The Dragonfly Sea by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

From the award-winning author of Dust comes a magical, sea-saturated, coming-of-age novel that transports readers from Kenya to China and Turkey.

On an island in the Lamu Archipelago lives a solitary, stubborn child called Ayaana and her mother, Munira. When a sailor named Muhidin, also an outsider, enters their lives, Ayaana finds something she has never had before: a father.

But as she grows into adulthood, forces of nature, history and religion begin to reshape Ayaana's life - leading her overseas where new intimacies offer fraught choices. Told with a glorious, sensual lyricism, The Dragonfly Sea is a transcendent story of passion and adventure; of the inexorable need for loving shelter in a dangerous world.