Samahani

Abdelazziz Baraka Sakin
Paperback, 190 pages
9781738446360

Winner of the 2024 English Pen Award

Samahani means “forgive me” in Swahili, but in the Arab controlled Zanzibar of slavery, cruelty and vengeance, does forgiveness ever stand a chance? Prize-winning Sudanese author Abdelaziz Baraka Sakin follows the epic story of a spoilt Omani princess and her eunuch slave and lover, Sondus. She longs to be free from her despotic father, the sultan, and her philandering husband. He wants to escape his enslavement and return to the African mainland to retrieve his mutilated manhood.With punching irony and cinematic drive, this provocative saga of the Indian Ocean slave trade explores race, class, freedom, history, and sexuality, and brings English-speaking readers a new take on these urgent contemporary issues with dark, ironic humour.