River Spirit

River Spirit is the unforgettable storyof a people who, against the odds and for a brief time, gained independence from foreign rule through their willpower, subterfuge and sacrifice.

Klappentext This spellbinding new novel from New York Times Notable Author Leila Aboulela tells the unforgettable story of an embattled young woman's coming of age during the revolutionary war in nineteenth-century Sudan. Zusammenfassung This spellbinding new novel from New York Times Notable Author Leila Aboulela tells the unforgettable story of an embattled young woman's coming of age during the revolutionary war in nineteenth-century Sudan.

Autorentext

Leila Aboulela is an award-winning novelist celebrated for her distinctive exploration of identity, migration and Islamic spirituality. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Aboulela was awarded the inaugural Caine Prize for African Writing and the PEN Pinter Prize in 2025. Her novels including Bird Summons, Minaret, The Translator and The Kindness of Enemies have been translated into fifteen languages. Aboulela's most recent works include the novella A New Year, selected as a World Book Night title in 2025, and River Spirit, shortlisted for the HWA Gold Crown Award and named a Best Book of the Year at the Herald and New York Times. She is also the author of the short story collection, Elsewhere, Home*, which won the Saltire Fiction Book Award. Born and raised in Sudan, Aboulela moved to Scotland in her mid-twenties, where she continues to live and write.

Klappentext

1880s Sudan. When Akuany and her brother are orphaned in a village raid, they are taken in by Yaseen, a young merchant whose vow to care for them will tether him to Akuany throughout their lives. As revolution brews, Sudan begins to prise itself from its Ottoman rulers, and everyone must choose sides.

Yaseen feels beholden to stand against the self-proclaimed Mahdi, a decision that threatens to splinter his family. Meanwhile, Akuany grows into womanhood and travels alone across the fractured country, sold and traded from house to house, with only Yaseen as her intermittent lifeline. Their struggle will mirror the increasingly bloody struggle for Sudan itself: for freedom, safety and the possibility of love.

River Spirit is a powerful tale of corruption and unshakeable devotion - to a cause, to one's faith and to the people who become family.