Out of Darkness, Shining Light

A Novel

By: Petina Gappah

Narrated by: Nyasha Hatendi, Sibongile Mlambo

Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins

Publisher's summary

WINNER OF THE 2020 CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE

ONE OF NPR’S BEST BOOKS OF 2019

“Engrossing, beautiful, and deeply imaginative, Out of Darkness, Shining Light is a novel that lends voice to those who appeared only as footnotes in history, yet whose final, brave act of loyalty and respect changed the course of it. An incredible and important book by a masterful writer.” (Yaa Gyasi, author of Homegoing)

“This is how we carried out of Africa the poor broken body of Bwana Daudi, the Doctor, David Livingstone, so that he could be borne across the sea and buried in his own land.” So begins Petina Gappah's powerful novel of exploration and adventure in 19th-century Africa - the captivating story of the loyal men and women who carried explorer and missionary Dr. Livingstone's body, his papers and maps, 1,500 miles across the continent of Africa, so his remains could be returned home to England and his work preserved there. Narrated by Halima, the doctor's sharp-tongued cook, and Jacob Wainwright, a rigidly pious freed slave, this is a story that encompasses all of the hypocrisy of slavery and colonization - the hypocrisy at the core of the human heart - while celebrating resilience, loyalty, and love.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Petina Gappah (P)2019 Simon & Schuster

Real and Beautiful

I loved that it was written from the perspective of the persons who were there. For it gave a picture of the environment and its mixture of culture and greed, poverty, personalities and the feelings and frustrations of that everyday life. it was purely real and I could see it and feel it and identify with it.

When does it start

I'm stuck about an hour or two in. I keep wanting the adventure to start and instead we're on character development and back story. It got good reviews and it's probably powerful literature, I just can't seem to get into it.

Slow paced

Extremely slow paced, I understand it was a view from the African perspective. But what it really showed as what the Muslim slave traders did a real number of those Africans.
Without accepting, and living by the words of Christianity entire continent will remain in the 16th century.

It’s a hard one to listen to-read the book

I’m embarrassed to say that I struggled to understand fully what the narrators said. My ear isn’t trained or familiar with many of the place names (which are all differently called now) or the switching between Arabic, Swahili and other languages for objects and people’s names/titles. There is a glossary provided but it’s difficult to pause the narration and try to remember exactly how the word was pronounced to look it up. For these reasons, I believe reading this book would have been easier. The story is interesting though. It got me thinking and learning more outside of this book about Dr. Livingstone and his interesting life.

Brilliantly written story

The story telling style and writing is brilliant. However, it would have been easier for Kiswahili speakers to perform this brilliant piece of work. The performers obviously did their best, but the intonation was off and it impacted on the flow of the story telling.