A family divided by migration, memory, and the violent reshaping of their homeland

Zacharias is a fisherman in Cameroon. His community - shaped for generations by the river's rhythms and the meeting of forest and ocean - is upended by the arrival of predatory economic interests that exploit both land and people. Violence and irreversible change tear apart Zacharias's family.

Decades later, his grandson Zack is adrift in Paris, haunted by a grandfather he never knew and a country whose wounds he carries in his body.

A work of rare lyricism and political force that braids together the destinies of grandfather and grandson, each carrying the weight of a world transformed, and the delicate inheritance of love.



"A magnificent storyteller… Hemley Boum captures the beating heart of a people and their history."



"A powerful, polyphonic writer of immense generosity."



"Boum reweaves memory and political violence with rare finesse."



"Her writing is luminous, lucid, compassionate."