Ancestor Stones

Aminatta Forna, whose moving and gorgeously written memoir garnered international attention, has seamlessly turned her hand to fiction in "Ancestor Stones" a powerful, sensuous novel that beautifully captures Africa's past century and her present, and the legacy that her daughters take with them wherever they live. Abie returns home from England to West Africa to visit her family after years of civil war, and to reclaim the family plantation, Kholifa Estates, formerly owned by her grandfather. There to meet her are her aunts: Asana, Mariama, Hawa, and Serah, and so begins her gathering of the family and the country's history through the tales of her aunts. Asana, lost twin and head wife's daughter. Hawa, motherless child and manipulator of her own misfortune. Mariama, who sees what lies beyond. And Serah, follower of a Western made dream. Set against the backdrop of a nation's descent into chaos, it is the take a family and four women's attempts to alter the course of their own destiny. A wonderful achievement recalling "The God of Small Things" and "The Joy Luck Club," it establishes Aminatta Forna as a gifted novelist.