How do we handle all the trouble that life deals us? Dedan Kimathi Black is a young, educated Nigerian who can be destroyed-but he will never be defeated. Despised by his society because he doesn't fit in, he flees to the West. There, he is befriended by a kindly priest and falls in love with Ollie, a beautiful young nun, who leaves the convent to be with him. Together they believe they might conquer the world, but their idyllic time is shattered when he suddenly loses her to another man. Can he forge another brave new world for himself? Dedan struggles to accept the cards that life has handed him. Will poetry save him? Or will Ay-ii, the mad Arab who takes him on a journey to the spirit world of Lokinanga, turn out to be the one to help him find happiness? It isn't until he goes to Paris and reconnects with Ollie, that Dedan begins to think his life might have purpose after all. But then, another terrible turn of events leads him into shattering circumstances. Can he recover? Or will tragedy end up destroying him? Philosophical, spiritual, and touched with tragic romance, this is a brave, bold work about a life of conflict and a search for fulfillment that will leave every reader the wiser.
