HOW TO BE A REVOLUTIONARY

For readers of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ha Jin, and J.M. Coetzee.

How to be a Revolutionary spans contemporary Shanghai, late Apartheid-era South Africa, and Langston Hughes' 1950s Harlem to explore the lives of three characters, each struggling against injustice and a hidden past. How to be a Revolutionary will speak to fans of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Ha Jin, and J.M. Coetzee, to readers who are hungry for thought-provoking and meaningful stories that explore individual lives in the context of large social movements, and the costs of injustice.

Fleeing her unhappy marriage, Beth has accepted a diplomatic posting to Shanghai. In this anonymous city, she hopes to lose herself in books, wine and solitude. But one evening Zhao arrives at her doorstep in search of an English word he can't translate. Soon they begin a tentative friendship and explore unfamiliar corners of
the city.

Then one day Zhao is gone. More curiously, each morning a new chunk of typewritten manuscript appears in Beth's mail slot. As Beth reels from the gradual understanding of what she holds--Zhao's secret history, inextricably wound up with his country's--she must reckon with the long shadow of her own past, and somehow
find the courage to redeem it. A nuanced, daring and heartbreaking exploration of what it means to be human, and what we owe our countries and ourselves, How to be a Revolutionary marks the arrival of a provocative and indelible new voice.

C.A. Davids has lived in Switzerland, the United States and Shanghai, China and now resides on the edge of District Six in Cape Town with her husband and two children. How to be a Revolutionary will be her U.S. debut, though her first novel The Blacks of Cape Town was published to rave reviews in South Africa and nominated for the Edinburgh First Book Award.