Curandera

📖 The Scoop

Set between 17th Century Cape Verde, and contemporary London, Curandera is a kaleidoscopic story of rebirth and redemption, and a mythic tale of metamorphic recalibrations across time

In the Gethsemane, Cape Verde, the appearance of a mysterious new arrival, Zulmira, coincides with a series of strange events. Zulmira is a shamanic disciple of Oni, an omnipotent, loving yet vengeful deity. In contemporary London, botanist Therese lives with Haitian musician Azacca, Peruvian drifter Emilien, and daring Finn. Four kindred spirits, bound together by their shared descent from Oni, they travel to another realm to complete a secret, sacred task for her. But a disruptive object returns with them from the other plane: a bleeding ribcage, flowering with intoxicating fruit.

As Zulmira grows close to fisherman Domingos, his wife, Marguerite, and their daughter, Sueli, the increasingly disturbing occurrences in Gethsemane disrupt forms, time and place. In London, Therese and her group, growing ever more powerful on the otherworldly fruit, discover the disturbing costs of their service to Oni. As the stage is set for the collision of two dimensions, the workings of shamanism intersect with the powerful forces of friendship, love and jealousy.

Genre: Fiction / World Literature / Africa / West Africa (fancy, right?)