Life is hopeless but it is not serious. We have to have danced while wecould and, later, to have danced again in the telling.Tunde,the man at the centre of this novel, reflects on the places and times of hislife, from his West African upbringing to his current work as a teacher ofphotography on a renowned New England campus. He is a reader, a listener, anda traveller drawn to many different kinds of stories: from history and theepic; of friends, family, and strangers; those found in books and films. Oneman's personal lens refracts entire worlds, and back again.Aweekend spent shopping for antiques is shadowed by the colonial atrocitiesthat occurred on that land. A walk at dusk is interrupted by casual racism. Aloving marriage is riven by mysterious tensions. And a remarkable cascade ofvoices speak out from a pulsing metropolis.Tremoris a startling work of realism and invention that examines the passage of timeand how we mark it. It is a reckoning with human survival amidst "history'sown brutality, which refuses symmetries and seldom consoles" - but it is alsoa testament to the possibility of joy. This is narration with all its sensesalert, a surprising and deeply essential work from a beacon of contemporaryliterature.
