num_pages: 320
description: The spellbinding new novel from New York Times Notable Author and Caine Prize winner Leila Aboulela about an embattled young womans coming of age during the Mahdist War in 19th century Sudan. Leila Aboulela hailed as a versatile prose stylist (New York Times) has also been praised by J.M. Coetzee Ali Smith and Ben Okri among others for her rich and nuanced novels depicting Islamic spiritual and political life. Her new novel is an enchanting narrative of the years leading up to the British conquest of Sudan in 1898 and a deeply human look at the tensions between Britain and Sudan Christianity and Islam colonizer and colonized. In River Spirit Aboulela gives us the unforgettable story of a people whoagainst the odds and for a brief timegained independence from foreign rule through their willpower subterfuge and sacrifice.When Akuany and her brother Bol are orphaned in a village raid in South Sudan theyre taken in by a young merchant Yaseen who promises to care for them a vow that tethers him to Akuany through their adulthood. 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 Quran 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.Through the voices of seven men and women whose fates grow inextricably linked Aboulelas latest novel illuminates a fraught and bloody reckoning with the history of a people caught in the crosshairs of imperialism. River Spirit is a powerful tale of corruption coming of age and unshakeable devotion  to a cause to ones faith and to the people who become family.
language: English
title: River Spirit
publisher: Grove Atlantic