The Memory of Love by Aminatta Forna

In contemporary Sierra Leone, a devastating civil war has left an entire populace with secrets to keep. In the capital hospital, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are beginning to threaten his livelihood. Elsewhere in the hospital lies a dying man who was young during the country’s turbulent postcolonial years and has stories to tell that are far from heroic. As past and present intersect in the buzzing city, these men are drawn unwittingly closer by a British psychologist with good intentions, and into the path of one woman at the centre of their stories. A work of breathtaking writing and rare wisdom, The Memory of Love seamlessly weaves together two generations of African life to create a story of loss, absolution, and the indelible effects of the past—and, in the end, the very nature of love.

About the Author
Aminatta Forna was born in Glasgow, raised in Sierra Leone and the United Kingdom and now divides her time between London and Sierra Leone.
Her published works include The Devil that Danced on the Water (2002), a memoir of her dissident father and her country, Ancestor Stones (2006), a novel set in West Africa, The Memory of Love (2010), The Hired Man (2013) and The Angel of Mexico City (2014).
In 2003, The Devil That Danced on the Water was shortlisted for Britain’s most prestigious non-fiction award, the Samuel Johnson Prize 2003. The book was serialised on BBC Radio, also in The Sunday Times newspaper, and selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers series.
Ancestor Stones was a New York Times Editor’s Choice book, selected by the Washington Post as one of the Best Novels of 2006 and one of The Listener Magazine’s Best 10 Books of 2006. In 2007 Aminatta was named by Vanity Fair as one of Africa’s most promising new writers. Ancestor Stones is winner of the 2007 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (Debut Fiction), was longlisted for the International Dublin IMPAC Award and was the 2008 winner of the LiBeraturpreis in Germany.
Aminatta’s second novel, The Memory of Love, a story about friendship, war and obsessive love, was published in 2010 and won the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (Overall Winner, Best Book). In 2010, she was also shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award.
The Hired Man tells the story of a Croatian village and the English family who buy a holiday home there, it is a tale of war, betrayal and secrets that linger. The Hired Man was picked as one of the best books of 2013 by NPR, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Independent, The Evening Standard, The Australian and the NZ Listener. It was a Barnes & Nobles 2013 Critics Choice and nominated for the 2014 IMPAC Award.
Aminatta is on the advisory committees of the Royal Literary Fund and the Caine Prize for African Writing. Her television credits include the arts documentary Through African Eyes (BBC), the documentary series Africa Unmasked (Channel 4) and in 2009, The Lost Libraries of Timbuktu (BBC). Her journalism has appeared in Granta, The Economist, The Sunday Times, The Observer, Vanity Fair and Vogue Magazine.
She is currently Lannan Visiting Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. In 2011 and 2013 she held the post of Sterling Brown Visiting Professor at Williams College Massachusetts.
In 2014 Aminatta Forna was named as a winner of a Donald Windham-Sandy M. Campbell Literature Prize awarded annually by Yale University. She has been named a finalist for the 2016 Neustadt Award. Both prizes are awarded for an author’s body of work.

Other Books by the Author
The Hired Man
Happiness
The Window Seat
The Devil That Dance on the Water