Recommendations based on "The Lowland"

Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, as a vicious civil war subsumes Sri Lanka, her dream takes her on a different path as she watches those around her, including her four beloved brothers and their best friend, get swept up in violent political ideologies and their consequences. She must ask herself: is it possible for anyone to move through life without doing harm?

A Young Woman From Nigeria Leaves Behind Her Home And Her First Love To Start A New Life In America, Only To Find Her Dreams Are Not All She Expected. Ifemelu -- Beautiful, Self-assured -- Left Nigeria 15 Years Ago, And Now Studies In Princeton As A Graduate Fellow. She Seems To Have Fulfilled Every Immigrant's Dream: Ivy League Education; Success As A Writer Of A Popular Political Blog; Money For The Things She Needs. But What Came Before Is More Like A Nightmare: Painful Departure From Family; Humiliating Jobs Under A False Name. She Feels For The First Time The Weight Of Something She Didn't Think About Back Home: Race. Obinze -- Handsome And Kind-hearted -- Was Ifemelu's Teenage Love. He'd Hoped To Join Her In America, But Post-9/11 America Wouldn't Take Him. His Journey Leads Him Through Back Alleys Of Illegal Employment In London; To A Fake Marriage For The Sake Of A Work Card; And Finally To A Set Of Handcuffs As He Is Exposed And Deported. Yet Once Home He Too Finds Success -- As The Kind Of 'big Man' In Lagos He'd Scorned In His Youth. One Day, Answering A Text Message From Obinze That She Cannot Resist, Ifemelu Decides To Return Home, Only To Discover She's Become An 'americanah' -- A Different Version Of Herself, One With A New Accent And Attitude. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

*a Washington Post Best Book Of January 2025* *a Book Of The Month Pick For January 2025* *from The Viral Clark Atlanta University Commencement Speaker* *from The Georgia Author Of The Year Award Winner* “isaac's Song Is The Lullaby We All Need And The Healing Balm For Generations To Come.” —joyce White, Author Of Ecology, Spirituality, And Cosmology In Edwidge Danticat The Beloved Author Of Don’t Cry For Me And Perfect Peace Returns With A Poignant, Emotionally Exuberant Novel About A Young Queer Black Man Finding His Voice In 1980s Chicago Isaac Is At A Crossroads In His Young Life. Growing Up In Missouri, The Son Of A Caustic, Hard-driving Father, He Was Conditioned To Suppress His Artistic Pursuits And Physical Desires. But Now, In Late ’80s Chicago, Isaac Has Finally Carved Out A Life Of His Own And Built Up The Courage To Seek Out A Community. Yet Just As He Begins To Embrace Who He Is, Two Social Catalysts—the Aids Crisis And Rodney King’s Attack—collectively Extinguish His Hard-earned Joy. At A Therapist’s Encouragement, Isaac Begins To Write Down His Story. As He Taps Into His Creative Energy, He Commences A Journey Back To His Family, His Ancestral Home In Arkansas And The Inherited Trauma Of The Past. But A Surprise Discovery Will Either Unlock The Truths He’s Seeking Or Threaten To Derail The Life He’s Fought So Hard To Claim. Poignant, Sweeping, And Luminously Told, Isaac's Song Is A Return To The Beloved Characters Of Don’t Cry For Me And A High-water Mark In The Career Of An Award-winning Author.

From one of the greatest writers of the modern era, an intimate and essential collection of personal essays on home, identity, and colonialism Chinua Achebe’s characteristically eloquent and nuanced voice is everywhere present in these seventeen beautifully written pieces. From a vivid portrait of growing up in colonial Nigeria to considerations on the African-American Diaspora, from a glimpse into his extraordinary family life and his thoughts on the potent symbolism of President Obama’s elections—this charmingly personal, intellectually disciplined, and steadfastly wise collection is an indispensable addition to the remarkable Achebe oeuvre.

A renowned healer and shaman’s life-changing journey of discovery, healing, and wisdom“Malidoma has kept faith with the ancestors and with his own heart. His journey is a shimmering ‘missing piece’ in the story of the earth.” —Alice WalkerWhen he was a young boy growing up in Burkina Faso, Malidoma Somé was taken from his village and brought to a Jesuit mission school, where he spent years being harshly indoctrinated in European ways of thought and worship. In this vivid and paradigm-shifting memoir, Malidoma recounts his journey home—and his initiation into the healing traditions of the Dagara culture, where the natural and supernatural blend together, and every person is encircled by family, community, and the wisdom of ancestors.By turns humbling, harrowing, magical, and transcendent, Malidoma’s spiritual awakening imparted ancient wisdom that he would spend the rest of his life sharing with others around the world—as an antidote to alienation, a tool for self-transformation, and a bridge between cultures and worlds.

In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past—memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

“The Power of One has everything: suspense, the exotic, violence; mysticism, psychology and magic; schoolboy adventures, drama.”–The New York Times“Unabashedly uplifting . . . asserts forcefully what all of us would like to believe: that the individual, armed with the spirit of independence–‘the power of one’–can prevail.”–Cleveland Plain DealerIn 1939, as Hitler casts his enormous, cruel shadow across the world, the seeds of apartheid take root in South Africa. There, a boy called Peekay is born. His childhood is marked by humiliation and abandonment, yet he vows to survive and conceives heroic dreams–which are nothing compared to what life actually has in store for him. He embarks on an epic journey through a land of tribal superstition and modern prejudice where he will learn the power of words, the power to transform lives, and the power of one.“Totally engrossing . . . [presents] the metamorphosis of a most remarkable young man and the almost spiritual influence he has on others . . . Peekay has both humor and a refreshingly earthy touch, and his adventures, at times, are hair-raising in their suspense.”–Los Angeles Times Book Review“Marvelous . . . It is the people of the sun-baked plains of Africa who tug at the heartstrings in this book. . . . [Bryce] Courtenay draws them all with a fierce and violent love.”–The Washington Post Book World“Impressive.”–Newsday“A compelling tale.”–The Christian Science Monitor

New York Times Bestseller • TIME Magazine’s Best Nonfiction Book of 2018 • New York Public Library’s Best Book of 2018 • NPR’s Book Concierge Best Book of 2018 • Economist Book of the Year • SELF.com’s Best Books of 2018 • Audible’s Best of the Year • BookRiot’s Best Audio Books of 2018 • The Atlantic’s Books Briefing: History, Reconsidered • Atlanta Journal Constitution, Best Southern Books 2018 • The Christian Science Monitor’s Best Books 2018 •“A profound impact on Hurston’s literary legacy.”―New York Times“One of the greatest writers of our time.”―Toni Morrison“Zora Neale Hurston’s genius has once again produced a Maestrapiece.”―Alice WalkerA major literary event: a newly published work from the author of the American classic Their Eyes Were Watching God, with a foreword from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker, brilliantly illuminates the horror and injustices of slavery as it tells the true story of one of the last-known survivors of the Atlantic slave trade―abducted from Africa on the last "Black Cargo" ship to arrive in the United States.In 1927, Zora Neale Hurston went to Plateau, Alabama, just outside Mobile, to interview eighty-six-year-old Cudjo Lewis. Of the millions of men, women, and children transported from Africa to America as slaves, Cudjo was then the only person alive to tell the story of this integral part of the nation’s history. Hurston was there to record Cudjo’s firsthand account of the raid that led to his capture and bondage fifty years after the Atlantic slave trade was outlawed in the United States.In 1931, Hurston returned to Plateau, the African-centric community three miles from Mobile founded by Cudjo and other former slaves from his ship. Spending more than three months there, she talked in depth with Cudjo about the details of his life. During those weeks, the young writer and the elderly formerly enslaved man ate peaches and watermelon that grew in the backyard and talked about Cudjo’s past―memories from his childhood in Africa, the horrors of being captured and held in a barracoon for selection by American slavers, the harrowing experience of the Middle Passage packed with more than 100 other souls aboard the Clotilda, and the years he spent in slavery until the end of the Civil War.Based on those interviews, featuring Cudjo’s unique vernacular, and written from Hurston’s perspective with the compassion and singular style that have made her one of the preeminent American authors of the twentieth-century, Barracoon masterfully illustrates the tragedy of slavery and of one life forever defined by it. Offering insight into the pernicious legacy that continues to haunt us all, black and white, this poignant and powerful work is an invaluable contribution to our shared history and culture.

New York Times Bestseller • An Oprah Book Club Pick“Powerful . . . [Kingsolver] has with infinitely steady hands worked the prickly threads of religion, politics, race, sin and redemption into a thing of terrible beauty.” —Los Angeles Times Book ReviewTaking its place alongside the classic works of postcolonial literature, this ambitious novel established Barbara Kingsolver as one of the most thoughtful and daring of modern writers.The Poisonwood Bible is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce, evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959. They carry with them everything they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all of it—from garden seeds to Scripture—is calamitously transformed on African soil. What follows is a suspenseful epic of one family’s tragic undoing and remarkable reconstruction over the course of three decades in postcolonial Africa.

This is the story of Macon "Milkman" Dead, heir to the richest black family in a Midwestern town, as he makes a voyage of rediscovery, travelling southwards geographically and inwards spiritually. Through the enlightenment of one man, the novel recapitulates the history of slavery and liberation.