Named a Most Anticipated Book by Vogue and Vulture
âAlternately whimsical, sweet, and dark,â this astonishing debut novel about a lonely girl waiting for her mother âbrim[s] with uncompromisingly African magical realismâ (The New York Times).
Ayosa is a wandering spiritâjoyous, exuberant, filled to the brim with longing. Her only companions in her grandmotherâs crumbling house are as lonely as Ayosa herself: the ghostly Fatumas, whose eyes are the size of bay windows, who teach her to dance and wail at the death news; the Jolly-Annas, cruel birds who cover their solitude with spiteful laughter; the milkman, who never greets Ayosa and whose milk tastes of mud; and Sindano, the kind owner of a cafĂŠ no one ever visits. Unexpectedly, miraculously, one day Ayosa finds a friend. Yet she is always fixed on her beautiful mama, Nabumbo Promise: a mysterious and aloof photographer, she comes and goes as she pleases, with no apology or warning.
Set at the intersection of the spirit world and the human one, Things They Lost sets out a rich and magical vision of âgirlhood as a time of complexity, laced with unparalleled creativity and expansionâ (Vogue). Heartbreaking, elegant, and written in âgiddily exuberant proseâ (Financial Times), itâs a story about connection, coming-of-age, and the dizzying dualities of love at its most intoxicating and all-encompassing.