The House of Rust

· RB Media · Narrated by Waceke Wambaa
5.0
1 review
Audiobook
10 hr 19 min
Unabridged
Eligible
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About this audiobook

The first Graywolf Press African Fiction Prize winner, a story of a girl’s fantastical sea voyage to rescue her father.

The House of Rust is an enchanting novel about a Hadrami girl in Mombasa. When her fisherman father goes missing, Aisha takes to the sea on a magical boat made of a skeleton to rescue him. She is guided by a talking scholar’s cat (and soon crows, goats, and other animals all have their say, too). On this journey Aisha meets three terrifying sea monsters. After she survives a final confrontation with Baba wa Papa, the father of all sharks, she rescues her own father and hopes that life will return to normal. But at home, things only grow stranger.

Khadija Abdalla Bajaber’s debut is a magical realist coming-of-age tale told through the lens of the Swahili and diasporic Hadrami culture in Mombasa, Kenya. Richly descriptive and written with an imaginative hand and sharp eye for unusual detail, The House of Rust is a memorable novel by a thrilling new voice.

Ratings and reviews

5.0
1 review
nubianglam1
April 30, 2023
Wonderful, Fantastical, Magical, and Full of Heart. This book just blew me away. The way poetry is weaved into the narrative and dialogue is beautiful and the creative ways in which the author used it to flesh out not only her characters but the world and experiences was just immersive. I could not recommend this book more.
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