Cion

A Picador Paperback Original

The hero of Zakes Mda's beloved Ways of Dying, Toloki, sets down with a family in Middle America and uncovers the story of the runaway slaves who were their ancestors.

Toloki, the professional mourner, has come to live in America. Lured to Athens, Ohio, by an academic at the local university, Toloki makes friends with an angry young man he meets at a Halloween parade and soon falls in love with the young man's sister. Toloki endears himself to a local quilting group and his quilting provides a portal to the past, a story of two escaped slaves seeking freedom in Ohio.

Making their way north from Virginia with nothing but their mother's quilts for a map, the boys hope to find a promised land where blacks can live as free men. Their story alternates with Toloki's, as the two narratives cast a new light on America in the twenty-first century and on an undiscovered legacy of the Underground Railroad.

Author: Zakes Mda
Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
Published: 08/21/2007
Pages: 322
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780312427061

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Best Books 05/15/2007 pg. 8
Publishers Weekly 06/18/2007 pg. 30
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2007 pg. 748
Essence 09/01/2007 pg. 103
Library Journal 09/01/2007 pg. 129

About the Author

Zakes Mda is a professor of creative writing at Ohio University. He lives in Athens, Ohio.