num_pages: 216
description: Everything starts with a song and everything ends with another song says the narrator of The Divine Song. Paris is an old Sufi cat who keeps watch over his brilliant yet pathetic master Sammy Kamau-Williams the Enchanter. In Sammy we recognize the African American singer-composer poet and novelist Gil Scott-Heron who is best known for his song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. The Divine Song takes us from the shores of Africa to Sammys ancestors arrival in the Americas in the hold of the slave ships. From there Abdourahman A. Waberi takes the characters from Tennesseeunder the tutelage of Lili Williams Sammys beloved African-born grandmotherto New York and the concert halls of Paris and Berlin wherever blues and jazz find an enchanted audience. African tales religious practices segregation the civil rights movement addiction and jailSammys life comes to encompass the whole of the African American experience. At a time when social and racial divisions have yet again come into sharp relief this lyrical novel by one of African literatures rising stars is necessary reading for anyone who celebrates the resilience of art. 
language: None
title: The Divine Song
publisher: Seagull Books