OLD WORLD

Traversing heritage across three continents this poignant coming-of-age novel chronicles the enduring presence of systemic racism and the resistance to it. Born in Cameroon and raised in the suburbs of Paris Nathan feels unmoored as if he does not belong in France. His mother tells him about his great-grandfather who left Cameroon for New Orleans to seek his fortune shortly after World War II. Nathan travels there to search for the vestiges of his ancestors passage in America. To him New Orleans is the promised land for the Black man. However renting a room in a shotgun house in the Trem district he discovers a different reality. This storied neighborhood testifies to the strength of a people who have survived slavery segregation and the struggle for civil rights with a strong sense of community. But the relentless inequities capped by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath have taken a toll. As Nathan comes to understand this fraught history he also plumbs his own past including his sense of abandonment by his father in Cameroon. In this coming-of-age novel Nathan is coming to be. The evocative poetic language of Fabienne Kanors novel confers a brutal beauty in incidents of violence and moments of joy holding the reader in a constant state of tension. Peopled by flawed human beings trying to find their way and grow a life under the constant threat of violence Old World chronicles the deep trauma and long-term effects of systemic racism in the United States and peoples efforts to rise above it.