There is a large amount of personal experience i see running parallel to this book. Enjoyed it a lot.

A story set in Africa will always capture my attention. I'm African and when I read books set in Africa, I'm overprotective of the people, culture and more so of the fact that it tells of a place in a continent I reside in. This book tackles one of the most contentious issues in Africa- land. It begins with a demolition in one of the slums in India and then next the author takes us through a drive in Africa in the region where Anjali works. The story then picks up on the Aanke, Fatimah's people, who receive a notice to vacate their ancestral land to pave way for a cocoa plantation and there's no talk about re-settlement and the battle is far from over when Fatimah meets Anjali.
This book had a very slow start for me. I'd have preferred to have the chapter on the notice to vacate given to the Aanke people come first, it's vibrant and from the get-go, it was easy to identify with Fatimah as being insightful, astute and courageous.
I'd have the opening story on demolition of a slum in India as part of a conversation as though Anjali was remembering something about her childhood.
The extensive description of the lands as they drive through to where the organization Anjali works for was too much, I did not take to that and coupled with the slow start, I might have rolled my eyes once or twice.
I'm grateful to NetGalley for ARc because this made for a good read and land rights and issues in Africa is not an easy topic to tackle and in fiction, the author succeeds in not only portraying the challenges the displaced people face, but how their identity is affected and also how an outsider who is trying to help gets caught in the web of lies and intimidation.

A very complex book, dealing with, among other things, the displaced people of Africa and India. The voices here are compelling and worth listening to. Well done!