Kalaf Epalanga’s debut novel Whites Can Dance Too is a momentous and invigorating glance behind the curtain of one man and his love affair with music and rhythm.

Epalanga manages to intertwine difficult themes of love, freedom and the ever-encroaching harm of racism around the world, all to the beat of Kuduro, the techno-infused music of Angola and Epalanga himself. His novel follows three different voices as they live through their own stories and battle their own struggles, accompanied by music and dance.

We are thrust into the story as we are introduced to Epalanga mere hours before the most important performance of his life in Oslo, stuck at the border with improper documentation. He is detained under the suspicion of being an illegal immigrant and finds himself trapped in a waiting game with antagonising immigration officials. Writers are told all the time that the opening passage to their piece is one of, if not the most important part of writing, and Epalanga’s is a masterclass in setting the tone for the remainder of the novel. When we meet him, he seems to be a jumbled mix of emotions. He is, at once, optimistic and laid back, while also showing a bone-deep apprehension towards his fate, recognised by anyone who has found themselves in a foreign country where no one looks like you. This contrast is found throughout the novel as Epalanga bridges the gap between African and European cultures, putting the two into sharp focus with the uniting power of music.

As we delve deeper into his time in detention and the stories he tells of dance and Kuduro taking him and his friends all over the world, we become more and more aware of the underlying theme of “the Other”. The grey, lonely and oppressive walls of the detention facility Epalanga finds himself in are so starkly different to the bustling liveliness of Roque, the largest open-air store in Africa that a friend once took him to. There is a need for belonging that he sets up at the very beginning and throughout works to show his reader that you aren’t always going to find it everywhere you go.

To that point, however, I must include a lengthy quote from the middle of the novel (no spoilers!) that, I think, encapsulates another of the story’s key themes. Epalanga writes: “It looks like when you’re in the middle of the room, even if you seem to be only focused on your partner, there’s this whole collective choreography everyone seems to follow, a code of movement.” While Epalanga is detained and treated as “the Other” in one circumstance, there are many beautiful passages throughout the novel that proves dance and music and rhythm to be the universal voice across the globe. Epalanga’s music has taken him all over the world to perform, and it is music that is the common denominator throughout.

Overall, Whites Can Dance Too is a dazzling collage of culture and self-expression that is a testament to the author’s love of music and his talent for conveying it in written form. There are passages that could only have been written by a musician as they evoke a rhythm and movement that is hard to resist. I would recommend putting together a nice long playlist of songs from all over the world, and sitting back and reading Whites Can Dance Too this summer.

Whites Can Dance Too is available from 15th June from Faber.co.uk

Teens and lovers of YA are absolutely spoilt for choice these days.

There are so many great books that tackle important issues with candour, honesty and heart, and Diana Anyakwo’s debut novel ‘My Life as a Chameleon‘ is one such book.

Our protagonist Lily is 16 and living in Manchester. It’s been 5 years since her father died and she is about to return to Nigeria to reunite with her mother and older siblings. It’s from this point that she looks back on her experiences growing up.

The book has dual timelines, which we switch between throughout the novel, one 1990’s Manchester, and another set mostly in Lagos in the 1980s. As Lily looks back on her childhood she gains a greater understanding of the secrets, relationships and experiences she couldn’t quite grasp as a young child.

As the baby of the family, by several years, when Lily is 8 her other siblings are at university and boarding school. So, at her home in Lagos it’s just Lily, her Irish mother, and her Nigerian father. During this time, her father struggles with an illness that keeps him bed bound that she doesn’t quite understand. Some days Lily needs to tiptoe around him so she doesn’t set him off.

As a mixed-race girl Lily doesn’t quite seem to fit in at school either. At both home and school where tension bubbles just under the surface, to feel safe and like she belongs she learns to live like a chameleon, adapting herself blend in where she can. A lot of us adult and teen can relate to code-switching in this way, and that feeling of not fitting in; trying on lots of different identities until we gain a better understanding of ourselves and place in the world.

Much of My Life as a Chameleon is based on Anyakwo’s experiences and memories of growing up mixed race in Nigeria, and this brings so much heart, tenderness and understanding to her novel. This coming-of-age story explores themes of race, class, and social acceptance, as well as the phenomenon of Nigerwives – white women married to Nigerian men who weren’t given the same privileges as the expatriates working in Nigeria in the 70s and 80s.

My Life as a Chameleon is an engaging read, although the transitions between timelines and locations felt a bit unnecessary. But the story is told with an authenticity that shines through, albeit with a bittersweetness to it.

This is a powerful, introspective book, that’s engaging and will pull on your heart strings. It’s a book for anyone who’s felt lonely, misunderstood or out of place, who’s had to switch who they are to blend in or disappear.

My Life As A Chameleon is available to purchase here.

Losing the Plot is a delightfully experimental and keenly observed work by the award-winning poet Derek Owusu. 

Hailing from North London, Owusu is a writer, poet and podcaster, he co-founded The Black Writers Guild in 2020, which seeks to tackle the lack of representation and inequalities that exist within mainstream publishing in the UK.

His first novel, That Reminds Me, was published by Stormzy’s imprint #Merky Books in 2019 and won the Desmond Elliott Prize. His latest offering, Losing the Plot, like its predecessor, dissects familial relationships and explores how feelings of displacement transcends generations.

Losing the Plot follows the relationship between a Ghanaian woman and her son in Tottenham, North London. Owusu’s prose poem follows the mother’s arrival in London, how she adapts to her new life and how she raises her children. From the margins speaks her son: the young British-Ghanian man who speaks candidly and colloquially about his relationship with his mother. Asterisks are scattered throughout the novel, often following Twi phrases or specific cultural references, and we hear the son’s voice in these asterisked sidenotes. Rather than glossing over these phrases for the reader, the young man interjects with tangential anecdotes and opinions. His voice disrupts the flow of Owusu’s poetic phrases with spoken English, explaining that he hasn’t been to Ghana because people have been ‘banging juj’ and that he is afraid of smelling like ‘Maggi cubes’ when he leaves the house. He doesn’t enjoy spending all day at church and isn’t convinced by his mother speaking in tongues. Owusu’s narrator struggles to connect with his mother, and he rejects aspects of the culture that she represents to him.

However, Owusu goes further and observes the familial relationship beyond these cultural clichés. Ultimately, the speaker must grapple with the way in which his mother demonstrates her love. There is some difficulty communicating with a reserved and almost-secretive mother, but the speaker grows in appreciation of the challenges that his mother has faced and acknowledges this, stating, ‘Being an immigrant is stress’. He also comes to the conclusion that his mother expresses love differently – ‘Small things like that is how you know. She does things her own way, I guess‘. He extends empathy to a woman who has faced her own challenges, a woman uprooted from what was familiar, a woman adapting to a hostile and isolating cultural environment.

At first, I found that multiple voices were hard to follow and that the asterisked phrases disrupted the flow of the narrative. As the story progressed, I adapted better to Owusu’s experimental style. Playing with the form, Owusu allows for a more dynamic reading experience. The contrasting voices of the mother and son initially clash but eventually complement each other. Owusu’s work is stylish and assured, and he builds a world that is relatable to young Black British people. With the use of a London dialect, Losing the Plot also marks how Black British people have created their own language, community and culture, distinct from both the cultures they’ve inherited and the dominant British culture. 

Whole chapters of our parents’ lives are unknown to us, and the snippets that we do know are carefully shared. Without intention, these secrets can create tension and distance. Owusu reimagines his mother’s journey to the UK in order to process generational trauma and find peace in empathy. Owusu’s writing is bold, wise, and generous; he amplifies and validates the complexities of inter-generational love.

Losing the Plot was published by Canongate Books on 3^rd November 2022.

A touching, powerful and fiery new collection of poetry, inspired by the seminal The Fire People: A Collection of Black British and Asian Poetry, will be released on 19th May.

Page after page of More Fiya, a new poetry anthology curated and introduced by Kayo Chingonyi, is filled with poems of breath-taking breadth by new and established Black British poets. With experiences of individuals and communities spanning across the African diasporic community in Britain, the anthology is a melting pot of perspectives of poets with varied and unique positions within the United Kingdom. The poems redefine preconceived notions and compel readers to contemplate. 

Popular and award-winning contemporary poets such as Warsan Shire, Yomi Ṣode and Rommi Smith feature in this anthology alongside other poets and spoken-word artists. There are innovative uses of form in Nick Makoha’s Pythagoras Theorem which breaks down the equation into three stanzas, and in Keisha Thompson’s Number 2020, which reflects on the year 2020, the online world we inhabited and the numbers which rule our lives. There is beauty, pain and resistance in the words of the poets, who draw on individual stories with universal parallels and implications.

The gorgeous hardback edition of these poems sees the work of poets and spoken-word artists on the page, celebrating, lamenting, and documenting Black life in its myriad of ways. Keith Jarrett’s My mother sings of how she got her education calls to the oral history of storytelling and poetry which inspires many of the poets in this collection. The collection’s final poem, Belinda Zhawi’s This Body Wants What It Wants, perfectly concludes an anthology of defiance, autonomy, and life.

There is incredible range in this collection, and there is something for everybody —poetry lovers, poetry newbies and everyone in-between — and especially for music lovers. As well as being a poet, Kayo Chingonyi is a DJ and author, and he describes the selection of poetry as his ‘dream mixtape’. 

Chingonyi reflects on the accessibility of poetry in his introduction and how it isn’t a surprise that many Black British poets began and continue their careers in spoken-word and live performance. On publishing the collection, he describes the work as a ‘product of community, ingenuity and persistence in the face of overwhelming pressures to the contrary‘. Radical thinking runs through the ordinariness of life in these poems, bound together by blackness. 

Canongate Books are also reissuing The Fire People, a collection first released in 1998 with a new introduction by the author, poet and broadcaster Lemn Sissay. His work appeared in this anthology over twenty years ago, and he re-introduces the collection. The Fire People contains poetry contemporary to the end of the 20th century and captures a moment in time. The writings of multi-disciplinary artists Malika Booker and Roger Robinson feature in both The Fire People and More Fiya. The 90s anthology also includes the work of poets who are now established and popularly known, such as Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jackie Kay, Patience Agbabi and Labi Siffre. 

I imagine that in another twenty years, we will look back on More Fiya as a beautiful encapsulation of a variety of experiences that will be pertinent to their present moment as well as resonate in a future age. 

More Fiya and The Fire People will be released on 19th May 2022.

She chose her heart. He chose the church Fate reunited them. Can love save them?

When Esther, a bisexual Nigerian girl with a beautiful voice and rebellious spirit falls in love with Elijah, the proud Yoruba pastor’s son, the two lovers cannot imagine their lives without one another. But then, unexpectedly and abruptly Elijah ends their relationship and a heartbroken but determined Esther travels to the US to fulfil her dreams of becoming a singer.

Eighteen years later, Esther returns to the UK on a quest to find her estranged father who had fled Nigeria under mysterious circumstances. By chance, she is reunited with Elijah who is now married and the senior pastor of his father’s church. Old feelings soon re-ignite amid the painful memories of the past and before long both Esther and Elijah are faced with some difficult choices.

Though it had a good plot and storyline, at times the novel felt a bit formulaic, but not enough to detract from the overall enjoyment. The relationship between Esther and Elijah was beautifully depicted though I did struggle with the notion that Elijah would jeopardise his marriage and pastoral career for an affair with an old flame. Not just because he was a pastor but because from the beginning even as a young teenager he is portrayed as someone who is very principled and has a lot of integrity. Therefore it was quite jarring to see him willfully entering into a love affair, while his marriage continued to suffer.

I really liked the flashbacks between the 80s, 90s and 2000s, as the novel placed the main characters in the midst of key events that shaped Black British history such as The New Cross Fire and the subsequent Black People’s Day of Action march, and the Brixton riots. This was a really good way of presenting the facts of what actually happened during those times to an audience that may not be familiar and also a poignant reminder of the struggle and activism of Black Britons especially in the light of today’s Black Lives Matter movement.

Faith and sexuality form the major themes explored in the novel. It was refreshing to see that Esther’s bisexuality was not the ‘problem’ in her relationship with Elijah though initially, he did condemn her but later apologised for his actions and fully accepted her for who she was. Also refreshing was Elijah later challenging the homophobia in his church in a bid to open the minds of his congregation. It definitely felt like the author was making a specific point about how both are treated within the Nigerian community and it was a point well made, highlighting that the love and grace of God is not restricted to a small selection of people.

Ending on a bit of a surprise cliffhanger, indicating a sequel is on the way The Prophet Who Loved Her is an enjoyable read with lots of love, humour as well as dramatic tension to keep you turning the pages.

A Prophet Who Loved Her is available from online and in store book retailers Amazon and Waterstone

Twenty-six year old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is the only Black employee at Wagner Books.

Tired and fed up with the isolation, the daily microaggressions, and the half-hearted attitude towards addressing the lack of diversity in publishing, she is delighted when another Black girl, Hazel-May McCall starts working as a new editorial assistant alongside her. At last, someone who ‘gets it’ and who will be an ally in changing things up at Wagner for the better.

In awe and perhaps a little intimidated by Hazel’s poise and obvious self-confidence, a tentative friendship is struck between the two women. But for all Hazel’s friendliness and hair care regimen tips, something is off about her. There’s something inconsistent about the way she interacts with the other white employees and the way she interacts with Nella in private, and this something goes beyond mere code-switching.

Soon the question for Nella is whether she is losing her mind or whether it’s true that Hazel is not all that she appears to be. And who is behind the mystery notes she receives telling her to leave Wagner? And whatever happened to Kendra Rae Phillips, Wagner’s first Black editor who left years ago and hadn’t been seen in public since?

The Other Black Girl is a highly entertaining, nuanced satire about race, Black identity, and Black womanhood. It was a little slow to begin with as the plots were being set up but the payoff was most certainly worth it. By the end, I was holding my breath and at one point I remember letting out an audible ‘nooooo!’, as the novel went all the way left with a chilling plot twist.

The characters were also very well-drawn, Nella is instantly relatable as the young, ambitious editorial assistant eager to make her mark, while at the same time trying to figure out who she is and what she stands for as a young Black professional. The exploration of Blackness and what being Black is and isn’t, is a key theme in this novel. Whichever side of the debate you may come down on, one thing is clear, Blackness is not a monolith, it’s not one thing or the other. What’s perhaps more important is not the ‘type’ of Black you are but how true you are to yourself, your ideals, and how best you can authentically express them.

Hazel is a perfect villain type but is she really a villain or just a victim of her desire to succeed no matter the cost? At times I felt like Nella and Hazel represented different sides of the same coin as I think most people have been a little bit Nella and a little bit Hazel during their working career whether consciously or not. That said, I think one of the most poignant themes of the novel was how working life for Black women can take its toll and the pressure as one scales up the career ladder takes it toll psychically and emotionally as we try to be all things to all men, so to speak. Which we know just isn’t possible.

Zakiya Dalila Harris is a joyous writer who clearly takes pleasure in her craft. In The Other Black Girl, she has portrayed an instantly recognisable social dynamic in workplaces everywhere, which is part and parcel of the power and beauty of this novel. I definitely came away challenged with a lot of thoughts about my own career path and what it may have cost me to be where I am now. And I’m sure that this will be the book that many will be discussing for the weeks and months to come.

The Other Black Girl is available from online and in store book retailers. Keep up to date with Zakiya Dalila Harris via Twitter

Open Water is a beautiful, intimate portrayal of two people finding each other, losing, then finding each other once more.

It’s also an exploration of Black masculinity and how vulnerability is not something freely afforded to men and boys. In the midst of mourning the loss of a relative, the unnamed narrator falls for a woman he meets through a friend, and quickly they form a strong bond which later forms into a loving relationship. However, fear and violence soon comes between, and questions arise as to what it truly means to be open, vulnerable and in love.

Written exclusively in the second person narrative, Open Water immediately places you in the narrator’s shoes. His thoughts and feelings are your own, which lends strongly to the intimacy and vulnerability that the author explores throughout the novel. I was struck by how honest and intentional it was, as each word, each sentence is heavy with sentiment and meaning. 

I also liked how it was not only a love song to Black love, art and music, it was also a love song to London, with all its strengths and weakness, beauty and ugliness. I really enjoyed the journeys the protagonists made across the city, from North to South, and the small vignettes of activities that make London, London. From getting a takeaway from the local chicken shop to enjoying a slow whine with a stranger at Carnival. And the more devastating aspects like your every move watched and questioned by a hostile police force. Open Water explores how the city can make and break you as a Black person, a Black body, and for me, that formed some of the most poignant parts of the novel. It also explores love, loss, and grief in such a deep and personal way, that it’s difficult not to come away from the novel feeling rather raw and exposed, particularly if, in these pandemic times, you have also experienced the loss of a loved one.

This is a really powerfully written story, packed with raw emotion and vulnerability. Rarely have I read such a tender love story, so sensitively told, especially by a male writer. A really strong debut, from a very thoughtful and talented writer.

Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson is available to buy from all good bookstores.

Keep up to date with Caleb: Instagram | Twitter

It was a structure built to save the lives of many, but the Ark rapidly became a refuge for the elite and then its entrance closed without warning.

Years later, a chance to live within the confines of the Ark is granted to a select few who can prove their worth. Markriss Denny is one of the chosen but soon realises that life within the Ark is not as promised.

Markriss also has a secret that could jeopardise his future; he can leave his body without warning and in the Ark he learns of another with the same power, but whose existence could spell catastrophe for humanity. Charged with destroying the other, Markriss is forced into a desperate race to understand his abilities and uncover the truth about himself, the Ark and the people he thought he knew.

A River Called Time is an ambitious book in concept and delivery. The novel is set in futuristic versions of London, where Newland draws clear parallels with our present with the depictions of social inequality, protest, and violence and a media and government which have a distant relationship with the truth. But so many ideas, themes, and plot lines (and plot twists) flow through the novel, that at times it was hard for my lockdown-addled brain to keep up. But don’t let that deter you, although I didn’t absolutely love it, the novel is definitely a good read with enough going on to keep you engaged during those long lockdown evenings.

Courttia Newland is a skillful storyteller and in someone else’s hands this novel might not have worked and might have come across a little bit too self-indulgent. But he strikes the balance just right, moving almost seamlessly between storytelling, teaching and positing ideas around spirituality, Afrofuturism, cosmology, politics and a host of other insights. I really liked how he created a world or rather worlds in which colonialism never existed and the dominant religion or school of thought and culture is Afrocentric rather Eurocentric, which contrasts so sharply with the way we are taught to think and see the world which we inhabit.

A River Called Time is not typically the kind of novel genre I would choose to read, but I’m glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to read it, and I would recommend that others do so too. If you like your fiction, speculative, futuristic, deep and enriching this may well be the one for you.

A River Called Time by Courttia Newland is available to buy from most online book retailers.

At 13 years old, Njambi McGrath was beaten and left for dead.

Fearful that her attacker would try to finish what he started, she ran away in the middle of the night, on foot through the Kenyan countryside, risking the dangers of wild animals, robbers and murderers. She was later rescued by two men who brought her safely into the city, where she slowly began to rebuild her life. Fast forward several years, Njambi is married with children and living in the UK. An invite to her brother’s wedding in Kenya forces her to confront the painful past she had long buried.

This was a searingly honest portrayal of a family torn apart by lies and betrayal. McGrath’s memories of her early years seem rather idyllic, and though she later explains what happened, at times it was hard to see how and why her life was almost destroyed by what happened to her. But what the memoir is at pains to point out is, this was not an overnight or sudden change. Much in the same way as a cancerous tumour it was slow, insidious until it finally manifested.

What was interesting to me was that as McGrath strives to reconcile with the past, she undertakes research into her family history, and what starts as a story about family becomes a commentary on the painful and damaging legacy that colonialism had inflicted upon an entire nation. This, coupled with the sadness of her account of the breakdown of her parent’s marriage made for very sobering reading. 

McGrath is a passionate and unflinchingly honest writer, I enjoyed reading her snippets of memories of playing with her siblings, going to school, and all those seemingly mundane childhood memories that we take for granted. I did, however, find myself curious as to how she managed to bury her past to the extent that she did, and whether she ever acknowledged it before the arrival of the wedding invitation. In addition, the narrative structure was at times quite frustrating, as often it seemed like there was a build-up to a climactic scene only to fizzle out and not be as impactful as you were being led to believe.

For me Through the Leopard’s Gaze, came alive when McGrath focussed on her mother’s and grandmother’s stories which were steeped in Kenya’s colonial past, and without these, the memoir would have been quite weak. That said the memoir as a whole was beautifully written and gave many moments of pause for thought, as well as marvel over the human instinct to survive and thrive through the worst of adversities.

Through the Leopard’s Gaze by Njambi McGrath is available at Jaracanda Books, and other book retailers.

Set entirely on a fictional London bus route from Hoxton to Highbury, The 392 captures the diverse perspectives of 11 passengers who are each unknowingly bound together by a common threat.

From Natalie, the pregnant teen dreaming of writing her first novel, Ray the blind, xenophobic Millwall supporter nostalgic for the glory days, to Levi, once vilified for his actions during the 2011 London riots now a freshly qualified solicitor on his way to his first court case. These are the voices of people, characters, that we see every day, sit next to on buses and tube journeys and quite possibly – being in London – never interact with until, like the passengers of the 392, something extraordinary happens.

The 392 accurately voices the discontent of a city adversely affected and divided by gentrification, poverty, and xenophobia. It was easy to recognise and in some respects relate or sympathise with the characters as we travelled through their thoughts and concerns. It’s through their voices that the novel strongly comments on a wide range of societal and cultural issues such as disability, single parenthood, teen pregnancy, ageing, crime, drug abuse and mental health. 

I really enjoyed the novel as it was very human-story led. The richness of the characters’ voices painted a vivid picture of a community still reeling from the aftermath of the London riots and trying to adjust to the many changes that gentrification had introduced, good and bad. It also depicts the frailty of community and trust, as the side effect of terroism across the city has rendered us all hypervigilant and hyper aware particularly in public spaces. Though this was a very key plot point of the novel, it’s also partly where the novel fell short for me, as the only Muslim character did not have his own voice, much less a name – which to me was a missing opportunity, as Muslim voices are often denied or spoken through others. 

And unfortunately, in trying to address the marginalisations and stereotypes in our society, Hickson-Lovence inadvertently reinforces them. It happens again with the character of Sheila, the bus driver who is the hypersexualised fantasy of one of the white male passengers with a fetish for Black women, which made for really uncomfortable reading. While I understood the point, Hickson-Lovence was trying to make about Black women being fetishised by white men, I felt like it was undermined, by not allowing some sort of ‘clapback’ that would put the stereotype firmly on the back foot. In the same way, by not giving the Muslim character a name and his own stream of consciousness, rendered him visibly invisible and only present to serve the function as the sum of our fears.

That said, The 392 was a hugely enjoyable read. It was funny, witty, sad, and viscerally real, a fantastic debut from a very promising and relatable writer. I look forward to seeing what follows.

The 392 by Ashley Hickson-Lovence is available to buy from all good book retailers.