This Other Eden

A testament of love: love of kin, love of nature, love of art, love of self, love of home. Danez Smith, New York Times. A luminous, thought-provoking novel. Esi Edugyan, author of Washington Black. Set at the beginning of the twentieth century and inspired by historical events, This Other Eden tells the story of Apple Island: an enclave off the coast of the United States where waves of castaways - in flight from society and its judgment - have landed and built a home.

Benjamin Honey - American, Bantu, Igbo - born enslaved, freed or fled at fifteen, aspiring orchardist, arrived on the island with his Irish wife, Patience, and discovered they could make a life together there. More than a century later, the Honeys' descendants remain, with an eccentric, diverse band of neighbors. Then comes the intrusion of 'civilization': officials determine to 'cleanse' the island, and a missionary schoolteacher selects one light-skinned boy to save. The rest will succumb to the authorities' institutions or cast themselves on the waters in a new Noah's Ark.

Full of lyricism and power, Paul Harding's This Other Eden explores the hopes and dreams and resilience of those seen not to fit a world brutally intolerant of difference.