Ayesha grew up in Accra and was educated at Mount Holyoke College, Columbia University, and NYU. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Asymptote Magazine, and the Caine Prize Writers’ 2010 Anthology. Her debut novel, Harmattan Rain, (Per Ankh Publishers) was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize in 2010. Her second novel, Saturday’s Shadows, was published in English (World Editions) and Dutch (De Geus) in 2015. Ayesha is a 2014 Africa Centre Artists in Residency Award Laureate and Instituto Sacatar Fellow. She was awarded the 2016 Miles Morland Foundation Scholarship for non-fiction. She lives in Senegal.
The Deep Blue Between
Twin sisters Hassana and Husseina’s home is in ruins after a brutal raid. But this is not the end but the beginning of their story, one that will take them to unfamiliar cities and cultures, where they will forge new families, ward off dangers and truly begin to know themselves.
As the twins pursue separate paths in Brazil and the Gold Coast of West Africa, they remain connected through shared dreams of water. But will their fates ever draw them back together?
A sweeping adventure with richly evocative historical settings, The Deep Blue Between is a moving story of the bonds that can endure even the most dramatic change.
£7.91
Customer Reviews
There are no reviews yet.
Related products
In The Palace of Flowers
£10.99 – £11.99Sex and friendship, ambition and political intrigue, secrets and betrayal will set the fate of two slaves— Jamīla and Abimelech—in this ground-breaking debut novel.
Inspired by the only existing first-person narrative of an Abyssinian slave in Iran, Jamīla Habashī, In the Palace of Flowers recreates the opulent Persian royal court of the Qajars at the end of the nineteenth century. This is a precarious time of growing public dissent, foreign interference from the Russians and British, and the problem of an aging ruler and his unsuitable heir.
Torn away from their families, Jamila, a concubine, and Abimelech, a eunuch, now serve at the whims of the royal family, only too aware of their own insignificance in the eyes of their masters. Abimelech and Jamila’s quest to take control over their lives and find meaning leads to them navigating the dangerous politics of the royal court, and to the radicals that lie beyond its walls.
Richly textured and elegantly written, at its heart In The Palace of Flowers is a novel about the fear of being forgotten.
In Dependence
£9.99 – £11.99In the early sixties, Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. There he discovers a whole generation high on visions of a new and better world. He meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of a former colonial officer. Their story, which spans four decades, is a bittersweet tale of a brave but doomed affair and the universal desire to fall truly, madly and deeply in love.
A lyrical and moving story of unfulfilled love fraught with the weight of history, race and geography and intertwined with questions of belonging, aging, faith and family secrets. In Dependence explores the complexities of contemporary Africa, its Diaspora and its interdependence with the rest of the world.
A Man Who Is Not A Man
£11.99A Man Who Is Not A Man recounts the personal trauma of a young Xhosa initiate after a rite-of-passage circumcision goes wrong. With frankness and courage, this powerful novel details the pain and lifelong shame this protagonist experiences as a result not only of the physical trauma, but the social ostracism from being labeled ‘a failed man.’ He decodes the mysteries of this long-standing cultural tradition and calls to account the elders for the disintegrating support systems that allow such tragic outcomes. But it is also through this life-changing experience that the protagonist is forced to find his strength and humanity and reassess what it really means to be a man.
Season Of Crimson Blossoms
£9.99 – £12.99WINNER OF THE NLNG NIGERIA PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
An affair between 55-year-old widow Binta Zubairu and 25-year-old weed dealer Reza was bound to provoke condemnation in conservative Northern Nigeria. Brought together in unusual circumstances, Binta and Reza faced a need they could only satisfy in each other. Binta – previously reconciled with God – now yearns for intimacy after the sexual repression of her marriage, the pain of losing her first son and the privations of widowhood. Meanwhile, Reza’s heart lies empty and waiting to be filled due to the absence of a mother. The situation comes to a head when Binta’s wealthy son confronts Reza, with disastrous consequences. This story of love and longing – set against undercurrents of political violence – unfurls gently, revealing layers of emotion that defy age, class and religion.
GLOSSARY OF HAUSA/ARABIC WORDS AND PHRASES
Author: Abubakar Adam Ibrahim | Print ISBN: 978-1911115007 | E-Book ISBN: 978-1911115014 | Format: Flapped paperback | No. of Pages: 320| Pub. Date: May 2016
And Then He Sang A Lullaby
£7.91AND THEN HE SANG A LULLABY is a breathtaking and captivating story of two gay men who find each other in Nigeria and are determined to love despite all that stands in their way. August is a straight-passing track star who has left Enugu, his overbearing sisters, and an apathetic father to find himself at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. Segun is an openly gay student who is reluctant to fall in love with August, wanting only to be with a man who is comfortable with his sexuality and has the capacity to love without shame. But when the Same Sex (Marriage) Prohibition Act is passed, August and Segun must find a way to tend to their blossoming romance in a country determined to eradicate them. And even while they run into harshness and cruelty at the hands of people whose lives and loves are legal, the two young lovers find kindness, understanding, solace and comfort in the arms of each other and in unexpected places.
Be the first to review “The Deep Blue Between”