Book Digest: Dorothy Koomson, Melio Tinga, Limbe to Lagos.

Welcome to our new Book Digest feature where we regularly wrap up book news for our readers. We kick off with Dorothy Koomson, Melio Tinga, and the Limbe to Lagos anthology.

Compared to a decade ago and further back, so much work is coming out of the African and Black literary universe in the last while. To keep up with the frenetic pace, we have decided to do a regular book digest where we talk about titles new and not so new. Here is the first edition of Book Digest.

New Book: Dorothy Koomson: All My Lies Are True.
Publishing date: July 9, 2020
Language: English.

Dorothy Koomson is a UK novelist, who has been described as “Britain’s biggest selling black author of adult fiction.” In 2010, she wrote The Ice Cream Girls which follows two vulnerable teenage girls, Serena Gorringe and Poppy Carlisle, who in the summer of 1995, are accused of murdering their schoolteacher, Marcus Hansley after becoming involved in a tryst of violence and sexual abuse. The bestselling novel went on to become a three-part British television crime drama.

A sequel to the book was published this month called All My Lies Are True. Here is the book’s blurb;

From the bestselling author of Tell Me Your Secret and The Brighton Mermaid comes the breath-taking sequel to the iconic Sunday Times bestseller The Ice Cream Girls.

Verity is telling lies…
And that’s why she’s about to be arrested for attempted murder.

Serena has been lying for years. . .
And that may have driven her daughter,

Poppy’s lies have come back to haunt her . . .
So will her quest for the truth hurt everyone she loves?

Everyone lies.
But whose lies are going to end in tragedy?

Information about getting the book can be found on Dorothy Koomson’s official website.

New Book: Melio Tinga, A Engenharia Da Morte  

Publishing Date: July 15
Genre: Fiction.
Language: Portuguese

Melio Tinga is the Mozambican writer of O Voo dos Fantasmas (Ethale Publishing, 2018). He has contributed to several publications including The Hamburger that Killed Jorge – Anthology (Ethale Publishing, 2017) and Contos e crónicas para ler em casa – Volume I and II (Literatas, 2020).  The Mozambican’s newest title written in Portugues is A Engenharia Da Morte (English: The Engineering of Death) launched on July 15 online. Here is a blurb of the title (translated from Portuguese);

A girl’s body is immersed in a pool of blood. Dead after seeing her brother naked on his stepmother, in bed. The old employee of a UN official kills a dog, who “spoke Irish”, for seemingly incomprehensible reasons. Later on, a writer and his wife are kidnapped, placed in a house that is then set on fire. A woman obsessed with books falls in love with a man after seeing him only once. Make a second appointment. And it doesn’t. One morning a man calls a radio station to dedicate Richard Bona’s music to the white horse he dreamed of. The convoy derails, two men and a dog survive. The unexpected happens. Apart from the man who is buried alive, the victim of a mistaken diagnosis, and inside the coffin he sees himself between life and death. An unexpected Hurricane Florence ruins a small town, which turns into a cemetery. Then dreams: the naked woman squatting, rummaging her genitals. A writer in love with a journalist. A city destroyed by a cyclone and an outbreak that silently ravages, like a light breeze on a summer night.

You can get the book on Amazon here.

Limbe to Lagos: Nonfiction from Cameroon and Nigeria goes to America.

Genre: Nonfiction, travel
Language: English
Original publishing date: March 2019.
US publishing date: June 30, 2020.

Limbe to Lagos: Nonfiction from Cameroon and Nigeria was edited by Dami Ajayi, Dzekashu MacViban, and Emmanuel Iduma. It is a collection of narrative nonfiction and formidable writing by emerging Cameroonian and Nigerian writers Adams Adeosun, Afope Ojo, Caleb Ajinomoh, Godwin Luba, Howard M.B. Maximus, Lucia Edafioka, Nkiacha Atemnkeng, Raoul Djimeli, Sada Malumfashi, and Socrates Mbamalu.

The book has been snapped up by US based The Mantle who have also published Emanuel Iduma, Donald Molosi, Stanley Gazemba and other writers.