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Happiness

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About this listen

Waterloo Bridge, London. Two strangers collide.

Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist, and Jean, an American studying the habits of urban foxes. From this chance encounter in the midst of the rush of a great city, numerous moments of connections span out and interweave, bringing disparate lives together.

Attila has arrived in London with two tasks: to deliver a keynote speech on trauma and to check up on the daughter of friends, his 'niece', Ama, who hasn't called home in a while. It soon emerges that she has been swept up in an immigration crackdown - and now her young son Tano is missing.

When, by chance, Attila bumps into Jean again, she joins him in his search for Tano, mobilising into action the network she has built up, mainly from the many West African immigrants working London's myriad streets, of volunteer fox-spotters: security guards, hotel doormen, traffic wardens. All unite to help and as the search continues, a deepening friendship between Attila and Jean unfolds.

©2018 Aminatta Forna (P)2018 Recorded Books, Inc Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction England Africa

Critic reviews

"Her prose quietly grips us by the throat and then tightens its hold. It is storytelling at its most taut...A gifted writer." (Independent)

"A fresh, immaculate stylist and an unsparing chronicler of human vices...Profound." (The Times)
All stars
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The book covers stories distant across time and space and themes from love, wildlife human conflict, the impact of war and parenthood. The characters are likeable and convincing and the story line keeps you involved. My only Cristian is that the narrator tried and failed to carry off Irish and London accents - a slight distraction that should not put you off the book

Wide ranging themes but dodgy accents

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The narration made the story even better, and it was good on its own already. This is a new favorite amd I can't wait to get to other Forna's books!

A new favorite

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A lovely gentle listen. I thoroughly enjoyed the slowly emerging depth of this book. Great narration.

Deep, gentle, lovely

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Simple story weaving in insights into lives of people who are often overlooked. Narrator struggled with British accents.

Wholesome, rich and reassuring.

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it's a slow burn with a powerful message. Wide ranging content in terms of themes, characters, locations and cultures.
Forna is a thinker and she has framed this novel to encapsulate big ideas - what makes us human; explorations of love, war, migration, cultural differences and similarities; connection and community, trauma and suffering - and, as per the title, happiness.

Significant sections of the novel are devoted to animals in the wild - wolves, coyotes, foxes - and parakeets. The concept of hunters and hunted repeats across the book.

Forna's writing is often beautiful and subtle but it is not always easy to remain absorbed in the very fractured narrative.

it's a book worth sticking with for its ultimate message, for the tenderness and compassion evoked and for what it reveals about human nature .

To begin with I found the rather staccato style of the narrator off putting but I grew to feel comfortable with her.

Slow burn but ultimately rewarding

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