Cion

About the book

At the instigation of the sciolist, Toloki, the professional mourner introduced in Zakes Mda's early novel Ways of Dying, takes the opportunity to travel the world in search of new ways of mourning. He finds himself abandoned in Athens Ohio, but a chance meeting with a Halloween reveller leads him to the poor hamlet of Kilvert, home to descendants of fugitive slaves. A community of traditional quiltmakers, the people of Kilvert, and notably the Quigley family, offer Toloki hospitality while never completely coming to terms with what they regard as his shamanistic attributes. From them he learns the stories told by the quilts and the secrets held by the sycamores - ghost trees that are the carriers of memories - and he becomes aware that this is a community which strives...