Books of April – Cool Kids Edition

Can you believe how fast 2019 is going? And with so many beautiful books already. The last 3 months have been a lot of fun for me. And it blows my mind when i think about all the literary goodness still coming our way this year.

In April, Narrative Landscape brings the mind bending work of fiction that is Black Leopard Red Wolf to Nigeria. This review is coming up as soon as I reboot my mind to “factory setting”.

[bctt tweet=”Discover upcoming releases by African authors in April 2019″ username=”naijabookworm_”]

One book I’m looking forward to getting my hands on is Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams. So far, all I’ve seen are positive reviews and an interesting interview of the author (This is the point I truly fell in love with her).

Without further ado, meet the new books coming on the block in April.

Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James

Release Date: April 1st, 2019

In the stunning first novel in Marlon James’s Dark Star trilogy, myth, fantasy, and history come together to explore what happens when a mercenary is hired to find a missing child.

Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: “He has a nose,” people say. Engaged to track down a mysterious boy who disappeared three years earlier, Tracker breaks his own rule of always working alone when he finds himself part of a group that comes together to search for the boy.

The band is a hodgepodge, full of unusual characters with secrets of their own, including a shape-shifting man-animal known as Leopard. As Tracker follows the boy’s scent–from one ancient city to another; into dense forests and across deep rivers–he and the band are set upon by creatures intent on destroying them.

As he struggles to survive, Tracker starts to wonder: Who, really, is this boy? Why has he been missing for so long? Why do so many people want to keep Tracker from finding him? And perhaps the most important questions of all: Who is telling the truth, and who is lying?

Drawing from African history and mythology and his own rich imagination, Marlon James has written a novel unlike anything that’s come before it: a saga of breathtaking adventure that’s also an ambitious, involving read.

Defying categorization and full of unforgettable characters, Black Leopard, Red Wolf is both surprising and profound as it explores the fundamentals of truth, the limits of power, and our need to understand them both.

Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams

Release Date: April 11th, 2019

Queenie Jenkins can’t cut a break. Well, apart from one from her long term boyfriend, Tom. That’s definitely just a break though. Definitely not a break up.

Stuck between a boss who doesn’t seem to see her, a family who don’t seem to listen (if it’s not Jesus or water rates, they’re not interested), and trying to fit in two worlds that don’t really understand her, it’s no wonder she’s struggling.

She was named to be queen of everything. So why is she finding it so hard to rule her own life?

 

Shut Up You’re Pretty by Tea Mutonji

Release Date: April 15th, 2019

In Tea Mutonji’s disarming debut story collection, a woman contemplates her Congolese traditions during a family wedding, a teenage girl looks for happiness inside a pack of cigarettes, a mother reconnects with her daughter through their shared interest in fish, and a young woman decides to shave her head in the waiting room of an abortion clinic.

These punchy, sharply observed stories blur the lines between longing and choosing, exploring the narrator’s experience as an involuntary one. Tinged with pathos and humour, they interrogate the moments in which femininity, womanness, and identity are not only questioned but also imposed.

Shut Up You’re Pretty is the first book to be published under the imprint VS. Books, a series of books curated and edited by writer-musician Vivek Shraya featuring work by new and emerging Indigenous or Black writers, or writers of colour.

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Are you looking forward to any new book releases in April 2019?