Out of Darkness, Shining Light

WINNER OF THE 2020 CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019

Engrossing, beautiful, and deeply imaginative, Out of Darkness, Shining Light is a novel that lends voice to those who appeared only as footnotes in history, yet whose final, brave act of loyalty and respect changed the course of it. An incredible and important book by a masterful writer.
–Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing

This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land. So begins Petina Gappah’s powerful novel of exploration and adventure in nineteenth-century Africa–the captivating story of the loyal men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone’s body, his papers and maps, fifteen hundred miles across the continent of Africa, so his remains could be returned home to England and his work preserved there. Narrated by Halima, the doctor’s sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, a rigidly pious freed slave, this is a story that encompasses all of the hypocrisy of slavery and colonization–the hypocrisy at the core of the human heart–while celebrating resilience, loyalty, and love.