A Lit Hub, Millions, and Buzzfeed Most Anticipated Book
"David Livingstone, the 19th-century Scottish missionary who set out to find the source of the Nile, casts a long shadow over East Africa, and Gappah explores his legacy in her new novel. Narrated by Halima, Livingstone’s cook and slave, and Jacob, a pious freed slave, as Livingstone’s corpse is taken to the coast of Africa, the story offers a fresh look at the enduring history of colonialism."
—The New York Times, 17 New Books to Watch For in September
"Perhaps no story was as ripe for the Wide Sargasso Sea treatment (the revision of a classic by marginalized voices) as the tale of missionary David Livingstone’s death in Africa. In contrasting styles, the Zimbabwean novelist lets two characters describe their trek across Africa with Livingstone’s body, beautifully complicating the narrative."
—New York Magazine, Best and Biggest Books to Read This Fall
"A rich, vivid, and addictive book filled with memorably drawn characters. This is a humane, riveting, epic novel that spotlights marginalized historical voices.”
—Kirkus, starred
"Gappah decolonizes the legend of Dr. Livingstone by turning the tale inside out, giving voice to those who are overlooked in the official narratives. The result is an indictment of the legacy of slavery and colonialism that is also an engrossing adventure story.”
—Library Journal, starred
"Riveting ... a deeply layered exploration of courage, sorrow, and resilience, culminating in a revelatory quest and an entracing vision."
—Booklist
"Readers who enjoy expedition travelogues or smartly drawn characters will appreciate Gappah’s winning novel.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Engrossing, beautiful, and deeply imaginative, Out of Darkness, Shining Light, is a novel that lends voice to those who appeared only as footnotes in history, yet whose final, brave act of loyalty and respect changed the course of it. An incredible and important book by a masterful writer.”
—Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing
“Petina Gappah’s Out of Darkness, Shining Light describes a world on the cusp of change. Her narrators, Halima and Jacob, both former slaves—along with a cohort of sixty-some Africans and Arabs—carry a dead muzungu (white person) for nine months across impossible 19th-century African terrain. While they ultimately reach their destination, delivering a wizened body to the awaiting arms of their future colonizers, the greater catastrophe is still to come. Petina Gappah knows what she writes; her historical and cultural insights add texture and veracity to every page. A powerful novel, beautifully told, Out of Darkness, Shining Light reveals as much about the present circumstances as the past that helped create them.”
—Jesmyn Ward, author of Sing, Unburied, Sing
“Mixing painstaking research with a formidable imagination, Petina Gappah resurrects the brave, misguided, heroic, and ill-starred party who hauled the dried-up corpse of Dr. David Livingstone across 1,000 miles of African interior to the Indian Ocean. Her narrators, a hilarious cook named Halima and a sanctimonious Christian named Jacob, cut a swath through a continent at the crossroads of colonization, superstition, religion and slavery, illuminating the contradictions inherent in every life. This is a beautiful novel.”
—Anthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See
“A sweeping epic that is also startlingly intimate, Out of Darkness, Shining Light is a revelation. In luminous prose, Petina Gappah gives voice to people silenced by history, allowing them the full scope of their humanity, from petty gossip to self-righteous evangelism to romantic longings and dreams for the future. She grapples with what it means to explore other cultures, to seek answers to the questions ‘what if?’ and ‘what else?’ In doing so, she holds a funhouse mirror up to colonialist narratives like Heart of Darkness, revealing their distortions.”
—Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train
★ 2019-07-01
A rollicking novel that retells the history of British colonial exploration in Africa from the perspective of historical figures who have otherwise been silenced.
Zimbabwean writer Gappah (The Book of Memory, 2016, etc.) tells the story of the black attendants who bore the Scottish explorer David Livingstone's corpse from present-day Zambia to the African coast in the late 19th century. As the prologue says, "This story has been told many times before, but always as the story of the Doctor." Gappah turns the tables by making Livingstone's attendants into protagonists. Our heroes are Halima, a young slave woman Livingstone purchased as a partner for his assistant, the abusive and cruel Amoda; and Jacob Wainwright, a former slave from East Africa who was educated by Christian missionaries in Mumbai. Halima is a jovial and headstrong young woman who speaks boisterously despite her status. "Why any man would leave his own land and his wife and children to tramp in these dreary swamps...is beyond my understanding," she wonders about Livingstone. Jacob is Halima's opposite, a self-serious young man who keeps a journal which he hopes will be published in the future. When Livingstone dies of malaria, his attendants decide to carry his body to the coast in a display of loyalty, so that it may be carried back to England. After burying his heart in the village where he died, the band sets off toward Zanzibar in a show of dedication. The arduous journey through hostile terrain gradually erodes their reverence for the doctor, though. Halima begins to wonder how worthy he is of her dedication. "Was he worth it? What were we doing, taking a father to his children when he had let one of those children die?" Meanwhile, Jacob reads Livingstone's journals and finds a man whose anti-slavery ideals clash with his actions as a colonialist explorer. The journey to the coast turns out to be an education in how the band is oppressed by colonial power. Along the way, though, Gappah captures the diverse cultural milieu of colonial Africa with compelling detail. The result is a rich, vivid, and addictive book filled with memorably drawn characters.
This is a humane, riveting, epic novel that spotlights marginalized historical voices.
