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Sky Full of Elephants

by Cebo Campbell

Length 10 hours 24 minutes

Language English

Narrators Leon Nixon, Erin Ruth Walker & Janina Edwards

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Bookseller recommendation

“This book was a departure from my usual picks, yet the overarching themes of identity, healing, power, and family coupled with the absolutely gorgeous writing hooked me from the first chapter. This would be a fabulous book club selection and prompt fascinating discussions.”
— Mallory • Barrett Bookstore

Bookseller recommendation

“This is one of the best books I’ve read all year. Cebo Campbell uncovers some beautiful humanity through his writing and delivers an interesting commentary on our society and what it would mean to remove whiteness from our world. Highly recommend. ”
— Annastasia • The Bottom Knox

Bookseller recommendation

“I never considered how different the world might be without white people in it, so this book caused me some good introspection! I enjoyed Campbell’s humor, rich writing and unique perspective. I came to care deeply about the characters, even thinking about them after the book ended. What a plot! When a supernatural event occurs, white people disappear and a father and his daughter must navigate things and find their places in a very changed world. ”
— Patience • Underground Books

Bookseller recommendation

“Absolutely recommend! The concept is fascinating and the deep soul diving the author does will really make you think. The prose is beautifully done. There were a few times it felt a tad slow, but the beauty of the artistry in the writing compensates for that. Lots of really profound text about race, generational trauma, family, healing, love, and anger. This is a book you can reread and pull more meaning and nuance out of each read. This book feels like it should become a literary classic in every sense. I’ll definitely be reading future works by the author!”
— Jean • Books on Main

Bookseller recommendation

“In this debut novel, a tragedy is a new beginning. All the white people are gone, and the black people are gathering to create community and thrive. Campbell beautifully describes this new world and invites us to imagine a world without whiteness.”
— Samantha • Raven Book Store

Bookseller recommendation

“Wow! Listen to Sky Full of Elephants via Libro.fm, then go and get yourself a physical copy so that you may return to the beautiful prose within its pages time and time again. ”
— Kendra • We Are LIT

Bookseller recommendation

“A lyrical missive on identity and the search for belonging. ”
— Erin • Massy Books

Summary
About the author

“Bold and imaginative.” —Tananarive Due
“This stunning allegory will spark much discussion.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A truly powerful and riveting story.” —Booklist

In a world without white people, what does it mean to be Black?

One day, a cataclysmic event occurs: all of the white people in America walk into the nearest body of water. A year later, Charlie Brunton is a Black man living in an entirely new world. Having served time in prison for a wrongful conviction, he’s now a professor of electric and solar power systems at Howard University when he receives a call from someone he wasn’t even sure existed: his daughter Sidney, a nineteen-year-old left behind by her white mother and step-family.

Traumatized by the event, and terrified of the outside world, Sidney has spent a year in isolation in Wisconsin. Desperate for help, she turns to the father she never met, a man she has always resented. Sidney and Charlie meet for the first time as they embark on a journey across a truly “post-racial” America in search for answers. But neither of them are prepared for this new world and how they see themselves in it.

Heading south toward what is now called the Kingdom of Alabama, everything Charlie and Sidney thought they knew about themselves, and the world, will be turned upside down. Brimming with heart and humor, Cebo Campbell’s astonishing debut novel is about the power of community and connection, about healing and self-actualization, and a reckoning with what it means to be Black in America, in both their world and ours.

Fiction Fiction - Literary

Cebo Campbell is an author and creative director based in Brooklyn, New York. Winner of the Linda L. Ross Creative Writing Award and the Stories Award for Poetry, Cebo’s work has been featured in numerous publications. Cebo is the cofounder of the award-winning creative agency, Spherical, where he leads a team of creatives in shaping the best hotel brands in the world. Sky Full of Elephants is his debut novel.