This image is the cover for the book Black Ghosts

Black Ghosts

Dan Chiponda earns a scholarship to study in China and reluctantly leaves Zimbabwe for an uncertain future. While stoically dealing with racial abuse in a country where Africans are known as black ghosts, he is too timid to engage in the money-making schemes available to students. Yet he remains haunted by the weight of his mother’s expectations, encapsulated by the image of the African fish eagle. But the best he can do is a safe job in a bar run by the enigmatic Wang. Things take a dramatic turn when Chinese students pour into the streets in an orgy of violence to drive Africans out of town. Dan’s first impulse is to escape to Zimbabwe but the pressure from his family and the love for his girlfriend Lai Ying force him to stay put. In the aftermath of the riots, tight rules force the foreign students to create innovative ways to see their girlfriends, and in the midst of all this, Lai Ying gets pregnant and secretly procures an abortion. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Ken N Kamoche

Ken N Kamoche was born and raised in Kenya. He was educated at the University of Nairobi and the University of Oxford. He is a management academic, occasional newspaper columnist and writer of fiction. Ken’s collection of short stories, A Fragile Hope (Salt, 2007), was shortlisted for the Commonwealth First Book Award. After travelling frequently to Asia, Ken took up a job in Hong Kong in 1998 supposedly for two years. The two years soon turned into ten, involved extensive travel up and down China, and ultimately inspired this novel.

Austin Macauley Publishers