They Dream in Gold

It is summer 1969 in the Swiss countryside, & the house on the hill is busy. In the kitchen, Mama Eva & her sisters sing along to Congolese rumba, season fish, & pound garlic in preparation for the realization of a childhood dream: the grand opening of her Senegalese restaurant. Upstairs, African American daughter-in-law Bonnie paces across the floorboards, hopelessly waiting for news from the father of her unborn child. Mansour has been gone for three months. His tour was only meant to last three weeks, but he & his band have yet to return. In Mansour's absence, the people he left behind reckon with their memories of him: Mama Eva remembers his birth along a riverbank in rural Senegal; his aunt, the first time she saw him begging in the market; his childhood friend, the day he arrived in Paris. As Bonnie's anxieties mount, she plays his melodies in her head, calmed by the ghost of his voice, & putting a plan in action to find him. Through tales that span generations & continents, these women paint Mansour's life in vivid color, & soon, both the lingering questions of their pasts & the truth of his disappearance are revealed. 

Epic in scope but intimate in its portraiture, They Dream in Gold is a kaleidoscopic novel exploring the diasporic hunger for belonging. Moving through the hotbeds of the African Diaspora--from colonial West Africa on the brink of revolution to Brazil during Carnival season--it is a deeply affecting ode to the people & places that shape our identities, & a powerful testament to our shared humanity.

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Mai Sennaar is the book writer for Carry On!, a new musical by Broadway composer Diana Wharton-Sennaar & the creative director of the performing arts company MWPLive.