Ancestor Stones

A novel of three generations, Ancestor Stones unravels the lives of four African women as they tell their stories and magical fables to their first generation British niece. Aminatta Forna weaves together the voices of generations of women - aunts, daughters and mothers - to capture an elusive sense of Africa, starting in a world poised on the cusp of great change and spanning a century. In tales of love, marriage, war and woman's subtle triumph, Serah, Mary, Hawa and Asana lift the past from their shoulders and hand it to their niece as a luminous treasure trove of memories, of lives lived, terrors faced and pleasures tasted. A grief-stricken chief spends a fortune to win back the love and freedom of an escaped bride whom he'd once captured as a slave; a young third wife struggles to find her place in the cold heart of her husband - and in doing so uncovers his household's old secrets; a daughter struggles to understand a seismic shift in belief as Islam displaces the old gods her mother still worships through the stones of her ancestors' spirits; a white 'moon shadow man' represents a terrifying apparition to a girl whose fortune changes overnight. Stretching across sensibilities, generations and continents, Ancestor Stones is a stunning novel of a nation, a family and the individual women whose stories explore different ways of seeing- how the past is understood through the filter of hindsight, how women come to see themselves through the eyes of others, and how stories ancient and new shape the world that we see.