When we were birds
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
When we were birds
(Penguin fiction)
Penguin, 2023, c2022
- : [pbk.]
Available at 1 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
Note
Originally published: Hamish Hamilton, 2022
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Winner of the BOCAS Prize for Fiction 2023
Winner of for the Authors' Club Best First Novel Award 2023
Shortlisted for the Jhalak Prize 2023
Shortlisted for the McKitterick Prize 2023
Shortlisted for the Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award 2023
Longlisted for the Goldsboro Books Glass Bell Award 2023
'BELIEVE THE HYPE' Stella
'A searing symphony of magic and loss, love and hope' Marlon James
'A mesmerising love story, achingly tender' Bolu Babalola
Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets.
Meanwhile in an old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide's mother is dying. And she is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: the power to talk to the dead. The women of Yejide's family are human but also not - descended from corbeau, the black birds that fly east at sunset, taking with them the souls of the dead.
Darwin and Yejide both have something that the other needs. Their destinies are intertwined, and they will find one another in the sprawling, ancient cemetery at the heart of the island, where trouble is brewing...
Rich with magic and wisdom, When We Were Birds is an exuberant masterpiece that conjures and mesmerises on every line. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo weaves an unforgettable story of loss and renewal, darkness and light; a triumphant reckoning with a grief that runs back generations and a defiant, joyful affirmation of hope.
'Exceptional' Jacob Ross
'Exquisite' Avni Doshi
'It's a knockout, and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is a star' Niven Govinden
'When We Were Birds marks the emergence of a distinctive and powerful voice' Pat Barker, author of The Silence of the Girls
by "Nielsen BookData"