Soul Tourists

An electrifying odyssey of a novel, Soul Tourists shows some of the early potential of Evaristo, realised more than a decade later in her Booker-winning Girl, Woman, Other. The common preoccupation that runs through her fiction is an open discussion of the African diaspora, past and present, real and imagined, rendered through both conventional prose and more unconventional means (blank verse, haiku). Evaristo succeeds in making the dissonant harmonic — a skill in itself. This road trip-based novel should be thought of as a journey of self-discovery, both for the reluctant hero Stanley as well as for the reader. The process undergone allows for underexposed black figures in ‘white’ history to gain deservedly greater prominence. Stanley talks of ‘being freed from bondage, with the history of his country and continent opened to him.’ This is serious stuff, but it is also fun, mind-opening and redeeming. 9 out of 10.

By Bernardine Evaristo