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Available from Kobo

by Nisi Shawl

No Status

Everfair is a wonderful Neo-Victorian alternate history
novel that explores the question of what might have come of Belgium's
disastrous colonization of the Congo if the native populations had
learned about steam technology a bit earlier. Fabian Socialists from
Great Britian join forces with African-American missionaries to purchase
land from the Belgian Congo's "owner," King Leopold II. This land,
named Everfair, is set aside as a safe haven, an imaginary Utopia for
native populations of the Congo as well as escaped slaves returning from
America and other places where African natives were being mistreated.
Nisi Shawl's speculative masterpiece manages to turn one of the worst
human rights disasters on record into a marvelous and exciting
exploration of the possibilities inherent in a turn of history. Everfair
is told from a multiplicity of voices: Africans, Europeans, East
Asians, and African Americans in complex relationships with one another,
in a compelling range of voices that have historically been silenced. Everfair
is not only a beautiful book but an educational and inspiring one that
will give the reader new insight into an often ignored period of
history.