A novel about Africa before colonialism that does not act as if before colonialism Africa was just hanging around waiting for colonialism.
Maryse Conde, a writer I have never heard of, has clearly done an incredible amount of research about historic West Africa. We are plunged into the life of an African family in Segu, a city-state that dominates the surrounding peoples through good old-fashioned violence. The main patriarch and protagonist thinks he is madly in love with his second wife who turns out to be a slave (?). The first son converts to Islam. The second one goes hunting when he isn’t supposed to and is picked up as a slave by their competitors. I mean it ALL goes on. And they still haven’t met any Europeans. Eventually this happens and then we get into Brazil, catholicism, and all sorts.
It maybe doesn’t have a ton of narrative drive, being a multi-generational, multo-decade story, something that is always hard to keep moving along, but I enjoyed it all the same.