‘I’d always known that I was Brown. Black was different though; it came announced. Black came with expectations, of rhythm and other things that might trip me up.’
Imani is a foundling. Rescued as a baby and raised by nuns on a remote Northumbrian island, she grows up with an ever-increasing feeling of displacement. Full of questions, Imani turns to her shadow, Amarie, and her friend, Harold. When Harold can’t find the answers, she puts it down to what the nuns call her “greater purpose”.
At nineteen, Imani answers a phone call that will change her life: she is being called to Accra after the sudden death of her biological mother.
Past, present, faith and reality are spun together in this enthralling debut. Following her transition from innocence to understanding, Imani’s experience illuminates the stories we all tell to make ourselves whole.
About the author
J.A. Mensah is a writer of prose and theatre and a Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at the University of York. Castles from Cobwebs, her first novel, won the inaugural North Bound Book Award (for a full length work of literary fiction or non-fiction by writers based in the North of England) in 2019 and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize 2021 and nominated for the 35th annual Chambéry Festival du Premier Roman (2022). Her plays have focused on human rights narratives and the testimonies of survivors. Her work has appeared in several collections, including Test Signal, an anthology of the best contemporary northern writing, published by Bloomsbury in 2021.
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