The novel is set for release in the US in March 2023.
By Editor
Award-winning Sudanese novelist, Leila Aboulela’s newest novel, River Spirit, is set for release in the US in March 2023 by Grove Press.
The novel centres around a young woman named Akuany, and events during the 19th Century Mahdist War.
“As a revolutionary leader rises to power–the self-proclaimed Mahdi, prophesied redeemer of Islam–Sudan begins to slip from the grasp of Ottoman rule, and everyone must choose a side. A scholar of the Qur’an, Yaseen feels beholden to stand against this false Mahdi, even as his choice splinters his family. Meanwhile, Akuany moves through her young adulthood and across the country alone, sold and traded from house to house, with Yaseen as her inconsistent lifeline. Everything each of them is striving for–love, freedom, safety–is all on the line in the fight for Sudan,” goes the book’s synopsis.
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Leila Aboulela lives in Scotland. She is the author of The Translator (1999), Minaret (2005), Lyrics Alley (2010), The Kindness of Enemies (2015), Elsewhere Home (2018), and Bird Summons (2019). She is the winner of the first AKO Caine Prize for African Fiction in 2000, as well as the Scottish Book of the Year award for Fiction for Lyrics Alley.