Description
Mesmerising, mythic and timeless, the most unmissable debut novel of 2022 - for fans of Arundhati Roy, Toni Morrison and Monique Roffey
Recommended Read for 2022 in the Observer, New Statesman, Irish Times, Buzzfeed, Good Housekeeping, The Daily Nerd, Essence and more
BELIEVE THE HYPE Stella, Sunday Telegraph
A searing symphony of magic and loss, love and hope... This book just might heal you Marlon James
It s a knockout, and Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is a star. I want to read everything she writes Niven Govinden
Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets.
Meanwhile in an old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide s mother is dying. And she is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: the power to talk to the dead. The women of Yejide s family are human but also not - descended from corbeau, the black birds that fly east at sunset, taking with them the souls of the dead.
Darwin and Yejide both have something that the other needs. Their destinies are intertwined, and they will find one another in the sprawling, ancient cemetery at the heart of the island, where trouble is brewing...
Rich with magic and wisdom, When We Were Birds is an exuberant masterpiece that conjures and mesmerises on every line. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo weaves an unforgettable story of loss and renewal, darkness and light; a triumphant reckoning with a grief that runs back generations and a defiant, joyful affirmation of hope.
Exceptional Jacob Ross
Exquisite Avni Doshi
When We Were Birds marks the emergence of a distinctive and powerful voice Pat Barker, author of The Silence of the Girls
About the Author
Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is a writer from Trinidad && Tobago. She is a graduate of the University of the West Indies and holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia, where she is now a Creative and Critical Writing PhD candidate. Her work has been published in Moko Magazine, Small Axe and PREE, among others, and shortlisted for Small Axe Literary Competition and the Wasafiri New Writing Prize. When We Were Birds is her first novel; she is now working on her second which will be published by Hamish Hamilton in 2025. Ayanna lives with her husband in London.
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