Recommendations based on "Coming Through Slaughter"

Hailed as "a monumental history . . . more exciting than any novel" (NRC Handelsblad),David van Reybrouck’s rich and gripping epic, in the tradition of Robert Hughes' The Fatal Shore, tells the extraordinary story of one of the world's most devastated countries: the Democratic Republic of Congo. Epic in scope yet eminently readable, penetrating and deeply moving, David van Reybrouck's Congo: The Epic History of a People traces the fate of one of the world's most critical, failed nation-states, second only to war-torn Somalia: the Democratic Republic of Congo.Van Reybrouck takes us through several hundred years of history, bringing some of the most dramatic episodes in Congolese history. Here are the people and events that have impinged the Congo's development—from the slave trade to the ivory and rubber booms; from the arrival of Henry Morton Stanley to the tragic regime of King Leopold II; from global indignation to Belgian colonialism; from the struggle for independence to Mobutu's brutal rule; and from the world famous Rumble in the Jungle to the civil war over natural resources that began in 1996 and still rages today.Van Reybrouck interweaves his own family's history with the voices of a diverse range of individuals—charismatic dictators, feuding warlords, child-soldiers, the elderly, female merchant smugglers, and many in the African diaspora of Europe and China—to offer a deeply humane approach to political history, focusing squarely on the Congolese perspective and returning a nation's history to its people.

Mahlangeni, the Tsonga word for "meeting place", is one of the most remote ranger stations in the Kruger National Park. Far from everywhere, this isolated corner of the wilderness was home for eleven years to Kobie Kruger, wife of the ranger in charge of the station, and their their three daughters. Running a household and raising a family in a place where leopards, elephants, snakes and the like are your only neighbours, where you have no telephone, and where a trip to town means first crossing a river full of hippos and crocodiles, is hardly a straightforward business. But Kobie Kruger tackled each problem with undaunted pragmatism and an energy that gives new meaning to word resourceful.

'A tender and touching love story, beautifully told' Observer 10 Best Debut Novelists of 2021'A beautiful and powerful novel about the true and sometimes painful depths of love' Candice Carty-Williams, bestselling author of QUEENIE'An unforgettable debut... it's Sally Rooney meets Michaela Coel meets Teju Cole' New York Times'A love song to Black art and thought' Yaa Gyasi, bestselling author of HOMEGOING and TRANSCENDENT KINGDOMTwo young people meet at a pub in South East London. Both are Black British, both won scholarships to private schools where they struggled to belong, both are now artists - he a photographer, she a dancer - trying to make their mark in a city that by turns celebrates and rejects them. Tentatively, tenderly, they fall in love. But two people who seem destined to be together can still be torn apart by fear and violence.At once an achingly beautiful love story and a potent insight into race and masculinity, Open Water asks what it means to be a person in a world that sees you only as a Black body, to be vulnerable when you are only respected for strength, to find safety in love, only to lose it. With gorgeous, soulful intensity, Caleb Azumah Nelson has written the most essential British debut of recent years.'An amazing debut novel. You should read this book. Let's hear it for Caleb Azumah Nelson, also known as the future' Benjamin Zephaniah'A very touching and heartfelt book' Diana Evans, award-winning author of ORDINARY PEOPLE'A lyrical modern love story, brilliant on music and art, race and London life, I enjoyed it hugely' David Nicholls, author of ONE DAY and SWEET SORROW'Caleb is a star in the making' Nikesh Shukla, editor of THE GOOD IMMIGRANT and BROWN BABY'A stunning piece of art' Bolu Babalola, bestselling author of LOVE IN COLOUR'For those that are missing the tentative depiction of love in Normal People, Caleb Azumah Nelson's Open Water is set to become one of 2021's unmissable books. Utterly transporting, it'll leave you weeping and in awe.' Stylist'An exhilarating new voice in British fiction' Vogue'A poetic novel about Black identity and first love in the capital from one of Britain's most exciting young voices' Harper's Bazaar'An intense, elegant debut' Guardian

A masterful, intensely moving novel about three friends living in political exile and the emotional homeland that deep friendships can provide - from the Booker-shortlisted, Pulitzer prize-winning author of THE RETURNKhaled and Mustafa meet at university in two Libyan eighteen-year-olds expecting to return home after their studies. In a moment of recklessness and courage, they travel to London to join a demonstration in front of the Libyan embassy. When government officials open fire on protestors in broad daylight, both friends are wounded, and their lives forever changed.Over the years that follow, Khaled, Mustafa and their friend Hosam, a writer, are bound together by their shared history. If friendship is a space to inhabit, theirs becomes small and inhospitable when a revolution in Libya forces them to choose between the lives they have created in London and the lives they left behind.'I have always admired Matar's tender and compassionate but equally strong and compelling voice' Elif Shafak

The true story of one man's fight against corruption: " like a John Le Carré novel" that shows "how and why Kenya descended into political violence" ( Washington Post ). In January 2003, Kenya was hailed as a model of democracy after the peaceful election of President Mwai Kibaki. By appointing respected longtime reformer John Githongo as anticorruption czar, the new Kikuyu government signaled its determination to end the shady practices that had tainted the previous regime. Yet only two years later, Githongo himself was on the run, having secretly compiled evidence of official malfeasance throughout the new administration. Unable to remain silent, Githongo, at great personal risk, made the painful choice to go public. The result was a Kenyan Watergate. Michela Wrong's account of how a pillar of the establishment turned whistle-blower—instantly becoming one of the most hated and admired men in Kenya—grips like a political thriller while probing the very roots of the nation's predicament. "A fast-paced political thriller.... Wrong's gripping, thoughtful book stands as both a tribute to Githongo's courage and a cautionary tale." — New York Times Book Review

About the Author In her award-winning autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942), Zora Neale Hurston claimed to have been born in Eatonville, Florida, in 1901. She was, in fact, born in Notasulga, Alabama, on January 7, 1891, the fifth child of John Hurston (farmer, carpenter, and Baptist preacher) and Lucy Ann Potts (school teacher). The author of numerous books, including Their Eyes Were Watching God, Jonah's Gourd Vine, Mule sand Men, and Moses, Man of the Mountain, Hurston had achieved fame and sparked controversy as a novelist, anthropologist, outspoken essayist, lecturer, and theatrical producer during her sixty-nine years. Hurston's finest work of fiction appeared at a time when artistic and political statements -- whether single sentences or book-length fictions -- were peculiarly conflated. Many works of fiction were informed by purely political motives; political pronouncements frequently appeared in polished literary prose. Hurston's own political statements, relating to racial issues or addressing national politics, did not ingratiate her with her black male contemporaries. The END result was that Their Eyes Were Watching God went out of print not long after its first appearance and remained out of print for nearly thirty years. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., has been one among many to ask: "How could the recipient of two Guggenheims and the author of four novels, a dozen short stories, two musicals, two books on black mythology, dozens of essays, and a prize winning autobiography virtually 'disappear' from her readership for three full decades?" That question remains unanswered. The fact remains that every one of Hurston's books went quickly out of print; and it was only through the determined efforts, in the 1970s, of Alice Walker, Robert Hemenway (Hurston's biographer), Toni Cade Bambara, and other writers and scholars that all of her books are now back in print and that she has taken her rightful place in the pantheon of American authors. In 1973, Walker, distressed that Hurston's writings had been all but forgotten, found Hurston's grave in the Garden of Heavenly Rest and installed a gravemarker. "After loving and teaching her work for a number of years," Walker later reported, "I could not bear that she did not have a known grave." The gravemarker now bears the words that Walker had inscribed there: ZORA NEALE HURSTONGENIUS OF THE SOUTHNOVELIST FOLKLORIST ANTHROPOLOGIST(1891-1960) In BriefZora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was a novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist whose fictional and factual accounts of black heritage are unparalleled. She Is the author of many books, including Their Eyes Were Watching God, Dust Tracks on a Road, Tell My Horse, and Mules and Men.

'Chukwuebuka Ibeh's writing has a certain delicacy to it, so wonderfully observant, and so beautiful' - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 'A sublime coming-of-age tale... an extraordinarily composed and deeply felt debut' - Guardian When Obiefuna's father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and the family's apprentice, newly arrived from the nearby village, he banishes Obiefuna to a Christian boarding school marked by strict hierarchy and routine, devastating violence. Utterly alienated from the people he loves, Obiefuna begins a journey of self-discovery and blossoming desire, while his mother Uzoamaka grapples to hold onto her favourite son, her truest friend. Interweaving the perspectives of Obiefuna and his mother Uzoamaka, as they reach towards a future that will hold them both, BLESSINGS is an elegant and exquisitely moving story of love and loneliness. Asking how we can live freely when politics reaches into our hearts and lives, as well as deep into our consciousness, it is a stunning, searing debut. SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE An excellent debut novel - John Boyne A moving debut about love and loneliness - Sunday Times Wonderful, vivid - Patrick Gale

'A vital work for our times' IRENOSEN OKOJIE 'Beautiful ... this is prose worth spending time with' MARIE CLAIRE 'A gorgeously deeply humane book' NICOLE DENNIS-BENN 'A vivid, stirring revolution' YRSA DALEY-WARD 'The ink practically hovers off the page' KAVEH AKBAR What makes a family? How is it defined and by whom? Is freedom for everyone? Across Lagos, a rolling cast of unforgettable characters seek out love in all its forms, daring to push all other relationships - with partners, family and friends - to the brink in the process. As they form and break unexpected connections, they reveal how they know each other, have loved each other and had their hearts broken in that pursuit. Stubbornly alive and brazenly flawed, they work to establish themselves in the city's worlds of art, music, entertainment and creativity while reckoning with desire, fear, death and God. Here, we witness their collective and individual attempts to grapple with the necessary fictions that they all carry for survival. This is a shimmering, defiant cross-generational portrait of what it means to be queer in contemporary Nigeria. 'Both deeply earnest and unique' VULTURE 'Unabashedly queer, complicated and occasionally outright hopeful' NPR 'Osunde is brilliant at character, giving the cast rich, knotty backstories that unfold in bursts of revelation' TLS 'Necessary Fiction's Nigerians are inseparable from Nigeria itself: brazen, willful, sexy, dynamic, explosive' MARLON JAMES 'Osunde's writing shines ... It's not just beautiful - it's transformative' BASSEY IKPI

Powerful, compassionate and ultimately hopeful. Observer WINNER OF THE COSTA CHILDREN'S BOOK AWARD 2021 and the Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week - a trailblazing novel about two teenagers from opposite worlds; The Crossing is a profound story of hope, grief, and the very real tragedies of the refugee crisis. The sea carries our pain. The stars carry our future. Natalie's world is falling apart. She's just lost her mum and her brother marches the streets of Dover full of hate and anger. Swimming is her only refuge. Sammy has fled his home and family in Eritrea for the chance of a new life in Europe. Every step he takes on his journey is a step into an unknown and unwelcoming future. A twist of fate brings them together and gives them both hope. But is hope enough to mend a broken world? 'Skilful, involving and important, this deserves it's accolades' The Sunday Times'Powerful, uplifting, hopeful' Guardian

What is the What is Dave Eggers's astonishing novel about one of the world's most brutal civil wars Valentino Achak Deng is just a boy when conflict separates him from his family and forces him to leave his small Sudanese village, joining thousands of other orphans on their long, long walk to Ethiopia, where they find safety - for a time. Along the way Valentino encounters enemy soldiers, liberation rebels and deadly militias, hyenas and lions, disease and starvation. But there are experiences ahead that will test his spirit in even greater ways than these . . . Truly epic in scope, and told with expansive humanity, deep compassion and unexpected humour, What is the What is an eye-opening account of life amid the madness of war and an unforgettable tale of tragedy and triumph. 'If there was ever any doubt that Dave Eggers is one of our most important storytellers, What Is the What should put it to rest... [A] strange, beautiful and unforgettable work' San Francisco Chronicle 'A remarkable book: harrowing, witty, wretched, delightful; and always compelling, always surprising' London Review of Books All of the author's proceeds from this book will go to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation. Read more at: www.valentinoachakdeng.com.