Aminatta Forna

From award-winning writer Aminatta Forna, a stunning novel bringing an American scientist and a Ghanaian psychologist together in London in a hunt for a missing boy--and an expansive, subtle tale of loss, hope, love, compassion, culture, and the true meaning of happiness.

Happiness

Sameer Vasta

There are foxes in our backyard. I have only seen one once, but have seen their tracks in the snow or the frost, and occasionally in the wet spring mud. Prior to reading Ms. Forna’s novel, I had never thought about the interior lives of these foxes and how they experience the world, but now I can’t stop thinking about them. Happiness is ostensibly a novel about connections between people and the impacts of trauma, but really, it is a novel about being in touch with the living world around us, and how so much delight can be found when we commune with the urban natural environment.

Les Reynolds

Wonderful ideas presented, and wonderful writing. Didn't quite connect with it fully somehow though.

Francine Corry

Gelaine Trinidad

Pratik M

Kahli Scott

Nicole Urdahl

Jacob Mishook

Kate Sigrist

Fiebi

Ilke

Colin O'Brien

Lara Steenbeke

'Forna's voice is relentlessly compelling, her ability to summon atmosphere extraordinary ... A thing of lasting beauty' Observer SHORTLISTED FOR THE RSL ONDAATJE PRIZE 2019 SHORTLISTED FOR THE JHALAK PRIZE 2019 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, mobilizing 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. In this delicate yet powerful novel of loves lost and new, of past griefs and of the hidden side of a teeming metropolis, Aminatta Forna asks us to consider the values of the society we live in, our co-existence with one another and all living creatures – and the true nature of happiness.

Rebecca Thornber

Happiness

Reviews