Death and the King’s Horseman

A Nigerian immigrant to Senegal explores the increasing influence of China across the region, a Kenyan student activist writes of exile in Kampala, a Liberian scientist shares her diary on the Ebola crisis, a Nigerian journalist travels to the North to meet a community at risk, a Kenyan journalist travels to Senegal to visit a gay rights activist and a South African writer recounts a tale of family discord and a murder in a remote seaside town. In a collection that ranges from travel writing to memoir to reportage and meditative essays, editor Ellah Wakatama Allfrey has brought together some of the most talented writers of creative non-fiction in Africa.

Omosh is a construction worker at a local slum whose life is rudely changed when he is arrested by overzealous policemen. Gosti, the local mugger, comes home to find his long lost father, who seems to have great plans for him, or what does he want? On the other side of town, Aileen’s seems to have everything: she is the reigning Miss Campus, daughter of a renowned politician and a ‘cool life’. A misadventure in a matatu changes her life, for ever. What do these three characters have in common? And who is killing police officers so brazenly? And is the counter attack justified?

This novel takes us on a journey, a magical, and a literal one. A tightly knit group of filmmakers travel from Paris together to make a documentary. Unknown to themselves they carry a lot of unwanted baggage – fear, anger, jealousy, love. When they arrive in an idyllic Swiss village ringed by mountains and reflected in a lake, they discover a haunted world that will compel them to confront the demons they have been trying to escape. A mind-blowingly beautiful book, full of unexpected, poetic and metaphysical revelations.