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Segu by Maryse Condé
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Segu

Penguin Modern Classics
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Narrator Debra Michaels

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Translator Barbara Bray
Length 18 hours 43 minutes
Language English
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Brought to you by Penguin.

Winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize for Literature 2018

The bestselling epic novel of family, treachery, rivalry, religious fervour and the turbulent fate of a royal African dynasty

It is 1797 and the African kingdom of Segu, born of blood and violence, is at the height of its power. Yet Dousika Traore, the king's most trusted advisor, feels nothing but dread. Change is coming. From the East, a new religion, Islam. From the West, the slave trade. These forces will tear his country, his village and the lives of his beloved sons apart, in Maryse Condé's glittering epic.

'Maryse Condé is an extraordinary storyteller who brings the history of an African kingdom alive as vividly as if it existed today. . . This is a great novel: unputdownable and unforgettable' Bernardine Evaristo

'Rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader's heart' - Maya Angelou

'A stunning reaffirmation of Africa and its peoples... It's a starburst' - John A. Williams


© Maryse Condé 1984 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Maryse Condé (Author)
Maryse Condé was born at Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, in 1937 and spent most of her life in West Africa (Guinea, Ghana and Senegal), France and the US, where she taught at the University of California, Berkeley, UCLA and Columbia. The publication of her bestselling third novel, Segu (1984), established her pre-eminent position among Caribbean writers. She won Le Grand Prix Littéraire de la Femme in 1986 as well as Le Prix de L'Académie Française in 1988 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2015.

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Reviews

Condé's story is rich and colorful and glorious. It sprawls over continents and centuries to find its way into the reader's heart A stunning reaffirmation of Africa and its peoples... It's a starburst The grand queen, the empress, of Caribbean literature Maryse Condé is an extraordinary storyteller who brings the history of an African kingdom alive as vividly as if it existed today. Suspenseful, shocking, panoramic and hugely engrossing, the novel explores the politics and impact of external and domestic forces on nineteenth century west Africa through wonderfully realised characters and their complicated relationships. This is a great novel: unputdownable and unforgettable If there were no tools on a desert island, I would take Segu by Maryse Condé. This generational family saga has so many layers that I can read and reread it, in between figuring out how to build a raft Richly textured and detailed, this narrative, alternating between the lives of various characters, illuminates magnificently a little known historical period. Virtually every page glitters with nuggets of cultural fascination A wondrous novel about a period of African history few other writers have addressed Expand reviews