Harmattan Season

The melancholy antihero of this searing indictment of colonialism from World Fantasy Award winner Onyebuchi (Goliath) walks the mean streets of an unnamed West African city that’s trembling on the verge of an election between a charismatic indigenous rebel leader and a corrupt puppet of the French occupation. As the annual Harmattan dust storms gather strength, a girl bleeding from an abdominal wound stumbles into the squalid flat of clientless private investigator Boubacar, a half-French, half-native “chercher” (finder of lost persons) who fought for the French in a past war. Their encounter is brief before the girl mysteriously disappears without a trace, sending Boubacar on an odyssey of political and personal discoveries, and forcing him to face his actions in the war. The Harmattan winds both hurt and help along the way. Blending elements of classic noir fiction (including a Chandleresque narrative voice) and fantastic acts of terroristic martyrdom, Onyebuchi crafts an equally heady and page-turning narrative. This is an unforgettable portrait of a place and a person trapped between two worlds and two cultures. (May)