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When We Were Birds

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When We Were Birds

By: Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
Narrated by: Sydney Darius, Wendell Manwarren
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Mesmerising, mythic and timeless - the most unmissable debut novel of 2022 - for fans of Arundhati Roy, Toni Morrison and Monique Roffey

Darwin is a down-on-his-luck gravedigger, newly arrived in the Trinidadian city of Port Angeles to seek his fortune, young and beautiful and lost. Estranged from his mother and the Rastafari faith she taught him, he is convinced that the father he never met may be waiting for him somewhere amid these bustling streets.

Meanwhile in an old house on a hill, where the city meets the rainforest, Yejide's mother is dying. And she is leaving behind a legacy that now passes to Yejide: the power to talk to the dead. The women of Yejide's family are human but also not - descended from corbeau, the black birds that fly east at sunset, taking with them the souls of the dead.

Darwin and Yejide both have something that the other needs. Their destinies are intertwined, and they will find one another in the sprawling, ancient cemetery at the heart of the island, where trouble is brewing...

Rich with magic and wisdom, When We Were Birds is an exuberant, incantatory masterpiece that conjures and mesmerises on every line. Ayanna Lloyd Banwo weaves an unforgettable story of loss and renewal, darkness and light; a triumphant reckoning with a grief that runs back generations and a defiant, joyful affirmation of hope.


'Exceptional. The originality of its premise, the power and beauty of its prose, the depth of its explorations of what it means to love and be loved' Jacob Ross, author of Black Rain Falling

'Combining the richness of myth with razor-sharp observation of contemporary life, When We Were Birds marks the emergence of a distinctive and powerful voice' Pat Barker, author of The Silence of the Girls

'Ayanna Lloyd Banwo is a rising literary star from a region which gave the world three Nobel Laureates in literature. She conjures old magic and yet she is a strong, new voice' Monique Roffey, author of The Mermaid of Black Conch

© Ayanna Lloyd Banwo 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

 Contemporary Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Ghosts Grief & Loss Horror Magic Magical Realism Personal Development Relationships Scary Haunted

Critic Reviews

This magical tale of a Trinidadian gravedigger searching for a father he never met proves we should believe the hype
Luminous, gripping, packed with drama, colour and tension... A thoroughly original and emotionally rich examination of love, grief and inheritance... Like the vultures which escort dead souls to the afterlife, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's novel takes flight and soars
Tender and lonely and powerful... A love letter to Trinidad [and] a vivid debut about romance and loss in the Caribbean... It also centres another kind of love: the complexity of mothering and its beautiful and terrible consequences... Lloyd Banwo conjures an aching sexual energy, places the lovers in deliciously paced jeopardy and takes the tale to an agreeably thundery climax
Beguiling, mesmerising, vibrantly alive... There's a lovely dreaminess to the prose and a heart-stopping romance alongside the supernatural magic but it's a novel firmly rooted in the nitty gritty of life
Soulful, haunting, a deep-rooted love story... Uniquely tackling themes of grief, identity and acceptance, Ayanna Lloyd Banwo's rhythmic prose builds tension at every step... A tale of finding one's self
Lyrical, powerful, thought-provoking... This is a book about the histories we try to erase and the importance of reckoning with them. It is about 'small lives'; about honouring deaths that have gone 'unclaimed', 'unremembered', 'unmourned'
Suffused with myth and magic, eerie, enchanting... The atmosphere is intensely conjured, with squalling storms, luscious food and sinister acts by night... In the Trinidad of Ayanna Lloyd Banwo, the departed are never gone
Mythic and captivating, electric, breathtaking... The anchor of this story is Trinidad itself. Banwo roots the reader in its traditions and rituals, in the sights and sounds and colours and smells of fruit vendors, fish vendors, street preachers and schoolchildren, in the glorious matriarchy by which lineage is upheld
Rich and rhythmic, triumphant and joyous... An enchanting exploration of love and loss, a ghost story whose characters are haunted by their ancestral responsibilities... I only wish I could have basked in the beauty of [the love story] for longer
A searing symphony of magic and loss, love and hope, where in the middle of death, love comes shiny, sparkling and alive. This book might just heal you (Marlon James, author of 'Black Leopard, Red Wolf')
All stars
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I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, the characters and storyline were so captivating I finished it in a day. The author describes every scene so vividly that the words came to life and jumped out of each page so that I felt like I was in their world. This story will take you on a journey with each main character so much that you feel the emotion and in some ways find it very relatable. If you’re on the fence just buy the book it’s a great read you’re sure to never forget.

Brilliant book best I’ve read in years!

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It is both fabulously dark and sinister story and a beautiful and touching love story. I never thought I’d enjoy the two combined together so much but it made for such a stunning story.
At certain points I could feel the hair on my arms rising and it was the most delicious feeling. The story starts off somewhat innocent and you almost expect a fairytale like story but the darkness and the dead quickly get thrown in and I soaked it up.
The connection both our main characters have with the dead is so different and yet it brings them together in such a beautiful way that i couldn’t help but fall for their love story too.
I wasn’t expecting to fall madly in love with this book but I sure as hell did and I enjoyed every second of the strange yet beautiful combination of love and death that this book provided.

This book just absolutely blew me away!

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