<p>Finaba Marah yearns to fit in with the other girls of her age, and nothing will allow her to do that more than the initiation ceremony that her grandmother Baramusu has told her so much about. Finaba's parents' fiercely object and her father halts her circumcision ceremony and they leave their home. So the Path Does Not Die is a touching coming of age story that follows Finaba through her childhood and adolescence into adulthood, from her native Sierra Leone to the new and exciting land of opportunity, the USA. But most of all, it is a story of survival.</p>

So the Path Does Not Die

Literature & Fiction

Hollist, Pede

United States

Jacaranda Books

Protagonist Fina's search for happiness and belonging begins on the night of her aborted circumcision and continues through her teenage years in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital; her twenties in the Washington Metropolitan Area; and ends with her return to Sierra Leone to work as an advocate for war-traumatized children. The novel explores the problems she encounters in each setting against the backdrop of the tensions, ambiguities, and fragmentation of the stranger/immigrant condition and the characters' struggles to clarify their ideas about "home" and "abroad." Fina's circumcision gets significant, though not sensational, play in the different attitudes toward the practice between her and her fiancé Cammy, a Trinidadian urologist. The differences complicate their relationship at a time when skeletons from their pasts threaten their impending marriage. The stories of Fina's friend, African-American Aman and her fiancé, Nigerian Bayo; of Edna (Fina's foster sister) and her husband Kizzy; and of Mawaf, a war-traumatized teen, unfold in subplots that merge with the main plot and overarching theme of belonging as characters straddle "home" and "abroad" places.

Women's Fiction

Langaa RPCIG

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Books by Hollist, Pede

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Hollist, Pede. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

So the Path Does Not Die

So the Path Does Not Die