'One of the most unforgettable books I have read in the last few years... What a writer! What a thinker! What a woman!' Fiammetta Rocco From the award-winning author of Dust comes a magical, sea-saturated, coming-of-age novel that transports readers from Kenya to China and Turkey. On an island in the Lamu Archipelago lives a solitary, stubborn child called Ayaana and her mother, Munira. When a sailor, Muhidin, enters their lives, the child finds something she has never had before: a father. But as Ayaana grows into adulthood, forces of nature and history begin to reshape her life, leading her to distant countries and fraught choices. Selected as a descendant of long-ago Chinese shipwrecked sailors Ayaana is sent to study in China. Leaving her resourceful single mother, she is forced to grow up fast. Whether it's the scarred captain of the Chinese shipping container that transports Ayaana or the son of Turkish shipping magnate who trades in refugees, Owuor never loses a profound sense of empathy for her characters. She evokes a fascinating kind of beauty in this dangerous, chaotic world and its ever-shifting oceans and trade. Told with a glorious lyricism, The Dragonfly Sea is a transcendent story of love and adventure, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world. 'One of Africa's most exciting voices ... The Dragonfly Sea is a continent-hopping novel of epic proportions.' Refinery29 'In its omnivorous interest in the world, The Dragonfly Sea is a paean to both cultural diffusion and difference . . . as much as [the novel] traces the globe, it also depicts an internal pilgrimage, its heroine in rose attar a broken saint.' New York Times 'Owuor continues to break ground among contemporary African writers.' Vanity Fair

About the Author
Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor was born in Kenya. She is the author of Weight of Whispers and Dust, which was shortlisted for the Folio Prize. Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing (2003), she has twice received an Iowa International Writers Fellowship and was shortlisted for the FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices award. Her work has appeared in McSweeney's, Granta's 'The Politics of Feeling' and other publications, and she has twice been a TEDx speaker (Nairobi and Euston). She has been a resident and fellow in several places including the Lannan Foundation, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Civitella Ranieri, Dorothea Schlegel and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies. She spends most of her time in Nairobi, Kenya.

Reviews
'The Dragonfly Sea transported me at a time I really wanted to be transported. Lyrical, compassionate, and deeply original, it has stayed with me, and is the novel I have most enjoyed this year.' - Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empireland 'Moving, epic and transcendent, The Dragonfly Sea is a glorious tale that spans two continents, multiple cultures and the lives of endearing characters.' - Bad Form Review 'One of the most unforgettable books I have read in the last few years ... What a writer! What a thinker! What a woman!' - Fiammetta Rocco 'Owuor's rich prose makes a pointed commentary in this novel about interconnectedness, however unlikely it may seem.' - C.A. Davids, Guardian 'One of Africa's most exciting voices . . . The Dragonfly Sea is a continent-hopping novel of epic proportions.' - Refinery29



Book Information
ISBN 9781912836475
Author Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor
Format Hardback
Page Count 496
Imprint September Publishing
Publisher September Publishing