“Survive! I must survive. I race through these dark gloomy woods, dodging trees from side to side. Seven of us entered this hell of a forest; seven hybrids, sent to apprehend IT. One of us is, so far, dead—slaughtered by the hand of the demon that now pursues me. What kind of demon makes easy hunt of beings as lethal as hybrid? No one man can stand on par against just one of us, let alone seven. Yet here we are—hunted like prey by the very demon we came to capture.”
When the Lozi princess Likando, heir to the throne, is aggressed by a group of “mixed-breeds”, people with parents of different origins, before her maturity ceremony, she embarks on an incredible adventure which brings her before the legendary Ghost of Africa, a terrorizing figure people believe to be a demon dominating the territory where the Lozi tribe and many others live.
In this alert historic fantasy novel, Venancio Gomani displays a wide range of characters both fascinating and troubling. The elegant writing style mirrors an almost Shakespearian plot inspired by oral stories about love, rivlary and betrayal, and in which oral tradition mingles with history. In an African mythical land, where the world of spirits and the world of humans intertwine, where stories and History always go together, story-telling is one of the essential forms of knowledge passed on from one generation to another. It is from this immense immemorial heritage that Venancio Gomani takes his inspiration.
The first from the series Ghost Tribes, the novel The Ghost of Africa introduces an enigmatic character whose fame cut across generations and created an aura of fear and fantasy. What the novel points at, finally, are the individual stories that grow and entangle to form a vast, complex web of tales that create the background of History and people’s lives. Here is an tribute to story-telling, legends and tradition who necessarily speak about what lies ahead.
Ghost Tribes: The Ghost of Africa by Venancio C. Gomani Jr.
ASIN: B07MHG3CK5 / Kindle edition (January 1, 2019)
Review by Ioana Danaila
Ioana Danaila was born in Romania. She graduated from University Lyon 2 Lumière with a Masters in African Postcolonial Literature and a First degree in French for Non-Francophone people. She is the author of a collection of short stories and a translator of books from French to Romanian. She is trilingual in Romanian, French and English, and teaches English language and literature to highschool students in France.