'Maryse Condé is an extraordinary storyteller who brings the history of an African kingdom alive as vividly as if it existed today. . . This is a great novel: unputdownable and unforgettable' Bernardine Evaristo

Winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize for Literature 2018

The bestselling epic novel of family, treachery, rivalry, religious fervour and the turbulent fate of a royal African dynasty

It is 1797 and the African kingdom of Segu, born of blood and violence, is at the height of its power. Yet Dousika Traore, the king's most trusted advisor, feels nothing but dread. Change is coming. From the East, a new religion, Islam. From the West, the slave trade. These forces will tear his country, his village and the lives of his beloved sons apart, in Maryse Condé's glittering epic.


'Rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader's heart' - Maya Angelou

'A stunning reaffirmation of Africa and its peoples... It's a starburst' - John A. Williams

Maryse Cond¿Author)
Maryse Cond¿as born at Pointe-¿itre, Guadeloupe, in 1937 and spent most of her life in West Africa (Guinea, Ghana and Senegal), France and the US, where she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA and Columbia. The publication of her bestselling third novel, Segu (1984), established her pre-eminent position among Caribbean writers. She won Le Grand Prix Litt¿ire de la Femme in 1986 as well as Le Prix de L'Acad¿e Fran¿se in 1988 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2015.