An electrifying debut from the winner of the 2015 Caine Prize for African writing, The Old Drift is the Great Zambian Novel you didn't know you were waiting for On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there was once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic story of a small African nation, told by a mysterious swarm-like chorus that calls itself man's greatest nemesis. The tale? A playful panorama of history, fairytale, romance and science fiction. The moral? To err is human. In 1904, in a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their...

An illuminating, electrifying exploration of the work of Toni Morrison by an award-winning novelist and Harvard professor“In this lavish yet clear-eyed study, Serpell shows how Morrison breathed new life into the novel. This is literary criticism at its finest.”—Time“As gripping as it is intellectually brilliant . . . a classic.”—Cathy Park Hong“Serpell puts Morrison’s genius on full display. This will enthrall Morrison fans.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)“Filled with unique analyses, deep dives, and an intellectual playfulness that Morrison herself so valued, this book will stand as one of the most important twenty-first-century works on the great American writer.”—Imani Perry, author of South to AmericaONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New York Times, Time, The Today Show, Harper's Bazaar, Ms.,...

How do you grieve an absence? From the award-winning author of The Old Drift, “a piercing, sharply written novel about the conjuring power of loss” (Raven Leilani, author of Luster).“A genuine tour de force . . . What seems at first a meditation on family trauma unfolds through the urgency of an amnesiac puzzle-thriller, then a violently compelling love story.”—Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless BrooklynNamed One of the Most Anticipated Books of 2022 by More than a Dozen Publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, People, New York magazine, USA Today, and TimeI don’t want to tell you what happened. I want to tell you how it felt. Cassandra Williams is twelve; her little brother, Wayne, is seven. One day, when they’re alone together, there is an accident and Wayne is lost forever. His body is never recovered. The...