The Birthplace of the Gods

About this book

The gods did not arrive. They were assembled out of fear.

A mother’s fear at a riverbank becomes Munya. A chief’s story about an angry flood becomes Nyambe. A lonely boy’s mask becomes Nyau. An old woman’s terror of being forgotten becomes Chitundu.

Each believes the power is theirs.

For centuries they reign, crowning kings, blessing wars and rewriting history. Then come the ships. The borders. The banks. And a foreign god who claims he needs no one’s belief at all.

Meanwhile, a village healer whose name no god ever learns carries a grief none of them can lift.

Until one day a child asks a single innocent question, and the four gods must face what the reader has known since page one: the power was never theirs. So what are they for?

The Birthplace of the Gods is a lyrical, haunting novel about faith, power and memory, and about the oldest human need of all: somewhere to put what we cannot carry alone.