Book details

Cion

A Novel

Author: Zakes Mda

Cion

Cion

$11.99

About This Book

A Picador Paperback Original

The hero of Zakes Mda's beloved Ways of Dying, Toloki, sets down with a family in Middle America and uncovers the story of the runaway...

Page Count
320
On Sale
08/21/2007

Book Details

A Picador Paperback Original

The hero of Zakes Mda's beloved Ways of Dying, Toloki, sets down with a family in Middle America and uncovers the story of the runaway slaves who were their ancestors.

Toloki, the professional mourner, has come to live in America. Lured to Athens, Ohio, by an academic at the local university, Toloki makes friends with an angry young man he meets at a Halloween parade and soon falls in love with the young man's sister. Toloki endears himself to a local quilting group and his quilting provides a portal to the past, a story of two escaped slaves seeking freedom in Ohio.

Making their way north from Virginia with nothing but their mother's quilts for a map, the boys hope to find a promised land where blacks can live as free men. Their story alternates with Toloki's, as the two narratives cast a new light on America in the twenty-first century and on an undiscovered legacy of the Underground Railroad.

Imprint Publisher

Picador

ISBN

9781429933643

Reading Guide

In The News

“A marvelous picaresque.” —The New York Times Book Review on Ways of Dying

“Darkly comic and sadly poignant, Mda possesses the lyricism of a storyteller.” —San Diego Union-Tribune on Ways of Dying

About the Creators

Cion

Cion

$11.99