Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor – författare & böcker

Dust

Häftad, Engelska, 2015

132 kr

Skickas

Kenya, 2007. Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His sister, Ajany, and their father bring his body back home, to a crumbling colonial house in northern Kenya. But the peace they seek is hard to find: the murder has stirred deeply buried memories of colonial violence, of the killing-sprees of the Mau Mau uprising, and the shocking political assassination of Tom Mboya in 1969. When a young Englishman appears, searching for his missing father, another story, of love, or at least a connection, begins. This is a spellbinding state of the nation novel about Kenya, showing how the violence of the past informs the violence and disorder of the present. Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor's memorable characters; Ajany's mother, deranged with grief and past violations, the Trader, embodying the timeless nomadic traders of Sudan, and Odidi himself, who transcended his past, came to success, and then a tragic end, are enchanting. Owuor reveals to us a new Kenya, a Kenya of bloodshed but also of modernity, suffused with a spirit world only half-remembered. This is a country where the characters listen so acutely for what is not said, and for the voices from the distant and recent past.

Stoft

AvYvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Inbunden, Svenska, 2024

(2)

259 kr

Skickas

När en ung man skjuts ned på Nairobis gator för hans förkrossade far och syster tillbaka hans kropp till det sönderfallande hemmet i norra Kenyas torrmarker. Men mordet har satt sedan länge begravda minnen i rörelse och utlöser en serie händelser som ingen kunnat förutse. Hans syster försöker nysta i omständigheterna kring broderns död, ett sökande som river upp gamla sår och väcker minnen om kolonialtidens brutalitet. När det dessutom dyker upp en ung engelsman som söker efter sin far visar sig ett nytt sammanhang och en ny möjlighet till kärlek och försoning. Växlingen mellan hänsynslös realism och poetiskt språk gör boken till en enastående litterär resa.

Stoft är en storslagen berättelse om kärlek och smärta som sträcker sig över femtio år av Kenyas moderna historia, från Mau-Mau-upproret, frigörelsen från det brittiska imperiet och de strider som plågar den nya nationen.

I sin roman skildrar Owuor Kenyas historia politiskt, poetiskt, vasst, mjukt, målande, med hjälp av storstadsbor och nomader. I takt med att sanningar uppenbaras får vi kännedom om de hemligheter som dolts av detta förtorkade landskap. Gömda djupt i en familjs gemensamma förflutna och deras konfliktdrabbade nation.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor är född 1968 i Kenya. Hon blev ett namn i den litterära världen när hon 2003 fick ett prestigefyllt pris för sin novell Viskningarnas vikt (”Weight of Whispers”), nämligen Cainepriset, ett litterärt pris som sedan 2000 ges till en novell skriven på engelska av en afrikansk författare. Priset är uppkallat efter sir Michael Harris Caine, före detta vd för Booker Group, och ordförande för Bookerpriset i nästan tjugofem år. Det enda som hittills har publicerats av Owuor på svenska är novellen Viskningarnas vikt (övers. Clemens Altgård) som finns att läsa i 10Tals stora Kenyanummer, Kenya, mon amour, från oktober 2010. Men här föreligger nu hennes första roman, Stoft (”Dust”) på Celanders förlag, som tidigare publicerat en annan deltagare i 10Tals poesifestival 2010 – Shailja Patels Migritude.

Dust

AvYvonne Adhiambo Owuor

E-bok

Engelska, 2014

200 kr

Läs direkt efter köp

From a breathtaking new voice, a novel about a splintered family in Kenya—a story of power and deceit, unrequited love, survival and sacrifice. Odidi Oganda, running for his life, is gunned down in the streets of Nairobi. His grief-stricken sister, Ajany, just returned from Brazil, and their father bring his body back to their crumbling home in the Kenyan drylands, seeking some comfort and peace. But the murder has stirred memories long left untouched and unleashed a series of unexpected events: Odidi and Ajany’s mercurial mother flees in a fit of rage; a young Englishman arrives at the Ogandas’ house, seeking his missing father; a hardened policeman who has borne witness to unspeakable acts reopens a cold case; and an all-seeing Trader with a murky identity plots an overdue revenge. In scenes stretching from the violent upheaval of contemporary Kenya back through a shocking political assassination in 1969 and the Mau Mau uprisings against British colonial rule in the 1950s, we come to learn the secrets held by this parched landscape, buried deep within the shared past of the family and of a conflicted nation. Here is a spellbinding novel about a brother and sister who have lost their way; about how myths come to pass, history is written, and war stains us forever.

Dragonfly Sea

A novel

AvYvonne Adhiambo Owuor

E-bok

Engelska, 2019

157 kr

Läs direkt efter köp

From the award-winning author of Dust comes a vibrant, stunning coming-of-age novel about a young woman struggling to find her place in a vast world--a poignant exploration of fate, mortality, love, and loss.On the island of Pate, off the coast of Kenya, lives solitary, stubborn Ayaana and her mother, Munira. When a sailor named Muhidin, also an outsider, enters their lives, Ayaana 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 and the island itself--from a taciturn visitor with a murky past to a sanctuary-seeking religious extremist, from dragonflies to a tsunami, from black-clad kidnappers to cultural emissaries from China. Ayaana ends up embarking on a dramatic ship''s journey to the Far East, where she will discover friends and enemies; be seduced by the charming but unreliable scion of a powerful Turkish business family; reclaim her devotion to the sea; and come to find her own tenuous place amid a landscape of beauty and violence and surprising joy. Told with a glorious lyricism and an unerring sense of compassion, The Dragonfly Sea is a transcendent story of adventure, fraught choices, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world.

The Dragonfly Sea

A novel

AvYvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Häftad, Engelska, 2020

195 kr

Skickas inom 11-20 vardagar

Dragonfly Sea

AvYvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Inbunden, Engelska, 2021

213 kr

Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar

'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'Lyrical, compassionate, and deeply original, it has stayed with me, and is the novel I have most enjoyed this year' Sathnam Sanghera, author of EmpirelandThe Dragonfly Sea follows the unforgettable Ayaana's journey to adulthood after her small-island childhood is interrupted. Targeted first by religious fundamentalists and second by Chinese emissaries, Ayaana is sent on a container ship to study in China, where she is forced to grow up fast.With its epic scope and lush lyricism, Owuor evokes a fascinating kind of beauty in this dangerous, chaotic world and its ever-shifting oceans and trade. A transcendent story of love and adventure, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world.

Dragonfly Sea

AvYvonne Adhiambo Owuor

Häftad, Engelska, 2022

129 kr

Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar

'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'Lyrical, compassionate, and deeply original, it has stayed with me, and is the novel I have most enjoyed this year' Sathnam Sanghera, author of EmpirelandThe Dragonfly Sea follows the unforgettable Ayaana's journey to adulthood after her small-island childhood is interrupted. Targeted first by religious fundamentalists and second by Chinese emissaries, Ayaana is sent on a container ship to study in China, where she is forced to grow up fast.With its epic scope and lush lyricism, Owuor evokes a fascinating kind of beauty in this dangerous, chaotic world and its ever-shifting oceans and trade. A transcendent story of love and adventure, and of the inexorable need for shelter in a dangerous world.