Patchwork

Winner of the 2010 Penguin Prize for African Writing. In this coming-of-age novel, acclaimed author Ellen Banda-Aaku offers a profound exploration into the effects of stigma, class, and family dynamics in 1970s Zambia. Pumpkin is a nine-year-old girl pulled between two vastly different worlds that of her father, the wealthy and power-hungry Joseph Sakavungo, and her mother, his unstable mistress. As Pumpkin attempts to come to terms with her own identity, she struggles to fashion a future for herself out of the torn patchwork of her parents' lives. Beautifully constructed, Banda-Aaku has crafted a story that is in equal parts uplifting and bittersweet.