The Old Drift

The Old Drift

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Namwali Serpell (A

"A dazzling debut, establishing Namwali Serpell as a writer on the world stage." (Salman Rushdie, The New York Times Book Review)

Named one of the Best Books of the Year by:

Dwight Garner, The New York Times
The New York Times Book Review
Time
NPR
The Atlantic
BuzzFeed
Tordotcom
Kirkus Reviews
BookPage
Winner of:

The Arthur C. Clarke Award
The Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award
The Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction
The Windham-Campbell Prizes for Fiction
The year 1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (Black, White, Brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond. As the generations pass, their lives - their triumphs, errors, losses and hopes - emerge through a panorama of history, fairy tale, romance, and science fiction.