“Ancestor Stones” by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone)

Favourite Quote

Have you ever wondered what it is that makes people do terrible things? I have. Since that day, I have set my mind to it many times. (…) So, where does it come from, the fury? A thousand indignities, a thousand wrongs, like tiny knife wounds, shredding a person’s humanity. In time only the tattered remnants are left. And in the end, they ask themselves – what good is this to me? And they throw the last of it away.

Synopsis

This is the story of four lives: Asana, Mariama, Hawa and Serah Kholifa, born to the different wives of a wealthy plantation owner in an Africa where change is just beginning to arrive. Asana, lost twin and head-wife’s daughter. Hawa, motherless child and manipulator of her own misfortune. Mariama, who sees what lies beyond this world. And Serah, follower of a Western-made dream.

Stretching across generations and set against the backdrop of a country’s descent into freefall, Ancestor Stones is a stunning novel about understanding the past and how stories ancient and new shape who we’ve become, and one which offers a different way of seeing the world we share. It is the story of a nation, a family and four women’s attempts quietly to alter the course of their own destiny.

Nicola’s Creative Reading Group reading list

Year 2 – “Africa and the Caribbean” (Oct 2007 – Jun 2008)

“This Blinding Absence of Light” by Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco)
“Woman at Point Zero” by Nawal El Saadawi (Egypt)
“Bitter Fruit” by Achmat Dangor (South Africa)
“Sleepwalking Land” by Mia Couto (Mozambique)
“Matigari” by Ngugi wa Thiong’o (Kenya)
“In-Between World of Vikram Lall” by M.G. Vassanji (Tanzania)
“Half of a Yellow Sun” by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigeria)
“Ancestor Stones” by Aminatta Forna (Sierra Leone)
“The Dragon Can’t Dance” by Earl Lovelace (Trinidad & Tobago)