a Mophradat writing grant awardee. Born in Khartoum, Sudan and raised in New York, she gained her BA in English from the University of Cambridge, her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College, the City University of New York, where she was awarded both the Bernard Cohen Short Story Prize and the Miriam Weinberg Richter Award for her writing. In 2023, she will join the faculty of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT, where she will be teaching fiction writing.
With supreme skill and reverence, capturing shards, stillness and chaos, Fatin Abbas delivers a novel that gallops close and parallel to current events in Sudan.
A dynamic, beautifully orchestrated debut novel connecting five characters caught in the crosshairs of conflict on the Sudanese border.
A mysterious burnt corpse appears one morning in Saraaya, a remote border town between northern and southern Sudan. For five strangers on an NGO compound, the discovery foreshadows trouble to come. South Sudanese translator William connects the corpse to the sudden disappearance of cook Layla, a northern nomad with whom he's fallen in love. Meanwhile, Sudanese American filmmaker Dena struggles to connect to her unfamiliar homeland, and white midwestern aid worker Alex finds his plans thwarted by a changing climate and looming civil war. Dancing between the adults is Mustafa, a clever, endearing twelve-year-old, whose schemes to rise out of poverty set off cataclysmic events on the compound.
Amid the paradoxes of identity, art, humanitarian aid, and a territory riven by conflict, William, Layla, Dena, Alex, and Mustafa must forge bonds stronger than blood or identity. Weaving a sweeping history of the breakup of Sudan into the lives of these captivating characters, Fatin Abbas explores the porous and perilous nature of borders?whether they be national, ethnic, or religious?and the profound consequences for those who cross them. Ghost Season is a gripping, vivid debut that announces Abbas as a powerful new voice in fiction.
Price: $23.00
Pages: 350
Publisher: Jacaranda books
Imprint: Jacaranda Books
Publication Date: 25th July 2023
Trim Size: 162 x 238 mm
ISBN: 9781914344763
Format: Trade binding
Immersive and astonishing, Ghost Season brings alive with brilliant specificity the South Sudanese border town of Saraaya, and an unforgettable cast of characters linked by circumstance and fate. Fatin Abbas is a remarkable writer, and this novel an extraordinary debut.
– Claire Messud, best-selling author of The Burning Girl and The Emperor’s Children
A novel that will have you gripped from the first page, Ghost Season is a haunting and necessary story, skilfully told. Fatin Abbas's writing is so evocative that it transports you to Sudan and leaves you deeply immersed and invested in the lives of each character.
This is a story of war and violence, but is also one of hope and humanity.
With Ghost Season Fatin Abbas joins a rare breed of writers who upon debut cement their status as a master storyteller.
– Samira Sawlani
[A] remarkable debut... The sense of place is powerful, the characters superbly drawn.
– Michael Sears, The Big Thrill
Abbas adds just the right amount of sense of place to paint the scene and the cultures without letting it get in the way of her characters and their stories. Ghost Season is a wonderful debut from a truly talented writer. This is an author to watch and, above all, to read.
– Michael Sears, New York Journal of Books
Abbas' first novel gets an A for its evocation of setting...
– Booklist
Abbas skillfully navigates boundaries between the disparate players and builds a fine drama out of their negotiations and bonds. Readers will be captivated by this immersive novel.
– Publisher's Weekly
a daring debut
– New York Times
A triumph of storytelling: richly imagined, finely wrought and filled with such vivid, wondrous characters. I finished this book and immediately wanted to read it again. Abbas is a writer of prodigious powers.
– Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, author of House of Stone
Utterly mesmerizing, and a brilliant depiction of the blurry psychological and physical borders that divide Sudan and South Sudan. An extremely promising and important first novel.
– Dave Eggers author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and The Eyes and the Impossible
Immersive and astonishing, GHOST SEASON brings alive with brilliant specificity the South Sudanese border town of Saraaya, and an unforgettable cast of characters linked by circumstance and fate. Fatin Abbas is a remarkable writer, and this novel an extraordinary debut.
– Claire Messud, best-selling author of The Burning Girl and The Emperor’s Children
Ghost Season travels that narrow road between austere and gut-wrenching, and does it with incomparable grace. From the first words of this gorgeous novel to the last, Fatin Abbas holds us spellbound, immersed in the lives and the world that unfolds in its pages. Beyond the debris of war and displacement, she reminds us, rests something else that can never be truly extinguished: hope.
– Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King, shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize
With supreme skill and reverence, capturing shards, stillness and chaos, Fatin Abbas delivers a novel that gallops close and parallel to current events in Sudan. The most vivid of images, the most likable of characters - Ghost Season is a compelling, detailed portrait of humanity under threat from war, climate change and personal ambition.
– Leila Aboulela, author of River Spirit
Ghost Season is a gripping debut from Fatin Abbas about the porous and perilous nature of human made borders.
– Chicago Review of Books
Fatin Abbas' novel, GHOST SEASON, is forthcoming from W.W. Norton (US & Canada) and Jacaranda (UK) in 2023. Her short fiction has appeared in Granta, Freeman's, The Warwick Review, and Friction, and her journalism and review essays have appeared in Le Monde diplomatique, The Nation, Zeit Online, Africa is a Country, Bidoun, African Arguments and openDemocracy, among other places. She has been a Miles Morland Foundation Writing Scholar (UK), a Fellow at the Akademie Schloss Solitude and Schloss Wiepersdorf (Germany), a Writer-in-Residence at the Jan Michalski Foundation (Switzerland), a Maison Baldwin St. Paul de Vence Writer-in-Residence (France), an Austrian Federal Chancellery/KulturKontakt Artist-in-Residence (Austria), as well as a Mophradat writing grant awardee. Born in Khartoum, Sudan and raised in New York, she gained her BA in English from the University of Cambridge, her PhD in Comparative Literature from Harvard University, and her MFA in Creative Writing from Hunter College, the City University of New York, where she was awarded both the Bernard Cohen Short Story Prize and the Miriam Weinberg Richter Award for her writing. In 2023, she will join the faculty of Comparative Media Studies/Writing at MIT, where she will be teaching fiction writing.
From Elephant and Castle to Southwark, from London Bridge to Westminster, Black History Walks takes you to historic locations around the city of London and gives in-depth historical context for each place, illuminating the presence of Black history throughout Britain's capital city.
In this guide, you'll get: - Comprehensive coverage of historical places in London that have a relationship with Africa; -How the most touristic attractions are actually hidden gems from Africa; - Connections to places with African roots in this British metropolis; - Walking tour routes that can be self-walked or done in tandem with the official Black History Walks tour.
A Quick Ting On: Afrobeats
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Afrobeats is a fast-growing genre, one that has carved out a distinct and powerful Black identity rooted within the African continent.
The first book of its kind, A Quick Ting On: Afrobeats chronicles the social and cultural development of the eponymous music genre, tracing its rich history from the African continent all the way to the musical centre of the Western world.
This exciting new book takes a unique look at the music of the African diaspora and their children, delving into how Afrobeats and its sub-genres have provided new articulations of Black identity and pride. It remembers the Afrobeats pioneers and memorable cultural moments, as well as investigating the impact of African migration, travel and modernisation on the genre.
A Quick Ting On: Afrobeats provides an insightful look at how Afrobeats became the explosive music genre it is today.
MANDEM
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A Quick Ting On: The Black Girl Afro
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Black Women's hair is a topic that has been at the centre of contemporary conversation for some time. This informative book explores the rich cultural history of Black Womens' Afros, weaving in anecdotal tales from Black women along the way.
Exploring the ways in which Black women's natural hair is often politicised and judged, A Quick Ting On The Black Girl Afro chronicles the ways in which the styling of Black Women's hair has influenced popular culture and intersected with Black expression.
Complete with intimate interviews and real-life stories about natural hair journeys and the hunt for hair products, A Quick Ting On The Black Girl Afro is a powerful exploration into the Black Woman's Afro - celebrating the versatility and diversity of Black women's natural hair.
A Quick Ting On: Plantain
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As seen in Grazia, the Guardian, and more...
Recognised as one of the most beloved fruits of the Black diaspora, Plantain holds profound value within the cultures and communities it is part of.
Compiled for the first time in one vibrant volume, A Quick Ting On: Plantain is an infectious cultural insight into the versatile fruit. Discover its contested historical origins, its multilingual etymology, the biochemistry that sets Plantain apart from regular bananas and, yes, the War of Pronunciation... Is it Plan-tain or Plan-tin?
Containing recipes from across the African continent, the Caribbean, Latin America and South Asia, author Rui Da Silva paints an astonishing international history of Plantain - celebrating food within Black households across the globe as an intimate marker of identity and culture.
From recent developments in farming practices to the effects of food gentrification on working-class Afro-Caribbean communities, Rui also explores the politics behind Plantain. Inflation, Fairtrade, and climate change all have a part to play in the ongoing journey of this coveted fruit.
Unifying stories of innovation, hardship and, above all, love, A Quick Ting On: Plantain is a delicious ode to the intersection of food, culture and humanity.
LOTE
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WINNER of the James Tait Black Prize 2021 and The Republic of Consciousness Prize 2021.
As seen in Document Journal,Guardian and The White Review
Lush and frothy, incisive and witty, Shola von Reinhold's decadent queer literary debut immerses readers in the pursuit of aesthetics and beauty, while interrogating the removal and obscurement of Black figures from history.
Solitary Mathilda has long been enamored with the 'Bright Young Things' of the 20s, and throughout her life, her attempts at reinvention have mirrored their extravagance and artfulness. After discovering a photograph of the forgotten Black modernist poet Hermia Druitt, who ran in the same circles as the Bright Young Things that she adores, Mathilda becomes transfixed and resolves to learn as much as she can about the mysterious figure. Her search brings her to a peculiar artists' residency in Dun, a small European town Hermia was known to have lived in during the 30s. The artists' residency throws her deeper into a lattice of secrets and secret societies that takes hold of her aesthetic imagination, but will she be able to break the thrall of her Transfixions?
From champagne theft and Black Modernisms, to art sabotage, alchemy and lotus-eating proto-luxury communist cults, Mathilda's journey through modes of aesthetic expression guides her to truth and the convoluted ways it is made and obscured.