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Pillaging the Dead
Not yet published
Expected 1 Jun 27On the streets of this city, banned books travel faster than fear. Tarik is a university student selling banned books, pirated music and his own political cartoons to commuters caught in the city’ s endless traffic. But when a police raid turns violent and lands him in the custody of the feared Central Investigation Bureau, Tarik is drawn into a dangerous world of underground printers, dissidents, activists and state surveillance. As he navigates corrupt officials, revolutionary artists, secret police and citizens struggling to survive under authoritarian rule, Tarik begins to understand the true cost of dissent in a country where satire is treated as a threat to the state. Darkly comic, propulsive and deeply unsettling, Pillaging the Dead captures the absurdities of life under dictatorship with sharp wit and emotional force. Degol Hailu’ s debut announces an exciting new voice in contemporary African fiction.
240 pages, Hardcover
Expected publication June 1, 2027
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Review of advance copy received from Author
🥃 ARC Review: Pillaging the Dead
A book hawker, a cartoonist's pencil, and a regime that fears both
Author: Degol Hailu
Genre: Literary Fiction + Political Satire, Coming-of-Age
Themes: Dissent and censorship, banned books, prison and resistance, state violence, friendship and betrayal, family under pressure, laughing so you don't scream
Format: ARC (Cassava Republic Press)
Series: Standalone
Drink Pairing: The Bar Afrique G&T
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️ (Medium)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5) — Sharp, Brave, Episodic
The Pour
Tarik sells books at traffic lights for ten cents a page of browsing, and the government responds the way governments in satire always do: a pickup truck, a baton, and a man named Negusu who sorts paperbacks into "Subversive" and "Pervert" with a thud. Honey, I have never been so offended on behalf of a canvas messenger bag.
This is not a romance, and it does not pretend to be. It is a political novel that follows one young man from hawker to student leader to prisoner to opposition deputy, all under a Supreme Immortal Leader whose official portrait guidelines include ear measurements. Six centimetres long, three wide. I am not making that up. Degol Hailu did, and bless him for it.
The Tasting Notes
Tarik leads, and he is a lovely contradiction: brave enough to claim a banned book to save a stranger, soft enough to cry at local movies, and human enough to drink and gamble his way into his wife's bad books. But Seenaa is the top-shelf liquor in this entire universe. She is a brown belt in taekwondo, an editor, a journalist jailed while pregnant who smuggles her columns out on the backs of sanitary pads, and the only person in the Commander's office with the spine to say, "We can't sign this." Their love story simmers quietly in the background, but it is her steel that holds the book upright. What makes it different is the tone, a gallows comedy (sometimes literally) where a blind bull, a "Cost of Bullets Recovery" broadcast, and a prison football match all land as both punchline and indictment.
What I Savored 🥃
THE SETTING IS A FULL CHARACTER — From ululation at every homecoming to Jinti's lentils, raw beef in chilli paste, Mulatu Astatke on the speakers, and Nubia's "wax and gold" lyrics, the city lives and breathes even without a name on the map.
THE WOMEN STEAL THE SHOW — Seenaa, Nubia wearing the flag on her head out of pure spite, and Almaz, the sniper whose resignation letter reads like a confession, give this book its backbone.
THE SATIRE BITES — Any novel that tells you nobody gets an A in philosophy because the Leader did, and an A now counts as treason, knows exactly what it is doing.
What I Side-Eyed 🥃
THE VIGNETTE BAR TAB — The anecdotes (driving licence saga, bank-counter crowd, taxi economist) are individually delicious but stacked so high that the main plot keeps getting stuck behind them in traffic.
THE OPEN FINISH — Abe's twist and that final scramble up the barbed-wire wall hit hard, but the ending stops mid-pour and left me reaching for a glass that was not there.
The Finish
Pillaging the Dead is a full-bodied, multi-layered pour that is funnier than it has any right to be and angrier than it lets on. It needed a little more time in the barrel to tighten its pacing, but the burn is real and the message lingers. Worth the pour.
🍸 Drink Pairing: The Bar Afrique G&T
Tarik learned to swirl his gin and tonic from Nubia, so this one honors the bar where dissent got a soundtrack.
Recipe:
- 2 oz dry gin — Nubia's smoky voice and her refusal to sing on command
- 4 oz tonic water — the bitter fizz of life under the Party
- ½ oz honey syrup — the mead at the family table and the sweetness of Jinti, Selam, and home
- Squeeze of fresh lemon — Seenaa's sharp tongue
- Garnish: three roasted coffee beans — Tarik's mother, who never stopped worrying
Build over ice in a tall glass, give it Nubia's two elegant swirls, and sip slowly while the power is still on.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
If you enjoy: ✨ biting political satire ✨ banned-book rebels ✨ gallows humor ✨ women who refuse to sign...this will scratch that itch.
A book hawker, a cartoonist's pencil, and a regime that fears both
Author: Degol Hailu
Genre: Literary Fiction + Political Satire, Coming-of-Age
Themes: Dissent and censorship, banned books, prison and resistance, state violence, friendship and betrayal, family under pressure, laughing so you don't scream
Format: ARC (Cassava Republic Press)
Series: Standalone
Drink Pairing: The Bar Afrique G&T
Spice Level: 🌶️🌶️ (Medium)
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5) — Sharp, Brave, Episodic
The Pour
Tarik sells books at traffic lights for ten cents a page of browsing, and the government responds the way governments in satire always do: a pickup truck, a baton, and a man named Negusu who sorts paperbacks into "Subversive" and "Pervert" with a thud. Honey, I have never been so offended on behalf of a canvas messenger bag.
This is not a romance, and it does not pretend to be. It is a political novel that follows one young man from hawker to student leader to prisoner to opposition deputy, all under a Supreme Immortal Leader whose official portrait guidelines include ear measurements. Six centimetres long, three wide. I am not making that up. Degol Hailu did, and bless him for it.
The Tasting Notes
Tarik leads, and he is a lovely contradiction: brave enough to claim a banned book to save a stranger, soft enough to cry at local movies, and human enough to drink and gamble his way into his wife's bad books. But Seenaa is the top-shelf liquor in this entire universe. She is a brown belt in taekwondo, an editor, a journalist jailed while pregnant who smuggles her columns out on the backs of sanitary pads, and the only person in the Commander's office with the spine to say, "We can't sign this." Their love story simmers quietly in the background, but it is her steel that holds the book upright. What makes it different is the tone, a gallows comedy (sometimes literally) where a blind bull, a "Cost of Bullets Recovery" broadcast, and a prison football match all land as both punchline and indictment.
What I Savored 🥃
THE SETTING IS A FULL CHARACTER — From ululation at every homecoming to Jinti's lentils, raw beef in chilli paste, Mulatu Astatke on the speakers, and Nubia's "wax and gold" lyrics, the city lives and breathes even without a name on the map.
THE WOMEN STEAL THE SHOW — Seenaa, Nubia wearing the flag on her head out of pure spite, and Almaz, the sniper whose resignation letter reads like a confession, give this book its backbone.
THE SATIRE BITES — Any novel that tells you nobody gets an A in philosophy because the Leader did, and an A now counts as treason, knows exactly what it is doing.
What I Side-Eyed 🥃
THE VIGNETTE BAR TAB — The anecdotes (driving licence saga, bank-counter crowd, taxi economist) are individually delicious but stacked so high that the main plot keeps getting stuck behind them in traffic.
THE OPEN FINISH — Abe's twist and that final scramble up the barbed-wire wall hit hard, but the ending stops mid-pour and left me reaching for a glass that was not there.
The Finish
Pillaging the Dead is a full-bodied, multi-layered pour that is funnier than it has any right to be and angrier than it lets on. It needed a little more time in the barrel to tighten its pacing, but the burn is real and the message lingers. Worth the pour.
🍸 Drink Pairing: The Bar Afrique G&T
Tarik learned to swirl his gin and tonic from Nubia, so this one honors the bar where dissent got a soundtrack.
Recipe:
- 2 oz dry gin — Nubia's smoky voice and her refusal to sing on command
- 4 oz tonic water — the bitter fizz of life under the Party
- ½ oz honey syrup — the mead at the family table and the sweetness of Jinti, Selam, and home
- Squeeze of fresh lemon — Seenaa's sharp tongue
- Garnish: three roasted coffee beans — Tarik's mother, who never stopped worrying
Build over ice in a tall glass, give it Nubia's two elegant swirls, and sip slowly while the power is still on.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
If you enjoy: ✨ biting political satire ✨ banned-book rebels ✨ gallows humor ✨ women who refuse to sign...this will scratch that itch.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review