Harare Review of Books

It’s going to be another banner year (in the words of lying African governments, a “bumper harvest”) for books from authors on the Continent and its Diaspora!

Here’s your list, sorted by month, with all kinds of genres included (including children’s books, at the end of the post). There’s no way I could list every book that’s coming, but here’s what I think is notable—as always, a work in progress, subject to updates. Blurbs below are from publishers, as available (and, for three most part, shortened). Please note that publication dates may change too.

You can support your favourite authors, my work, and independent bookstores by pre-ordering what catches your eye on Bookshop (click on Bookshop links below where available, and here’s the full list on Bookshop.org; other links below are to publisher sites).

January

• Everyone is a Robot Until Proven Otherwise – Bongani Sibanda / ZamaShort
  By the year 2099 robots had become an intractable part of South African society until a dire warning of a robots’ rebellion is issued by AndroidsWatch. In the resulting mad scramble, Operation Shanela, headed by General Dube, is tasked with finding and removing all robots. Until the fateful day when Dube himself somehow tests positive for being a robot.
• Becoming Zimbabwean: A History of Indians in Rhodesia – Trishula Rachna Patel / University of Virginia Press
  The first comprehensive history of Indian migrants and their descendants in Zimbabwe Becoming Zimbabwean tells the long-overdue story of the Indian community in the former British colony of Southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.
• The Starseekers – Nicole Glover / HarperCollins
  Indiana Jones meets Hidden Figures in this brand-new stand-alone historical fantasy set in the world of The Conductors, in which the space race of the mid-20th century will be determined by magic…if not murder.
• Not Without Laughter – Langston Hughes / Random House
  The award-winning first novel by the legendary Harlem Renaissance poet, first published in 1930. In small-town Kansas at the turn of the twentieth century, Sandy Rogers is a young Black boy growing up surrounded by family. His mother, Annjee, works as a housekeeper for a wealthy white family while his father, Jimboy, comes in and out of town, bringing his guitar with him, and his grandmother, Hager, tries to keep the whole family right in the eyes of God. Amid the many hardships of these years of great change, Sandy learns what it means to be a member of the complex society he’s inherited.
• Jackson Alone – Jose Ando / Soho Press
  Four Black Japanese gay men team up against a culture where discrimination is deep-seated and revenge is just a click away. A searing, darkly funny debut from the Akutagawa Prize–winning author.
• A High Price for Freedom: Raising Hidden Voices from the African American Past – Clyde W. Ford / HarperCollins
  The author and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library Publishing Project gives voice to long silent African Americans from the past, allowing them to tell their own stories that shed new light on critical moments in the Black Freedom Struggle, challenging what we think we know about Black history.
• The Weary Blues; Not Without Laughter; The Ways of White Folks – Langston Hughes / Everyman’s Library
  A major hardcover compendium of poetry and fiction by the legendary Black American poet of the Harlem Renaissance.
• When It’s Darkness on the Delta: How America’s Richest Soil Became Its Poorest Land – W. Ralph Eubanks / Beacon Press
  A socioeconomic excavation of the oft-mythologized Mississippi Delta, the poorest region of the United States, which unearths gangrenous roots of white supremacy and systemic racism.
• Ever Since We Small – Celeste Mohammed / Ig Publishing
  An intricately woven tapestry of stories where survival, resilience, and self-discovery are passed down through generations of an Indo-Trinidadian family. Celeste Mohammed’s second novel-in-stories, Ever Since We Small, is a family saga that spans from the days of the British Raj in India to multicultural modern Trinidad. Written in a blend of Standard English and several flavors of Trinidad Kriol, the book follows the bloodline of a young woman, Jayanti, after her decision to become a girmitiya, an indentured laborer in the Caribbean.
• The Catacombs – William Demby / Vintage
  A gripping and genre-defying novel by a rediscovered great of twentieth-century Black American writing, about what it means to be a writer at the dawn of a new era. First published in 1965, The Catacombs is a metafictional account set in early 1960s Rome, where the author had returned to study art history after serving on the Italian front during World War II.
• We Inherit the Fire – Kagiso Lesego Molope / McClelland & Stewart
  A gorgeously rendered, unflinching portrait of the fractured relationship between a mother and her daughter—set against the tumultuous end of apartheid in South Africa.
• Grace – Chika Unigwe / Canongate Books
  It is Baby’s birthday, but Grace has not seen her first born in twenty-six years. Now a wife, mother to twin daughters and the owner of a successful medical clinic, Grace has carefully constructed a new life. And now, the secret she’s kept for decades is about to resurface – and it could destroy everything.
• A Dying Giant in the Palm of Your Hand – Adelehin Ijasan / Masobe Books
  In a coastal town scarred by oil, secrecy, and silence, ten-year-old Nimi is forced to grow up far too quickly. When his fisherman father hauls a mysterious, silver-scaled being from the sea—Angele, a merman from a forgotten world—Nimi’s life and the fate of Ikanre shift irreversibly. As whispers of ‘mamiwota’ spread, what begins as wonder curdles into fear, greed, and bloodlust. The villagers’ hunger—both literal and spiritual—spirals into a violent reckoning, echoing centuries of betrayal and desecration.
• I Don’t Wish You Well – Jumata Emill / Delacorte Press
  A teen investigative podcaster decides to dig into the truth behind a grisly murder spree that rocked his hometown five years ago, but soon discovers that this cold case is still hiding deadly secrets—in this chilling thriller perfect for fans of A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.
• When Trees Testify Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy – Beronda L Montgomery / Henry Holt and Co.
  How the Word Is Passed meets Braiding Sweetgrass in a cultural and personal reclamation of Black history and the Black botanical mastery, told through the stories of long-lived trees.
• Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions Stories – Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi / Masobe Books
  Moving between Nigeria and America, Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is a window into the world of accomplished Nigerian women, illuminating the challenges they face and the risks they take to control their destinies.
• The Book of Alice: Poems – Diamond Forde / Scribner
  Winner Of the 2025 James Laughlin Award From the Academy Of American Poets. A stunning new collection exploring lineage and the legacy of survival as seen through the life of the poet’s grandmother Alice—a Black woman born in the Jim Crow South—using the King James Bible as a narrative framework.
• Kings and Pawns: Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson in America – Howard Bryant / Mariner Books
  A path-breaking work of biography of two American giants, Jackie Robinson and Paul Robeson, whose lives would forever be altered by the Cold War, and would explosively intersect before its most notorious weapon, the House Un-American Activities Committee — from one of the best sports and culture writers working today.
• Getting to Reparations: How Building a Different America Requires a Reckoning With Our Past – Dorothy A. Brown / Crown
  A bold manifesto arguing that there is a clear precedent for paying reparations to atone for America’s original sin of slavery, offering a compelling legal strategy to achieve this goal—from the acclaimed author of The Whiteness of Wealth.
• The Flower Bearers – Rachel Eliza Griffiths / Random House
  On September 24, 2021, Rachel Eliza Griffiths married her husband, the novelist Salman Rushdie. On the same day, hundreds of miles away, Griffiths’ closest friend and chosen sister, the poet Kamilah Aisha Moon, who was expected to speak at the wedding, died suddenly. Eleven months later, as Griffiths attempted to piece together her life as a newlywed with heartbreak in one hand and immense love in the other, a brutal attack nearly killed her husband. As trauma compounded trauma, Griffiths realized that in order to survive her grief, she would need to mourn not only her friend, but the woman she had been on her wedding day, a woman who had also died that day. In The Flower Bearers, Griffiths inscribes the trajectories of two transformational relationships with grace and honesty, chronicling the beauty and pain that comes with opening oneself fully to love.
• A Black Queer History of the United States – C. Riley Snorton, Darius Bost / Beacon Press
  The first-ever Black history to center queer voices, this landmark study traces the lives of LGBTQ+ Black Americans from slavery to present day.
• To All the Women I’ve Ever Loved – Billy Chapata / Andrews McMeel Publishing
  A heartfelt love letter to the divine feminine and all the women who carry its flame, from bestselling poet Billy Chapata.
• Scale Boy: An African Childhood – Patrice Nganang / Farrar, Straus and Giroux
  An extraordinary chronicle of youth that evokes the paradoxes of modern Africa—complex, contradictory, and full of conflict, tragedy, and joy.
• Sauúti Terrors: Short Stories – Cheryl S. Ntumy, Eugen Bacon, Stephen Embleton / Flame Tree Collections
  A powerful dark science fiction collection in a stunning edition, bringing back the revolutionary Afrocentric Sauútiverse.
• Forest Imaginaries: How African Novels Think – Ainehi Edoro / Columbia University Press
  Forests in fiction are often understood simply as settings, symbols, or remnants of a premodern past. Yet many African novelists have turned to the forest to experiment with worldbuilding and to imagine new futures. This groundbreaking book explores the life of the forest in African fiction, showing how writers have used it to reinvent the novel’s formal, aesthetic, and political possibilities.
• Stages: Poems – Tramaine Suubi / Amistad
  In this breathtaking companion poetry collection, inspired by the evolution of our brightest star, Tramaine Suubi offers poems alluding to the history of how it came to be and its effects on each human life.
• Burn Down Master’s House – Clay Cane / Dafina
  Inspired by true, long-buried stories of enslaved people who dared to fight back, a searing portrayal of resistance for readers of Colson Whitehead, Jesmyn Ward, and Percival Everett, from Clay Cane, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Grift.
• Forever for the Culture: Notes from the New Black Digital Arts Renaissance – Steven Underwood / Beacon Press
  Celebrate Black digital art in this essay collection revealing how Black artists have shaped everything from TikTok dances to viral memes. Steven Underwood digs into the current Black digital arts movement shaping popular culture for the last decade.
• Forgotten Souls: The Search for the Lost Tuskegee Airmen – Cheryl W. Thompson / Dafina
  NPR investigative journalist and the daughter of a Tuskegee Airman, Cheryl W. Thompson explores the stories of the 27 Tuskegee Airmen – the Black pilots who fought for America in WWII – who went missing in combat, the lives they lived, the reasons they were shot down, why the remains of all but one were never found, and the impact their disappearances had on their families and communities.
• Humboldt Cut – Allison Mick / Erewhon Books
  Jordan Peele and Jeff Vandermeer meet The Overstory in comedy writer Allison Mick’s darkly humorous debut eco-horror novel, as a Black woman returns home to the redwood forests of northern California, only to unearth the monsters that lurk among the trees…
• A Dying Giant in the Palm of Your Hand – Adelehin Ijasan / Masobe Books
  In a coastal town scarred by oil, secrecy, and silence, ten-year-old Nimi is forced to grow up far too quickly. A Dying Giant in the Palm of Your Hand is a haunting, lyrical debut—equal parts fable and indictment, myth and memory. Adelehin Ijasan weaves an unforgettable tale of spiritual inheritance, ecological grief, and the dangerous beauty of wonder in a world determined to forget.
• The Ex Dilemma – Elle Wright / Kensington Publishing Corp
  “Marry or lose your inheritance.” A commitment phobic heir in Detroit, Michigan faces the ultimate challenge from his powerful grandmother and family company CEO in this charming, irresistibly fun and flirty new contemporary romance from award-winning author Elle Wright.
• The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay – Ryan Douglass / HarperCollins
  From New York Times bestselling author Ryan Douglass comes a gripping and tender reimagining of The Great Gatsby about the pursuit of happiness—and love—in a society built on cruelty and secrets.
• The Seven Daughters of Dupree – Nikesha Elise Williams / Gallery/Scout Press
  From the two-time Emmy Award–winning producer and host of the Black and Published podcast comes a sweeping multi-generational epic following seven generations of Dupree women as they navigate love, loss, and the unyielding ties of family in the tradition of Homegoing and The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois.
• With Love from Harlem – ReShonda Tate / William Morrow Paperbacks
  From The Queen of Sugar Hill author ReShonda Tate—a new novel inspired by beloved Harlem jazz performer Hazel Scott and the equal parts exhilarating and tumultuous relationship that changed the course of her life. Harlem, 1943.
• On Sundays She Picked Flowers – Yah Yah Scholfield / Simon and Schuster/Saga Press
  Lone Women meets Sorrowland in this sinister and surreal Southern Gothic debut about a woman who escapes her family home to the uncanny woods of northern Georgia and must now contend with haints, ghosts, and a literal beast in the woods.
• The Comedian’s Diary – Obase-Sam Ikoi / Masobe Books
  Once a man of ambition and promise, Oga Simon’s life has unravelled under the weight of alcohol, regret, and lost opportunities. The familiar hum of Lagos pulses around him, but it offers no comfort, no escape from the spiral he finds himself in. Until a fleeting encounter with family; old wounds are reopened, and the possibility of change becomes painfully clear. But can a man trapped in his own vices truly find the strength to start over?
• The Loyalist A Memoir of Service and Sacrifice: A Memoir – Bolaji Abdullahi / Masobe Books
  Bolaji Abdullahi delivers a gripping account of his two-decade odyssey through the stormy waters of Nigerian politics. More than a memoir, this is an unflinching exploration of power, loyalty, and ambition, told with the insight of a journalist-turned-politician.

Bonus, relevant:

• The Crown’s Silence: The Hidden History of The British Monarchy and Slavery in the Americas – Brooke Newman / Mariner Books
  For centuries, Britain has told itself and the world that it is an abolitionist nation, one that, unlike the United States, rejected human bondage and dismantled its Atlantic slave empire without tearing itself apart in violence. An abolitionist nation headed by a just, humane monarch who liberated enslaved Africans and recognized their descendants as free and equal subjects of the British Crown. As Prince William put it recently, “We’re very much not a racist family.” When slaveholding nations write their collective history, the enslavers hold the pen. Now, acclaimed historian Brooke Newman reveals the true story: the enslavers were supported by members of the royal family.

February

• The People’s Library – Veronica G. Henry / 47North
  From critically acclaimed author Veronica G. Henry comes a thought-provoking science fiction fantasy set in near-future Cleveland that follows a reluctant curator of digital human consciousness who must uncover twisted secrets and navigate ethical quandaries and dangers when anti-technology rebels attack the futuristic library.
• Language as Liberation – Toni Morrison / Knopf
  Nobel laureate and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Beloved Toni Morrison investigates Black characters in the American literary canon and the way they shaped the nation’s collective unconscious. In a dazzling series of lectures from her tenure as a professor at Princeton University, Toni Morrison interrogates America’s most famous works and authors, drawing a direct line from the Black bodies that built the nation to the Black characters that many of the country’s canonical white writers imagined in their work.
• No More Worlds to Conquer: The Black Poet in Washington, DC – Brian Gilmore / Georgetown University Press
  A history of Black poets in Washington, DC, reveals how they have reflected and transformed American cultural discourse.
• Hostages – Taina Tervonen, Sara Hanaburgh / Schaffner Press
  Finnish Journalist and film-maker Taina Tervonen, author of the award-winning book, The Bone Whisperers, returns to her childhood home of Senegal in search of the story behind a group of culturally sensitive artifacts that had been captured in battle by the French army in the late 19th century, and which have been recently repatriated.
• I’ll Make Me a World: The 100-Year Journey of Black History Month – Jarvis R Givens / Harper
  On its one-hundredth anniversary, a powerful and essential meditation on the origins, evolution, and future of Black History Month from one of America’s leading historians of Black education and the author of American Grammar.On its one-hundredth anniversary, a powerful and essential meditation on the origins, evolution, and future of Black History Month from one of America’s leading historians of Black education and the author of American Grammar.
• The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde – Rima Vesely-Flad PhD / North Atlantic Books
  This pioneering and pathbreaking book brings together the rich spirituality of Black literary giants with the profound spirituality of the Buddhist tradition. This book offers space for emerging conversations within spiritual communities—ones that don’t shy away from difficult or uncomfortable truths; that center—and celebrate—Black, queer, radical thought; and that embrace the ways our inner lives, creative fire, sensuality, and expressions of love can ignite and sustain revolutionary liberation.
• The Johnson Four – Christina Hammonds Reed / Ballantine Books
  A 1960s boy band determined to conquer the music world must contend with the cost of fame—and a ghost with a grisly past—in this riveting novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Kids.
• Stolen Man on Stolen Land: Being African American in Australia – Tyree Barnette / Simon and Schuster
  When Tyree Barnette moved to Sydney from North Carolina, he knew little of his new home. On first arriving, he was pleasantly surprised: the police treated him with respect and Black American culture seemed to be widely admired and celebrated. But in time, Tyree saw the darker side to Australia’s relationship with African American culture – a relationship that often tipped from admiration into fetishisation.
• The Way Love Goes – Shawntae Harris and Jesseca Harris-Dupart / Amistad
  Hip-hop legend “Da Brat” DuPart and her wife Judy DuPart, stars of WEtv’s highly rated reality series Brat Loves Judy, share their journey to the altar and parenthood in this candid relationship guide and marriage memoir.
• But Where’s Home? A Novella and Stories – Toni Ann Johnson / Screen Door Press
  But Where’s Home?, Toni Ann Johnson’s new collection of linked short stories explores the sometimes painful and often humorous experiences of the Arringtons as an upper-middle-class Black family in a predominantly white, working-class community. Deeply emotional, funny, and unflinchingly honest, But Where’s Home? lays bare the realities of Black life in America, challenging readers to confront racism, classism, colonized thinking, narcissism, abuse, and troubled parent-child relationships.
• The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family – Dorothy Roberts / Atria/One Signal
  From Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body and a writer who “has brilliantly illuminated the Black experience in America for decades” (Bryan Stevenson), comes a spirited and riveting memoir of growing up in an interracial family in 1960s Chicago and a daughter’s journey to understand her parents’ marriage—and her own identity.
• She Outgrew the Wound – rh Sin / Andrews McMeel Publishing
  A heartfelt return to form for veteran poet r.h. Sin, She Outgrew the Wound speaks softly to the resiliency of growth, maturity, and life-altering self-love.
• Keeper of Lost Children – Sadeqa Johnson / 37 Ink
  In this new novel from the New York Times bestselling author of The House of Eve, one American woman’s vision in post WWII Germany will tie together three people in an unexpected way.
• On Morrison – Namwali Serpell / Hogarth
  Serpell brings her unique experience as both an award-winning writer and a professor of literature at Harvard University, to illuminate Morrison’s masterful experiments with literary form. This is Morrison as you’ve never encountered her before, a journey through her oeuvre—her fiction, poetry, dramatic works, and criticism—with contextual guidance, archival discoveries, and original close readings.
• Born at the End of the World – Donica Merhazion / Catalyst Press
  An epic story of espionage, love, and sacrifice in Africa. 1960s Africa, 13-year-old Elen, determined to escape her arranged marriage to an old man, absconds from Ethiopia to Eritrea, hoping to find her aunt living in the capital city, Asmara. Meanwhile, Germai escapes his abusive stepmother after the death of his beloved father only to end up homeless and starving on the streets of the city. Overcoming the odds, Elen and Germai both grow up to be successful business owners, each with their own lives and families. When the Derg regime overthrows the government, Elen and Germai are recruited to the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) as spies. As they fall in love, they are faced with uncomfortable moral choices, tragedy, and heroism in a struggle and a cause bigger than their own lives.
• The Daughter Who Remains – Nnedi Okorafor / DAW
  Set in the universe Africanfuturist luminary Nnedi Okorafor first introduced in the World Fantasy Award-winning Who Fears Death, The Daughter Who Remains is the breathtaking conclusion to the She Who Knows trilogy Featuring Najeeba, now older and wiser than readers have ever known her, this is a tale of family,courage, and healing.
• Kin – Tayari Jones / Knopf
  From the award-winning author of An American Marriage and Silver Sparrow comes a story about one woman’s struggle to build a home for herself as the foundations of her family, and her country, shift beneath her.
• Cleopatra – Saara El-Arifi / Ballantine Books
  Cleopatra tells her own story in this evocative and sensuous historical epic from the bestselling and award-winning author of Faebound and The Final Strife.

March

• Seeking Sexual Freedom: African Rites, Rituals and Sankofa in the Bedroom – Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah / Atria
  A bold foray into African traditions around sexual pleasure and joy, with the personal goal of self-discovery and liberation, by one of Africa’s preeminent feminists who “is changing the way African women talk about sex”.

• Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age – Ibram X. Kendi / One World
  The National Book Award-winning historian of Stamped from the Beginning charts how “great replacement theory” has moved from the margins to become the most dominant politcal theory of our time-and what we can do to safeguard democracy from this insidious threat.
• Otherworldly – Dwain Worrell / 47North
  From award-winning writer, producer, and filmmaker Dwain Worrell comes a poignant and thrilling science fiction adventure about a young astronaut navigating addiction and loss who finds herself stranded on a mysterious planet where members of her crew go missing one by one.
• All That Refuses to Die – Michael Imossan / University of Nebraska Press
  Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets. All that Refuses to Die is a poetry collection that interrogates the present conditions of Africans through a historical lens. Michael Imossan moves into historical spaces such as museums and sites of enslavement, touching artifacts that hold meaning, and asking, Where was Africa? Where is Africa now? And what has changed?
• I Have a Home, There Is a We: Voice of a Stranger in a Strange Land – Mohammed Khelef Ghassani, Meg Arenberg / University of Nebraska Press
  I Have a Home, There Is a We, whose original Swahili edition was in 2015 the first book of poetry to win the Safal-Cornell Kiswahili Prize for African Literature, brings the acclaimed verse of prolific Zanzibari poet, journalist, and cultural changemaker Mohammed Khelef Ghassani to English-language readers for the first time. The book explores the poet’s life as a migrant in Germany: linguistic and cultural alienation, nostalgia, and longing for his homeland on the island of Pemba.
• Black Aliens: Kinship in the Cosmic Diaspora – Joanna Davis-McElligatt / Ohio State University Press
  Joanna Davis-McElligatt examines extraterrestrial and interdimensional aliens in Black speculative media and culture, reading them as figural representations of a cosmic diasporic experience and charged metaphors for Black fugitivity and escape.
• Shut Up and Read: A Memoir from Harriet’s Bookshop – Jeannine A Cook / Amistad
  The author of It’s Me They Follow chronicles the improbable true story of how to she left an abusive past to build a bookshop that would survived the Covid pandemic and become an international sensation.
• The Shipikisha Club – Mubanga Kalimamukwento / Dzanc Books
  Kabwe, Zambia: Sali, a working mother of three, stands trial for the murder of her husband, Kasunga. The prosecutor claims Sali shot him after a heated fight in their bedroom. There are no witnesses. Sali pleads not guilty. But her story does not begin with a gun.
• The Comfort of Distant Stars – I O Echeruo / Canongate Books
  Ezeani is no ordinary child. He sees things others don’t. Despite the burden of these visions, his precocious nature blossoms into genius and Ezeani grows up to be a gifted mathematician and physicist. When he leaves Nigeria and his adoring family behind to study at Cornell in the US, he remains haunted by his most persistent vision, Anyanwu, the Sun God. While Ezeani is adjusting to his new life in America, Anyanwu’s presence takes on an increasingly sinister and malevolent form – and chaos reigns. It’s enough to make anyone lose their grip on reality.
• Boys Will Be Boys – Miracle Emeka-Nkwor / Masobe Books
  Someone is killing students at Bethlehem Glorious High School. Set against the vivid backdrop of Port Harcourt, this suspenseful literary thriller explores power, complicity, and what it means to stand your ground when no one else will.
• Black Out Loud: The Revolutionary History of Black Comedy from Vaudeville to ’90s Sitcoms – Geoff Bennett / Harper
  The award-winning co-anchor of PBS NewsHour presents a sweeping and insightful retrospective on the history of Black comedy in America.
• Minor Notes, Volume 2 – Joshua Bennett, Jesse McCarthy / Penguin Classics
  The second volume in an anthology series that amplifies the voices of unsung Black poets to paint a more robust picture of the US’s national past, and of the Black literary imagination.
• The Curse of Hester Gardens – Tamika Thompson / Erewhon
  We Need to Talk about Kevin as if written by Jason Reynolds and Tananarive Due meets Model Home by Rivers Solomon in an innovative twist on the haunted house novel: about a mother desperate to protect her sons from the twin specters of gun violence and otherworldly menace in their public housing project.
• Yevgeny Onegin – Alexander Pushkin / Pushkin Press Classics
  The aristocratic Yevgeny Onegin has come into his inheritance, leaving the glamour of St. Petersburg’s social life behind to take up residence at his uncle’s country estate. Master of the nonchalant bow, and proof of the fact that we shine despite our lack of education, the aristocratic Onegin is the very model of a social butterfly—a fickle dandy, liked by all for his wit and easy ways. When the shy and passionate Tatyana falls in love with him, Onegin condescendingly rejects her, and instead carelessly diverts himself by flirting with her sister, Olga—with terrible consequences.

April

• The Bridge Back to You – Riss M Neilson / Berkley
  Olivia owes everything to Celia’s Place. It’s where she learned how to be a great chef. It’s also where she first fell in love. But at nineteen, Olivia had a wanderlust she couldn’t deny. And Carmello, whose mother owned the restaurant, couldn’t leave Celia’s Place behind any more than he could force Olivia to stay. Now, ten years later, Olivia is a successful personal chef. When Carmello learns that his mother left shares of her beloved restaurant to both him and Olivia, he plans to buy her portion of the shares back quickly and painlessly. That is until Olivia shows up at the restaurant, ready to help run it. Soon enough, sparks begin to fly, but can Olivia and Carmello avoid the mistakes of the past?
• Audiofuturism: Science Fiction Radio Drama and the Black Fantastic Imagination – andré carrington / Fordham University Press
  A revelatory history of Black radio productions from the 1950s to the present. Audiofuturism uncovers the vibrant, overlooked history of radio adaptations that placed Black speculative writing before mass audiences, showing how sound shaped the politics and pleasures of twentieth and twenty-first century culture.
• Martyr Loser King: A Graphic Novel – Saul Williams, Morgan Sorne / 23rd St
  Incisive questions about capitalism, colonialism, and the future of technology abound in this cyberpunk fable from visionary poet, performer, and director Saul Williams. In Martyr Loser King, the East Africa country of Burundi is a source of the precious mineral coltan, a component of every technology on earth. The people who mine coltan are exploited, and the land around the mines is used by the rest of the world as a dumping ground for defunct machines. But from the rubble, creativity and rebellion rise in the form of a hacker who calls himself Martyr Loser King and an otherworldly stranger named Neptune Frost. Together, they launch a cyberattack that reverberates throughout the world.
• My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy – Randal Maurice Jelks / Broadleaf Books
  A commanding portrait of Langston Hughes as a young radical and global citizen, My America captures the beauty of cities, the fight against fascism, and the power of art as resistance. Exploring lesser-known political works from the celebrated poet, Randal Jelks positions Hughes as an activist and artist committed to the ongoing work of justice.
• Year of the Mer – L D Lewis / S&S/Saga Press
  A dark, bloody epic fantasy reimagining of The Little Mermaid that goes far beyond the fairy tale to explore family legacy, war, and what we will sacrifice for vengeance—the perfect read for fans of The Priory of the Orange Tree and Circe.
• A Soldier’s Wife: My Mother, the Marvelous Mrs. Marilyn A. Underwood – Blair Underwood / Amistad
  In this moving biography and memoir, Blair Underwood, acclaimed star of film, stage, and television, pays homage to his mother, sharing her well-lived life, and key lessons learned as a fashion designer, mother, and soldier’s wife.
• At the Gate: Uncollected Poems 1987-2010 – Lucille Clifton, Kazim Ali / BOA Editions
  At the Gate gathers more than seventy previously unpublished poems by the iconic American poet Lucille Clifton written over the last two decades of her life. Discovered in digital archives by poet and scholar Kazim Ali, these poems span a prolific and reflective period in Clifton’s career as she shifted from typewriters to word processors and desktop computers. Many were originally drafted for publication, but set aside—until now.
• The Essential Senghor: African Philosophy and Black Aesthetics – Léopold Sédar Senghor, Doyle D. Calhoun, Alioune Fall / Duke University Press
  The Essential Senghor collects and translates essays, speeches and other writings from Senegalese poet, philosopher, and politician Leopold Sédar Senghor–the major theoretician of negritude– highlighting his radical visions of African philosophy, Black aesthetics, and freedom.
• Three Is A Crowd – Chinasa Anaele / Masobe Books
  What begins as an innocent connection spirals into something far more dangerous—an intense attraction that forces Cheta to confront the weight of her choices and the expectations of those around her. Torn between loyalty, guilt, and the stirrings of something dangerously real, she must decide whether to protect the life she’s built or risk everything for the truth. Sexy, sharp, and completely addictive, Three Is a Crowd is a poignant exploration of desire, forbidden attraction, duty, and the grey spaces in between.
• Echoes of Cabrini-Green: Letters to My Mother – Rudolph Elliot Willis / Southern Illinois University Press
  A deeply personal memoir that explores the intertwined themes of love, faith, and resilience amidst adversity.
• Good Grief, Pass the Bread, Mom Is Dead – Angela Nissel / Amistad
  Television writer, producer, and bestselling author of the acclaimed The Broke Diaries and Mixed charts her unexpected role as her terminally ill mother’s caretaker in this funny, moving, and unforgettable memoir.
• My Own Dear People – Dwight Johnson / Cassava Republic Press
  Nyjah Messado is not haunted by ghosts but by a memory he can’t shake: the day he watched trainee teacher, Maude Dallmeyer dragged away by his schoolmates at his elite boys’ private school—and kept silent. The boyhood code demanded it, and that silence trails him through university and back to Montego Bay, a city polished for tourists but dangerous for its own people, shaped by street-gang politics and a lingering colonial order. As Nyjah navigates its charged streets, he’s forced to confront the man he has become in a world harsh to women and LGBTQ communities. Taut and lyrical, My Own Dear People explores complicity, masculinity, and one man’s slow journey towards justice.
• Prince: Black, White, Color – Steve Parke / ACC Art Books
  Marking the 10th anniversary of Prince’s death, Prince by Steve Parke reveals a stunning collection of exclusive photographs by the singer’s own award-winning photographer and art director, Steve Parke. A must-have for Prince fans everywhere.
• Freshwater – Akwaeke Emezi / Masobe Books
  Ada begins her life in the south of Nigeria as a troubled baby and a source of deep concern to her family. Her parents, Saul and Saachi, successfully prayed her into existence, but as she grows into a volatile and splintered child, it becomes clear that something went terribly awry. When Ada comes of age and moves to America for college, the group of selves within her grows in power and agency. A traumatic assault leads to a crystallization of her alternate selves: Asụghara and Saint Vincent. As Ada fades into the background of her own mind and these selves―now protective, now hedonistic―move into control, Ada’s life spirals in a dark and dangerous direction.
• All Flesh – Ananda Devi, Jeffrey Zuckerman / FSG Originals
  In All Flesh, Ananda Devi’s keenly lyrical prose presents a darkly humorous mirror that bitingly reflects and shatters the double standards around how we talk about bodies, women, beauty, and food, and how society consumes, obsesses over, and vilifies humanity’s excesses.

May

• Layaway Child – Chanel Sutherland / House of Anansi Press/Astoria
  A series of lyrical, linked stories tracing the lives of mothers working in North America as housekeepers and nannies, and the children they left behind in the Caribbean. With her writing, 2025 Commonwealth Story Prize winner Sutherland explores the emotional landscape of Caribbean families fractured by migration, especially the resilient journeys of Black girls and women. Her work is rooted in her own experiences of growing up in small village in St. Vincent and later immigrating to Canada.
• The Finest Things – Deborah Kira / Masobe Books
  When Adunni Ojo arrives at a poolside bar one Saturday evening for a date, her life is in order. Final year of uni? Check. A food business gaining traction? Check. A steady boyfriend of six years? Check. Her world is small, stable, and safe, until Tife, her boyfriend shows up late. And a seductive stranger shows up first.
• A Terrible Strength: The Hidden Crisis of the Black Womb and Your Survival Guide to Healing – Kemi Doll MD MSCR / Harmony
  Black women are facing a systemic gynecological health crisis. This book gives them the tools needed to unlearn the medical normalization of their suffering and offers a path forward to healing—by a foremost physician, surgeon, researcher, and gynecological cancer expert.
• A Proxy Africa: Guyana, African Americans, and the Radical 1970s – Russell Rickford / University of North Carolina Press
  In this first, comprehensive history of Guyana’s core role in anticolonial, Black internationalist movements in the 1960s and 1970s, historian Russell Rickford traces the history of African Americans who traveled to the country to work with, learn from, and teach Guyanese politicians, activists, and other international figures in the long fight for Black freedom.
• The Overseer Class: A Manifesto – Steven W Thrasher / Amistad
  The author of the critically acclaimed The Viral Underclass (one of Kirkus Reviews best books of 2022) is back with The Overseer Class, which explores what happens when members of historically minoritized groups are selected for high-visibility positions of power within existing institutions-but under the conditions of a kind of Faustian bargain.
• The Roots of My Hair: A Graphic Novel – Lou Lubie / Helvetiq
  A bold, funny, and deeply personal graphic novel about hair, heritage, and identity, The Roots of My Hair tells the story of Rose, a mixed-race girl from Réunion Island, struggling to love her frizzy hair in a world that tells her to tame it.
• At Sea – Y. M. Abdel-Magied / Pegasus Books
  A propulsive novel of ambition, greed, and the deadly fury of Mother Nature, as a female driller takes charge of an isolated offshore oil rig with an entirely male crew.
• One Leg on Earth – ‘Pemi Aguda / W. W. Norton & Company
  From the author of the National Book Award finalist Ghostroots, a debut novel that thrills with its eerie mix of folklore and history. In One Leg on Earth, ‘Pemi Aguda turns the question of who belongs in a city into an arresting exploration of what it means to be a mother in an unforgiving world, and a haunting vision of the dark side of progress.
• Ghalen: A Romance in Black – Walter Mosley / Amistad
  A beautiful coming-of-age novel from MWA Grand Master and PEN and Edgar Award-winner Walter Mosley that explores love in all forms-romantic, familial, and platonic, centered on one Black family, including a neurodivergent man, and the found bonds that helps ground them.
• Africology and the African Diaspora – Molefi Kete Asante / Bloomsbury Academic
  Examining the African Diaspora in Africology, this book explores the fundamental issues involving the dispersion of Africans from antiquity to the current era.

June

• Life of the Party – Harmony Holiday / Semiotext(e)
  Life of the Party is an archive and annotation of Black music-performance culture—its poetics and its realities and its ruins, both seen and unseen. Produced concurrent with Black Backstage, Harmony Holiday’s first solo museum exhibition, the book acts as a blueprint, a script, and a ledger for this exhibition as well as a stand-alone record of the territory it covers.
• Breakout – Dhonielle Clayton, Tiffany D. Jackson, Nic Stone, Angie Thomas, Ashley Woodfolk, Nicola Yoon / Quill Tree Books
  Trapped at a luxurious resort off the coast of Florida, a group of elite teens are about to have a spring break they will never forget . . . but not all of them are coming home. The star-studded team of authors behind New York Times bestsellers Blackout and Whiteout returns with a thriller full of intrigue, betrayal, and heart-stopping romance.
• Red Like Orange – Charles Akl, Sarah Enany / Hoopoe
  A hilarious caper through Cairo’s music scene in the early 2000s where everything from American rock to Egyptian popular music cultivate big dreams, winner of the Sawiris Cultural Award.
• Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers, Second Edition – Monique Couvson. / The New Press
  A completely revised and updated handbook of eye-opening–and frequently myth-busting–facts and figures about the real lives of Black Americans today, called “a gift of knowledge” by Susan Taylor, former editor-in-chief of Essence magazine.
• The Price of Exclusion: The Pursuit of Healthcare in a Segregated Nation – Nicole Carr / Dey Street Books
  From award-winning journalist Nicole Carr comes a landmark narrative revealing the untold history of Black medical professionals who have long fought to heal their communities–while confronting a system built to exclude them.
• Dancing with Jinns: Black Women Write on Taboo – Ellah Wakatama and Momtaza Mehri / Cassava Republic Press
  A bold and compelling collection of 11 essays that brings together powerful voices to confront how the concept of taboo shapes diverse cultures across the continent.

July

• Queenie Is Working on It – Candice Carty-Williams / Trapeze
  Bigger. Not better. Older. Not wiser. Queenie Jenkins is working on it.
• Take What You Can – Naima Coster / Pamela Dorman Books
  From the New York Times bestselling author of What’s Mine and Yours, a rich, panoramic exploration of female friendship, class, new motherhood, and independence.
• Cool Machine – Colson Whitehead / Doubleday
  From #1 New York Times bestselling author and two-time Pulitzer winner Colson Whitehead, an exuberantly entertaining novel that brings to life 1980s New York in the magnificent final volume of his Harlem Trilogy 1981.
• The Shipikisha Club – Mubanga Kalimamukwento / Cassava Republic Press
  Sali, a mother of 3, is on trial for the murder of her husband Kasunga, found dead after a heated fight in their bedroom. Watching in the gallery are her mother Peggy, and her daughter Ntashé, as the intimate secrets of Sali’s fractured marriage are laid bare, from birth secrets, to hidden violence and postpartum depression. Through it all, Sali remains silent. Faced with a hungry public, and a society that values women who endure, Sali must decide if there is any value in revealing the truth of that night, a truth known only to her and Kasunga.

August

• Season of the Serpent – Suyi Davies Okungbowa / Orbit
  Award-winning author Suyi Davies Okungbowa returns in the final installment of the Nameless Republic trilogy with a tale of villains, allies, and a world on the brink of destruction.
• Thinking From Black: A Lexicon – Practicing Refusal Collective / Alchemy
  An essential work for Alchemy by Knopf, this book is an instant classic in the making. In the tradition of Toni Morrison’s The Black Book, and Black Futures by Kimberly Drew and J. Wortham, it collects a living, breathing lexicon: words, terms, concepts, and ideas that take the multiplicity of Black life as the point of departure.

September

• Refusal: Black Women Workers and Emancipatory Struggle – Keona Ervin / Verso
  Recasting American history from the vantage point of black women workers, whose struggles for justice point the way to emancipation for all of us. In a series of narrative chapters—in an accessible social history vein— highlighting specific moments of black women’s refusal, from slavery to #BlackLivesMatter, Refusals argues that black women workers’ refusals can guide us all toward emancipation.
• Laws of Solomon – Eriq La Salle / Poisoned Pen Press
  From award-winning actor, producer, and director Eriq La Salle comes another installment of the thrilling Martyr Maker series, in which ex-hit man Solomon Nangobi finds himself being dragged into his past to protect a young boy in his care.
• Elemental Blackness – Cherise Morris / Cassava Republic Press
  Written in a bold, experimental form, Elemental Blackness interweaves poetry, ritual, essays and prayers to paint a rich portrait of Blackness in all its multifaceted complexity. Centring on the four elements of water, fire, earth and air, Elemental Blackness shows us how Blackness, the environment and even Morris herself have been shaped and shifted by structures of white supremacy.
• Pillaging the Dead – Degol Hailu / Cassava Republic Press
  Tarik is a university student, hustling a living on the side as a street hawker, selling banned books and his own political cartoon. Everywhere he turns, Tarik is faced with the senseless nature of the repressive regime that rules this unnamed African country. When he is caught up in a raid and beaten by the regime, a world of activism is opened up to him, sending him on a dangerous political journey.

October

• In View of the Tradition: Black Art and Radical Thought – Roderick Ferguson / Fordham University Press
  Moving across sculpture, installation, photography, and film, Roderick A. Ferguson shows how Black art clarifies the stakes of capitalism, migration, war, settler colonialism, and ecological crisis while widening the tradition’s feminist, queer, and transnational horizons. The book asks what it means to relocate Black art in the annals of freedom rather than the balance sheets of the marketplace.
• The Black Beauty Model Agency – Desta Haile / Cassava Republic Press
  The story of one of the first Black model agencies, based in 1960-70s New York, the wonderful women that ran it, the phenomenal people they signed, and their collective, cultural, diasporic impact; written by the daughter of one of the models.

• The Fist of Memory – Wole Talabi / DAW
  When a strange and non-communicative alien spacecraft suddenly appears in the night sky, approaching Earth at an impossible velocity, the established world order is thrown into turmoil. But for Tope, a principled and extremely effective Nigerian assassin with a bionic arm and talent for lethality who works for anyone willing to pay her oga – the mysterious witchdoctor known only as ‘Baba’ – it’s all just business as usual. That is, until a routine job goes sideways, and she gets caught up in a high stakes game of power and politics.

Children’s books

• Small-Girl Zora and the Shower of Stories – Giselle Anatol, Raissa Figueroa, January, Viking Books for Young Readers
  Filled to the brim with references to Zora Neale Hurston’s classic characters and details from her own life, Small-Girl Zora and the Shower of Stories is a joyful tribute to an icon of American literature and the everlasting power of storytelling.
• Melodies of The Weary Blues – Langston Hughes, January, HarperCollins
  A gorgeously illustrated centennial of Langston Hughes’ first book of poetry, The Weary Blues, this picture book includes select poems paired with vibrant artwork by more than twenty talented Black illustrators, including award-winners Oge Mora, Frank Morrison, Janelle Washington, and more.
• A Black Girl and Her Braids – Jaylene Clark Owens, January, Penguin Workshop
  Based on the viral poem, braids of all lengths, looks, parts, and styles are explored and cheered on in this vibrant picture book celebrating the versatility of Black hair.
• Unfunny Bunny – Kenan Thompson Bryan Tucker, January, Feiwel & Friends
  From the beloved longest-tenured cast member of Saturday Night Live, Kenan Thompson, comes a hilarious new picture book. Tomorrow is Bunny’s first day of school, and everything is going to be perfect. All he wants is to be the funniest kid in class and make everyone else laugh. But when Bunny gets there, his jokes fall flat. What’s an UNfunny bunny to do?
• Troubled Waters: A River’s Journey Toward Justice – Carole Boston Weatherford., Bryan Collier, January, Bloomsbury Children’s Books
  From Young People’s Poet Laureate Carole Boston Weatherford and award-winning illustrator Bryan Collier, a stirring account of the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, as witnessed by the Alabama River.
• No Way Wash Day – Adrienne Thurman, Kaylani Juanita, January, HarperCollins
  An exuberant debut picture book about a little girl trying to outmaneuver her mama to avoid wash day for her hair–and all the laughs and love her antics inspire–illustrated by Coretta Scott King Honor winner Kaylani Juanita.
• Destiny of the Diamond Princess – Sherri Winston, January, Bloomsbury Children’s Books
  The Princess Diaries meets From the Desk of Zoey Washington in this story about a girl who is reconnected with her birth family, only to discover that she is an African princess and the key to unlocking an ancient curse.
• Main Street: A Community Story About Redlining – Britt Hawthorne, Tiffany Jewell, David Wilkerson / Kokila
  A girl learns how the history of redlining has affected her neighborhood in this intergenerational picture book about racism, community action, and resilience by two New York Times bestselling authors.
• The Mighty Macy – Kwame Alexander, February, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
  A young girl finds her voice– and discovers the power of speaking up for herself and her community– in this sweet and humorous chapter book by award-winning author Kwame Alexander
• Nani and the Lion – Alicia D Williams, February, Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
  From Newbery Honor and Coretta Scott King – John Steptoe Award winner Alicia D. Williams comes a rhythmic picture book about an irrepressible little drummer determined to outwit the grumpy, noise-hating Lion.
• Seven Million Steps – Derrick Barnes, Christian Gregory, Frank Morrison, February, Amistad Books for Young Readers
  From award-winning creators, Derrick Barnes, Frank Morrison, and Dr. Christian Gregory comes the true story of comedian and activist Dick Gregory’s remarkable Food Run of 1976.
• Time for a Change – Questlove, S. A. Cosby, February, Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)
  Book 2 in the electrifying middle-grade sci-fi trilogy by six-time Grammy Award–winning musician, Academy Award–winning filmmaker, and New York Times–bestselling author Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and New York Times–bestselling author S. A. Cosby.
• Kid X – Tracey Baptiste, February, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
  From a New York Times bestselling author, this thrilling sequel to Boy 2.0 returns readers to the world of their favorite superhero, as Coal continues to grow into his new powers—and discovers a mysterious individual who may be just like him. Perfect for fans of Amari and the Night Brothers and Into the Spiderverse.
• While We’re Here – Anne Wynter, Micha Archer, March, Clarion Books
  Award-winning creators Anne Wynter and Micha Archer share a mother-daughter tale about delighting in small pleasures throughout the city.
• Trouble at the Hair Salon – Tanya Wright, March, Sourcebooks Young Readers
  With her parents out of town, Hairiette gets to spend the whole weekend with Aunt Zelda and her cat Olive! They have their Fish Fry Friday, watch movies, and dance around the house. But this Friday is even more special: Hairiette learns how to use her Magic Nation to be an entrepreneur and help her family’s hair salon business. Step one: attempt to make Nana Grace’s famous hair potion. Step two: When Aunt Zelda says she can’t use the potion, go to Magic Nation!
• The Genie Game – Jordan Ifueko, April, Amulet Books
  Harriet the Spy meets Black Mirror in The Genie Game, the start of a thrilling new middle-grade series from Jordan Ifueko, author of the New York Times bestselling fantasy Raybearer.
• A Song for Juneteenth – Zetta Elliott, Noa Denmon, May, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
  This emotional and lyrical picture book by acclaimed poet Zetta Elliott celebrates the importance of Juneteenth as well as the resilience of Black families and the power of community—featuring stunning illustrations from Caldecott Honoree Noa Denmon.
• Fourteen Ways of Looking at Jellyfish – Carole Boston Weatherford, May, Candlewick
  With dozens of major awards between them, a revered poet and a versatile artist pool their mastery to sing the praises of an undersea wonder.
• The Pool is Cool – Dwayne Reed, June, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
  This bounce-to-the-beat picture book by America’s favorite rapping teacher follows a young son who helps his father overcome his fear of swimming.
• Chino’s Treasure Hunt – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie/Nwa Grace-James, July, Knopf
  A stunning, gentle and joyful family story from award-winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
• Ida B Wells and the Untold Truth of a Country – Lesa Cline-Ransome, September, Holiday House
  In 1862, Ida B. Wells was born into slavery. Today, her legacy lives on as a trailblazing journalist and activist. Celebrate the life and achievements of a Civil Rights pioneer in this definitive middle-grade biography from Coretta Scott King Honoree Lesa Cline-Ransome.

No publish date yet, but coming later in the year:

• /nũn/, described by the publisher as Mayada Ibrahim‘s beautiful translation of Najlaa Osman Eltom‘s selected poetry, from trace press, Fall 2026.
• The Oath by Muthoni wa Gichuru brings historical richness and cultural depth to the forefront. This ambitious work has been praised for its “rich world-building in the historical timeline with a strong evocation of cultural and spiritual rituals” and its “important thematic engagement with colonial trauma.” Ibua Publishing.
• Belongers, by Doreen Anyango: A joint winner of the 2024 Ibua Publishing Novel Manuscript Project. This contemporary Ugandan epic is a powerful exploration of grief, belonging, and survival in modern Uganda. Judge Vimbai Shire described the work as “vivid, rich and emotionally weighty,” particularly praising “the quiet precision and portrayal of grief.” Ibua Publishing.
• Next of Kin by Gladwell Pamba offers readers an immersive journey through urban Nairobi, weaving together personal grief with broader social critique. The novel impressed judges from the very first line, with Vimbai Shire noting how she was “immersed from the first line” and that it “held my attention throughout.” Ibua Publishing.
• The Freedom of Birds by Kiprop Kimutai, winner of the Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize in 2023; Tsitsi Dangarembga, the judge, called The Freedom of Birds “epic in scope and intimate in detail.” The resonant story of a Kenyan family. It follows Bulei, a young man, and his mother, Ferono. Having lost his job and his boyfriend, Bulei’s life in Nairobi disintegrates, and he decides to return to his rural hometown of Tolosio. He’s acutely aware of the dangers that await him there, but, inspired by a beguiling and self-possessed stranger he befriends on his way home—a man named Ahithophel—he wonders if there isn’t a way for him to take up his deceased father’s legacy and reclaim his homeplace. Ferono, on her own path of self-definition and securing a livelihood, also finds herself changed by Ahithophel’s presence, and by the new man she sees her son becoming. Expected winter 2026 from Graywolf Press.
• The City of Factories by Naomi Eselojor, from Ruadan Books:
  Recipient of the 2023 Utopian Award for Short Fiction and the 2024 Wilson Okereke Prize for Short Stories Naomi Eselojor’s THE CITY OF FACTORIES, pitched as an African steampunk novella that explores the effects of colonialism on Nigeria through the lens of its spectacular setting and a fractured father/son relationship, in which an 18-year-old wants nothing more than to find out what happened to his missing father in a subjugated nation.