We wrap up book news for our readers in our regular Book Digest segment with books from Inès Senghor, Shafinaaz Hassim, Alyssa Cole, and Hary Rabary.
Durban Darlings by Shafinaaz Hassim
Publisher: Kwela
Date: February 2024.
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Kwela
Shafinaaz Hassim
Shafinaaz Hassim is a South African author, poet and sociologist. Her published works include Daughters are Diamonds: Honour, Shame & Seclusion — A South African Perspective (2007), Memoirs for Kimya (2009), and the critically acclaimed novel on domestic violence SoPhia (2012).
Durban Darlings
Natasha is the owner of a successful beauty company and is in a long-term relationship with the charming Sizwe. However, she has no interest in marriage or in becoming a traditional makoti. She has it all figured out. Until a fateful encounter with a handsome stranger . . . When Natasha makes an impulsive decision, she has to navigate the unfamiliar complexities of love, life and desire. She turns to the ‘Darlings’ WhatsApp group for advice; these women are her lifeline. There’s Sofia who seems to have it all, while the cousins, Farhana and Razia, both find themselves in complicated marriages. But whatever life throws their way, these darlings always have one another’s backs.
La Miel Du Crabe by Inès Senghor
Publisher: Editions Du Jasmine
Date: January 17, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: French
Where to find it: Editions Du Jasmine
Inès Senghor
Inès Senghor was born in 1985 in Clamart, in the Paris region, to a Serbian mother and a Senegalese father. Her family left France at the beginning of the 1990s to settle in Senegal where they experienced a childhood at the crossroads of diverse cultures. She returned to Europe ten years later and today resides in Paris where she works as an architect.
La Miel Du Crabe
When Tea, a Serbian teenager, sees her family shattered during a bombing, her whole world collapses. A journey begins that will take her abroad while bringing her back home. In Casamance, Basile was ten years old the day Senegal became independent. From May 68 on the Dakar campus to life as an employee, the young man built himself at the same time as his country and paid, with it, the price of freedom. Aristide, the Senegalese rifleman, is torn from his native land and finds peace in the fight led on the French front alongside a joyful volunteer. In Croatia, Lazar survives an Ustasha massacre and joins the Partisans in their fight for the unity of peoples. From being a victim, he becomes an actor in a conflict that goes beyond him. Crossed life paths which reveal an extraordinary family picture. A story imbued with reality, that of black Africa which embraces the Balkans. A truth that is born from exile, often in pain, always in encounter. The encounter with the unknown which conditions the encounter with oneself.
One of Us Knows by Alyssa Cole
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date: March 26, 2024
Genre: Fiction
Language: English
Where to find it: Harper Collins
Alyssa Cole
Alyssa Cole is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of thrillers and romance (historical, contemporary, and sci-fi). Her books have received critical acclaim from Library Journal, BuzzFeed, Kirkus, Booklist, Jezebel, Vulture, Book Riot, Entertainment Weekly, and various other outlets. When she’s not working, she can usually be found watching anime or wrangling her many pets.
One of Us Knows
From the critically acclaimed and New York Times bestselling author of When No One Is Watching comes a riveting thriller about the new caretaker of a historic estate who finds herself trapped on an island with a murderer—and the ghosts of her past.
Years after a breakdown and a diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder derailed her historical preservationist career, Kenetria Nash and her alters have been given a second chance they can’t refuse: a position as resident caretaker of a historic home. Having been dormant for years, Ken has no idea what led them to this isolated Hudson River island, but she’s determined not to ruin their opportunity.
Then a surprise visit from the home’s conservation trust just as a Nor’easter bears down on the island disrupts her newfound life, leaving Ken trapped with a group of possibly dangerous strangers—including the man who brought her life tumbling down years earlier. When he turns up dead, Ken is the prime suspect.
Caught in a web of secrets and in a race against time, Ken and her alters must band together to prove their innocence and discover the truth of Kavanaugh Island—and their own past—or they risk losing not only their future, but their life.
#ZaKoa by Hary Rabary
Publisher: Editions Dodo Vole
Date: September 27, 2023
Genre: Fiction
Language: French
Where to find it: Editions Dodo Vole, Amazon
Hary Rabary
Hary Rabary is a gynecologist in Antsiranana, Madagascar. She has published short stories in various magazines including Lettres de Lémurie. This work is his first novel.
#ZaKoa
#ZaKoa, the Malagasy translation of #MeeToo, tells in the form of a long letter to the attacker the fight of a young student victim of rape, who finds the courage to fight against the opprobrium, who refuses to shoulder the shame. Written in a fluid language, this fiction was nourished by the numerous stories that the author was able to hear in the context of her profession as a gynecologist. It is a work that lifts the veil on a burning subject, taboo in Madagascar as much as elsewhere.
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