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So the Path Does Not Die
Finaba Marah yearns to fit in with the other girls of her age, and nothing will allow her to do that more than the initiation ceremony. One night Finaba is secretly whisked away by her grandmother, but before her initiation is complete, Finaba’s father storms in and brings the circumcision to a halt. The family is advised to leave their home, and the events that follow set Finaba’s life on an unexpected path. So the Path Does Not Die is a touching coming of age story that follows Finaba through her childhood and adolescence into adulthood, from her native Sierra Leone to the new and exciting land of opportunity, the USA. This modern story addresses issues of ethnicity, sexuality, gender and Female Genital Circumcision, told through the life of this feisty, intelligent and determined young African woman as she makes her way through the world while balancing the weights of tradition and modernity. But most of all, it is a story of survival.
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
11 people are currently reading
277 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 2, 2017
!!! https://africanbookaddict.com/2016/10...
My rough thoughts! A proper review is on africanbookaddict.com (link above).
Gosh. Its been a while since I've read a 5 star book this year. Pede Hollist's book 'So The Path Does Not Die' was truly an enjoyable read!! Why weren't more people talking about this book back in 2014 when it was published by Jacaranda? From beginning to end, this was awesome. In the beginning, the storytelling gave me a Chinua Achebe vibe as the story starts off with a folk tale. But Pede Hollist's writing style is rhythmic, simple, accurate in the nuances he captures and I was thoroughly entertained (I giggled a lot at the dramatic things that went on in this book. It got intense!)
This is a story about Finaba (or later known as Fina by her adopted family) whose life revolves around her forbidden initiation / incomplete FGM experience in her village. This initiation process is a coming-of-age event where a girl finally becomes a woman and 'belongs' to the people of the village. But after her family is shunned from the village due to an abominable act by her father to save Fina from this deadly practice, they move to the Freetown (Sierra Leone's capital) with heaps of curses on their heads. In the capital, Fina endures many struggles in all aspects of her life - family problems, school issues, ethnic group discrimination (since she is Fulani which is seen as a minority group) etc. When Fina finally escapes Sierra Leone to the US, though she matures beautifully and becomes relatively successful thanks to her determination to be happy and independent, she faces a new set of problems in the US - immigration, Africans vrs African Americans vrs Caribbean issues, the myth of the American dream, cultural alienation etc. For some reason, all the hardships and painful lessons Fina experiences seem to be tied back to the night of her initiation. She somehow feels she does not 'belong', even with her fiance - Cammy ; Sierra Leone seems to be the only place where she would feel valued.
I really appreciated how this story comes full circle by the end. Some of the depictions of certain cultural groups may seem stereotypical, but I believe Hollist executes these depictions in a jovial manner and with finesse. 'So The Path Does Not Die' reminded me of Adichie's 'Americanah' as all the side stories of the people Fina encountered like: Sidebe - the diamonds trader, Aman - her African American bestie in the US, Bayo - Aman's Nigerian beau, Cammy - Fina's Trinidadian beau, Mawaf - the child soldier's wife, Baramusu - her grandma etc, and the socio-political backgrounds of these characters are all sooo layered. I truly loved how this book was basically a cultural melting pot of Black peoples' (African, African American and Caribbean) similarities and differences and the connection they all had to the African continent.
I was a bit skeptical on how Pede Hollist would accurately write and speak for Fina in this book, as he is a man and would probably portray a man better. But I was impressed by his careful attention to consciously writing Fina's character in a way that spoke on many feminist issues. I also learned A LOT about Sierra Leone from this novel! You would think us West Africans would know more about our fellow brethren on this coast, but I really had no clue. I jotted down a lot of the cultural references, ethnic groups, native foods, languages, national costumes, names, natural resources from Sierra Leone. I also learned a lot about Trinidad and Nigeria - as the book focuses on the people of these nations as well. Don't you love when you learn about our world through a good story? Yes gawd...
Fina did annoy me at some parts of this book though. She definitely had what they call 'the diaspora complex', where Africans abroad think they can go back home to their native lands and save everyone and everything thats wrong with the place. Hollist accurately depicted the delusional nature of some people in the diaspora, who actually mean well (don't get me wrong - girl, I was one of them), but ultimately aim at looking and feeling superior once they go back home. *sigh* its such a complex topic that would make an awesome discussion in a book club! Just peeling all the layers of the issues raised in this novel would make a solid thesis or literature class discussion.
I could go on and on and on, on why I loved this novel so much. Pede Hollist did the damn thing with this book! I eagerly look forward to more of his work :)
My rough thoughts! A proper review is on africanbookaddict.com (link above).
Gosh. Its been a while since I've read a 5 star book this year. Pede Hollist's book 'So The Path Does Not Die' was truly an enjoyable read!! Why weren't more people talking about this book back in 2014 when it was published by Jacaranda? From beginning to end, this was awesome. In the beginning, the storytelling gave me a Chinua Achebe vibe as the story starts off with a folk tale. But Pede Hollist's writing style is rhythmic, simple, accurate in the nuances he captures and I was thoroughly entertained (I giggled a lot at the dramatic things that went on in this book. It got intense!)
This is a story about Finaba (or later known as Fina by her adopted family) whose life revolves around her forbidden initiation / incomplete FGM experience in her village. This initiation process is a coming-of-age event where a girl finally becomes a woman and 'belongs' to the people of the village. But after her family is shunned from the village due to an abominable act by her father to save Fina from this deadly practice, they move to the Freetown (Sierra Leone's capital) with heaps of curses on their heads. In the capital, Fina endures many struggles in all aspects of her life - family problems, school issues, ethnic group discrimination (since she is Fulani which is seen as a minority group) etc. When Fina finally escapes Sierra Leone to the US, though she matures beautifully and becomes relatively successful thanks to her determination to be happy and independent, she faces a new set of problems in the US - immigration, Africans vrs African Americans vrs Caribbean issues, the myth of the American dream, cultural alienation etc. For some reason, all the hardships and painful lessons Fina experiences seem to be tied back to the night of her initiation. She somehow feels she does not 'belong', even with her fiance - Cammy ; Sierra Leone seems to be the only place where she would feel valued.
I really appreciated how this story comes full circle by the end. Some of the depictions of certain cultural groups may seem stereotypical, but I believe Hollist executes these depictions in a jovial manner and with finesse. 'So The Path Does Not Die' reminded me of Adichie's 'Americanah' as all the side stories of the people Fina encountered like: Sidebe - the diamonds trader, Aman - her African American bestie in the US, Bayo - Aman's Nigerian beau, Cammy - Fina's Trinidadian beau, Mawaf - the child soldier's wife, Baramusu - her grandma etc, and the socio-political backgrounds of these characters are all sooo layered. I truly loved how this book was basically a cultural melting pot of Black peoples' (African, African American and Caribbean) similarities and differences and the connection they all had to the African continent.
I was a bit skeptical on how Pede Hollist would accurately write and speak for Fina in this book, as he is a man and would probably portray a man better. But I was impressed by his careful attention to consciously writing Fina's character in a way that spoke on many feminist issues. I also learned A LOT about Sierra Leone from this novel! You would think us West Africans would know more about our fellow brethren on this coast, but I really had no clue. I jotted down a lot of the cultural references, ethnic groups, native foods, languages, national costumes, names, natural resources from Sierra Leone. I also learned a lot about Trinidad and Nigeria - as the book focuses on the people of these nations as well. Don't you love when you learn about our world through a good story? Yes gawd...
Fina did annoy me at some parts of this book though. She definitely had what they call 'the diaspora complex', where Africans abroad think they can go back home to their native lands and save everyone and everything thats wrong with the place. Hollist accurately depicted the delusional nature of some people in the diaspora, who actually mean well (don't get me wrong - girl, I was one of them), but ultimately aim at looking and feeling superior once they go back home. *sigh* its such a complex topic that would make an awesome discussion in a book club! Just peeling all the layers of the issues raised in this novel would make a solid thesis or literature class discussion.
I could go on and on and on, on why I loved this novel so much. Pede Hollist did the damn thing with this book! I eagerly look forward to more of his work :)
did-not-finish
December 13, 2021A fascinating story about a young Sierra Leonean female protagonist, sensitively told by a male Sierra Leonean writer. But by about page 75, I decided not to continue because the literary quality just wasn’t there. I would like to read the exact same story, but with more vivid scenes and richer character development.
October 29, 2017
Review published: https://chronicbibliophilia.wordpress...
“Numbers and maps tell horror stories, but the stories of deepest horror are perhaps those for which there are no numbers, no maps, no possible accountability, no words ever written or spoken. And perhaps the only way to grant any justice - were that even possible - is by hearing and recording those stories over and over again so that they come back, always, to haunt and shame us. Because being aware of what is happening in our era and choosing to do nothing about it has become unacceptable. Because we cannot allow ourselves to go on normalizing horror and violence. Because we can all be held accountable if something happens under our noses and we don’t dare even look.”
- Valeria Luiselli, “Tell Me How It Ends”
In this current political climate, where worldwide we are told there is an immigration ‘crisis’, that ‘floods’ of people threaten our borders and our way of life, I can’t help but spend countless hours and unmeasurable emotional energy thinking about history, humanity, and human migration. Throughout recorded time, immigration has taken on so many shapes, has been driven by so many forces, has had so many outcomes. And yet, at its core, despite the horrors refugees might flee or the opportunities dreamers might seek, migration is about identity, safety, and the universal search for a sense of belonging.
Over the past week, my reading has been guided by these thoughts, as I subconsciously selected books which unpack and explore widely variant experiences but which center on immigration, particularly of people seeking home in the United States. This weekend, the sessions of the Boston Book Festival which called out to me continued this theme. I heard Jonny Sun, Lisa Ko, and Hala Alyan engage in a thought-provoking and somehow heartening discussion of home in a session named “Strangers in a Strange Land”. In another session - “Voices of America: the Immigrant Experience Through a Writer’s Eyes” - Ha Jin, Grace Talusan, and Marjan Kamali reached similar conclusions. To all of these gifted writers, people whose parents are Chinese, Iranian, Palestinian, Filipino, home is not a physical or geographical place. As they have matured and grown, as they have felt ‘other’ and even ‘alien’, all have come to believe that home is internal, personal, and intangible. As Jonny Sun put it, “Maybe home is a focused group of people interested in the same thing at the same time.”
“So the Path Does Not Die” by Pede Hollist
“‘After college, I wanted so badly to get out of Sierra Leone to come and live here, where it wouldn’t matter what ethnic group I belonged to, whether I was a foster child, or that I was a woman. … Boy, did I get that one wrong! I just replaced the circles on my back with ones that say black, African, and foreign - no, no alien. Black and alien. Is this what life is all about? Running away from place to place trying to fit in, to belong?’”
In “So the Path Does Not Die”, Pede Hollist explores the complexities and heartaches of the life of Fina, a girl born in a small village in Sierra Leone whose family is outcast when they interrupt her circumcision ceremony and whose life is a constant search to establish herself and to gain a sense of belonging. After college, Fina fights her way to getting a Visa for the United States, then is disheartened to discover that her opportunities are limited and barely tenable. Working menial jobs for long hours and short rewards, Fina constantly wonders whether any of this is worth it. Is she truly better off in America? Was leaving her country worthwhile, or is she responsible for those left behind?
The conversations Fina has with other immigrants are honest and critical, the wariness they reveal is visceral.
“‘You never outgrow your home, not if it meant something to you,’ Fina replied. ‘It’s the smell of the marketplace, the sound of the church bells, or the call to prayers of the muezzin. Its’ the world that you recognize and understand.’
‘These ideas are all in yuh head Fina,’ Cammy chuckled. ‘Every time ah gone home, ah come back disappointed because what ah imagined or hoped for is not the way things really are. Know why?’ No one answered. ‘Because back home is a memory, a canvas of good times stitched together to cope with present realities. All this talk of going back reflects our unwillingness to accept our new home. … Sorry to burst yuh bubble, but there is not and never has been a back home to go to. It’s all in yuh heads, a fiction, like tradition and culture, which controls and keeps yuh tied to one country, one way of seeing and doing things. Ah want to be more than Trinidadian, American, or Nigerian - more than even a black man. I want to be bigger than one place and one culture!’”
Pede Hollist’s exploration of the African diaspora and of the universal and perhaps unending journey for a sense of self was moving and thoughtful. Though rough around the edges, lacking editorial polish and refinement, the novel simultaneously opened up little-known cultures and all-too-common experiences.
“Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions” by Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli is a celebrated, if undersung, writer. Her debut novella “Faces in the Crowd” (reviewed here) was bold, original and captivating. As Luiselli, herself a Mexican citizen, was embroiled in the United States’ Green Card application process, she became overwhelmed and irresistibly drawn to the growing crisis of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the US after harrowing journeys from their Central American homes. These children, mainly fleeing untenable poverty and rampant gang violence, are getting swept up by the thousands by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, facing detention, deportation, and potentially death if immigration officials chose not to grant their asylum requests.
“It is not even the American Dream that they pursue, but rather the more modest aspiration to wake up from the nightmare into which they were born.”
Luiselli volunteered to conduct and translate intake interviews with hundreds of these children in the New York City area, hoping to help build their cases and ensure that as many as possible were given the sanctuary they and their families have risked their lives seeking.
“I hear words, spoken in the mouths of children, threaded in complex narratives. They are delivered with hesitance, sometimes distrust, always with fear.”
In “Tell Me How It Ends”, Luiselli gives haunting, urgent insight into this ongoing tragedy. Published in 2017, though her work in this crisis began in 2014, “Tell Me How It Ends” is eerily timely. As the back book jacket declares, this book is “an indictment of our treatment of undocumented children, a reckoning with our culpability for the dangers they are fleeing, and a damning confrontation between the ideals of the American dream and the reality of American racism and fear[.]”
“The Leavers” by Lisa Ko
Deming Guo’s mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, is enigmatic and independent. Living in stark poverty, sharing a one bedroom Bronx apartment with his mother Polly, his mother’s boyfriend Leon, and Leon’s sister Vivian and nephew Michael, Deming is a misfit, an other among others. Though he was born in the United States, he spent his young childhood in rural China, raised by his strict grandfather. When his grandfather dies, Deming is ‘returned’ to his mother, to whom he forms a fast and fierce attachment.
“[H]e had thought his mother was invincible. She was louder, funnier, faster, and smarter than other adults, and he could never keep secrets from her, about his grades or if he’d been having regular dumps or if those were his crumbs that had spilled on the floor. She wasn’t particularly strict, or cruel, but she was sharp, one step ahead. She was competent, she worked hard, and no matter how tired she was, there was always concern or vigilance left over for him.”
His world and his tenuous ties to constancy are suddenly upended when Polly goes to work one day, then disappears without a trace. After months of struggling to get by, Deming’s default family feels forced to give him up, surrendering him to the foster care system where is adopted and somewhat forcibly adapted by a suburban white couple. Deming - now known as Daniel Wilkinson - finds himself even more out of place among the privileged, middle class white kids of his new home.
“Daniel was malleable, everyone and no one, a collector of moods, a careful observer of the right thing to say. He watched other people’s reactions before deciding his own; he could be fun or serious or whatever was most strategic, whoever you wanted him to be. … If only he had the right clothes, knew the right references, he would finally become the person he was meant to be. … Deserving of love, blameless. But no matter how many albums he acquired or playlists he artfully compiled, the real him remained stubbornly out there like a fat cruise ship on the horizon, visible but out of reach, and whenever he got closer it drifted away. He was forever waiting to get past the secret entrance, and when the ropes did part he could never fully believe he was in. Another door materialized, another rope to get past, always the promise of something better.”
Daniel’s adoptive parents are stereotypical, well-educated, white liberals, but that doesn’t make them less real. Their caricature may, in fact, inform the discontent, the ennui, the sense of displacement Daniel struggles against throughout his life. While he is inherently a seeker like his birth mother, he is also inherently resistant to the model laid out for him by his adoptive parents. These two forces buffer and bat him about throughout his coming of age.
Alternating between the third person point of view of Deming/Daniel and the first person accounts of his mother Polly, “The Leavers” explores the constant search for a sense of self and belonging with characters who are fully-fleshed and refreshingly flawed. “The Leavers” is part mystery, as Deming seeks not only to find himself but to discover what happened to his mother many years ago. Lisa Ko’s story is fresh and resonant, and the open ending, the continued seeking of “The Leavers” from first page to last makes the story live on in the reader’s mind.
“Numbers and maps tell horror stories, but the stories of deepest horror are perhaps those for which there are no numbers, no maps, no possible accountability, no words ever written or spoken. And perhaps the only way to grant any justice - were that even possible - is by hearing and recording those stories over and over again so that they come back, always, to haunt and shame us. Because being aware of what is happening in our era and choosing to do nothing about it has become unacceptable. Because we cannot allow ourselves to go on normalizing horror and violence. Because we can all be held accountable if something happens under our noses and we don’t dare even look.”
- Valeria Luiselli, “Tell Me How It Ends”
In this current political climate, where worldwide we are told there is an immigration ‘crisis’, that ‘floods’ of people threaten our borders and our way of life, I can’t help but spend countless hours and unmeasurable emotional energy thinking about history, humanity, and human migration. Throughout recorded time, immigration has taken on so many shapes, has been driven by so many forces, has had so many outcomes. And yet, at its core, despite the horrors refugees might flee or the opportunities dreamers might seek, migration is about identity, safety, and the universal search for a sense of belonging.
Over the past week, my reading has been guided by these thoughts, as I subconsciously selected books which unpack and explore widely variant experiences but which center on immigration, particularly of people seeking home in the United States. This weekend, the sessions of the Boston Book Festival which called out to me continued this theme. I heard Jonny Sun, Lisa Ko, and Hala Alyan engage in a thought-provoking and somehow heartening discussion of home in a session named “Strangers in a Strange Land”. In another session - “Voices of America: the Immigrant Experience Through a Writer’s Eyes” - Ha Jin, Grace Talusan, and Marjan Kamali reached similar conclusions. To all of these gifted writers, people whose parents are Chinese, Iranian, Palestinian, Filipino, home is not a physical or geographical place. As they have matured and grown, as they have felt ‘other’ and even ‘alien’, all have come to believe that home is internal, personal, and intangible. As Jonny Sun put it, “Maybe home is a focused group of people interested in the same thing at the same time.”
“So the Path Does Not Die” by Pede Hollist
“‘After college, I wanted so badly to get out of Sierra Leone to come and live here, where it wouldn’t matter what ethnic group I belonged to, whether I was a foster child, or that I was a woman. … Boy, did I get that one wrong! I just replaced the circles on my back with ones that say black, African, and foreign - no, no alien. Black and alien. Is this what life is all about? Running away from place to place trying to fit in, to belong?’”
In “So the Path Does Not Die”, Pede Hollist explores the complexities and heartaches of the life of Fina, a girl born in a small village in Sierra Leone whose family is outcast when they interrupt her circumcision ceremony and whose life is a constant search to establish herself and to gain a sense of belonging. After college, Fina fights her way to getting a Visa for the United States, then is disheartened to discover that her opportunities are limited and barely tenable. Working menial jobs for long hours and short rewards, Fina constantly wonders whether any of this is worth it. Is she truly better off in America? Was leaving her country worthwhile, or is she responsible for those left behind?
The conversations Fina has with other immigrants are honest and critical, the wariness they reveal is visceral.
“‘You never outgrow your home, not if it meant something to you,’ Fina replied. ‘It’s the smell of the marketplace, the sound of the church bells, or the call to prayers of the muezzin. Its’ the world that you recognize and understand.’
‘These ideas are all in yuh head Fina,’ Cammy chuckled. ‘Every time ah gone home, ah come back disappointed because what ah imagined or hoped for is not the way things really are. Know why?’ No one answered. ‘Because back home is a memory, a canvas of good times stitched together to cope with present realities. All this talk of going back reflects our unwillingness to accept our new home. … Sorry to burst yuh bubble, but there is not and never has been a back home to go to. It’s all in yuh heads, a fiction, like tradition and culture, which controls and keeps yuh tied to one country, one way of seeing and doing things. Ah want to be more than Trinidadian, American, or Nigerian - more than even a black man. I want to be bigger than one place and one culture!’”
Pede Hollist’s exploration of the African diaspora and of the universal and perhaps unending journey for a sense of self was moving and thoughtful. Though rough around the edges, lacking editorial polish and refinement, the novel simultaneously opened up little-known cultures and all-too-common experiences.
“Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions” by Valeria Luiselli
Valeria Luiselli is a celebrated, if undersung, writer. Her debut novella “Faces in the Crowd” (reviewed here) was bold, original and captivating. As Luiselli, herself a Mexican citizen, was embroiled in the United States’ Green Card application process, she became overwhelmed and irresistibly drawn to the growing crisis of unaccompanied children seeking asylum in the US after harrowing journeys from their Central American homes. These children, mainly fleeing untenable poverty and rampant gang violence, are getting swept up by the thousands by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, facing detention, deportation, and potentially death if immigration officials chose not to grant their asylum requests.
“It is not even the American Dream that they pursue, but rather the more modest aspiration to wake up from the nightmare into which they were born.”
Luiselli volunteered to conduct and translate intake interviews with hundreds of these children in the New York City area, hoping to help build their cases and ensure that as many as possible were given the sanctuary they and their families have risked their lives seeking.
“I hear words, spoken in the mouths of children, threaded in complex narratives. They are delivered with hesitance, sometimes distrust, always with fear.”
In “Tell Me How It Ends”, Luiselli gives haunting, urgent insight into this ongoing tragedy. Published in 2017, though her work in this crisis began in 2014, “Tell Me How It Ends” is eerily timely. As the back book jacket declares, this book is “an indictment of our treatment of undocumented children, a reckoning with our culpability for the dangers they are fleeing, and a damning confrontation between the ideals of the American dream and the reality of American racism and fear[.]”
“The Leavers” by Lisa Ko
Deming Guo’s mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant, is enigmatic and independent. Living in stark poverty, sharing a one bedroom Bronx apartment with his mother Polly, his mother’s boyfriend Leon, and Leon’s sister Vivian and nephew Michael, Deming is a misfit, an other among others. Though he was born in the United States, he spent his young childhood in rural China, raised by his strict grandfather. When his grandfather dies, Deming is ‘returned’ to his mother, to whom he forms a fast and fierce attachment.
“[H]e had thought his mother was invincible. She was louder, funnier, faster, and smarter than other adults, and he could never keep secrets from her, about his grades or if he’d been having regular dumps or if those were his crumbs that had spilled on the floor. She wasn’t particularly strict, or cruel, but she was sharp, one step ahead. She was competent, she worked hard, and no matter how tired she was, there was always concern or vigilance left over for him.”
His world and his tenuous ties to constancy are suddenly upended when Polly goes to work one day, then disappears without a trace. After months of struggling to get by, Deming’s default family feels forced to give him up, surrendering him to the foster care system where is adopted and somewhat forcibly adapted by a suburban white couple. Deming - now known as Daniel Wilkinson - finds himself even more out of place among the privileged, middle class white kids of his new home.
“Daniel was malleable, everyone and no one, a collector of moods, a careful observer of the right thing to say. He watched other people’s reactions before deciding his own; he could be fun or serious or whatever was most strategic, whoever you wanted him to be. … If only he had the right clothes, knew the right references, he would finally become the person he was meant to be. … Deserving of love, blameless. But no matter how many albums he acquired or playlists he artfully compiled, the real him remained stubbornly out there like a fat cruise ship on the horizon, visible but out of reach, and whenever he got closer it drifted away. He was forever waiting to get past the secret entrance, and when the ropes did part he could never fully believe he was in. Another door materialized, another rope to get past, always the promise of something better.”
Daniel’s adoptive parents are stereotypical, well-educated, white liberals, but that doesn’t make them less real. Their caricature may, in fact, inform the discontent, the ennui, the sense of displacement Daniel struggles against throughout his life. While he is inherently a seeker like his birth mother, he is also inherently resistant to the model laid out for him by his adoptive parents. These two forces buffer and bat him about throughout his coming of age.
Alternating between the third person point of view of Deming/Daniel and the first person accounts of his mother Polly, “The Leavers” explores the constant search for a sense of self and belonging with characters who are fully-fleshed and refreshingly flawed. “The Leavers” is part mystery, as Deming seeks not only to find himself but to discover what happened to his mother many years ago. Lisa Ko’s story is fresh and resonant, and the open ending, the continued seeking of “The Leavers” from first page to last makes the story live on in the reader’s mind.
April 14, 2025
What's better than a pretty cover? An interesting and enjoyable read!
This was an easy 5-star book for me. I loved every moment and couldn't believe it took me so long to discover this masterpiece.
At first, I doubted how well Pede Hollist, as a man, could write from Fina's perspective. I thought he might portray a male character better, but I was impressed by how thoughtfully he developed Fina, addressing many feminis and societal issues with care.
The story follows Finaba (who stressed me a whole lot btw), whose life is shaped by her incomplete FGM initiation in her village. This ritual, a coming-of-age ceremony, was meant to make her "belong." However, her father's attempt to save her from this harmful practice leads to their family being cast out of the village under a cloud of curses. They move to Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, where Fina faces relentless challenges-family struggles, school difficulties, and ethnic discrimination as a Fulani, a minority group.
Eventually, Fina escapes to the U.S., where her resilience helps her find success and independence. However, she encounters new issues like immigration challenges, and cultural alienation. Despite everything, Fina feels her hardships and sense of not belonging trace back to that initiation night. Even with her fiancé, Cammy, Sierra Leone feels like the only place where she might truly find her worth.
This book explored themes like: FGM, domestic violence, abuse, family, friendship, sisterhood and so much more.
This was an easy 5-star book for me. I loved every moment and couldn't believe it took me so long to discover this masterpiece.
At first, I doubted how well Pede Hollist, as a man, could write from Fina's perspective. I thought he might portray a male character better, but I was impressed by how thoughtfully he developed Fina, addressing many feminis and societal issues with care.
The story follows Finaba (who stressed me a whole lot btw), whose life is shaped by her incomplete FGM initiation in her village. This ritual, a coming-of-age ceremony, was meant to make her "belong." However, her father's attempt to save her from this harmful practice leads to their family being cast out of the village under a cloud of curses. They move to Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital, where Fina faces relentless challenges-family struggles, school difficulties, and ethnic discrimination as a Fulani, a minority group.
Eventually, Fina escapes to the U.S., where her resilience helps her find success and independence. However, she encounters new issues like immigration challenges, and cultural alienation. Despite everything, Fina feels her hardships and sense of not belonging trace back to that initiation night. Even with her fiancé, Cammy, Sierra Leone feels like the only place where she might truly find her worth.
This book explored themes like: FGM, domestic violence, abuse, family, friendship, sisterhood and so much more.
February 14, 2022
Purchased in an airport and definitely an airport book but tricked out as meaningful literature by the exotic location and incidents based on Sierra Leon recent history. The book does little justice to what could be a serious portrayal of the country's customs and horrors. So badly written and rambling that I kept having to return to earlier sections for a reminder of the back stories for particular characters. Good intentions (perhaps) but bad execution. (Purchased at Nairobi Airport.)
January 2, 2026
At first, this reminded me of Nightbloom by Peace Adzo Medie (⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) and Daughter in Exile by Bisi Adjapon (⭐️⭐️⭐️), so I had fairly high hopes.
That feeling faded fast. It started to feel like the author forgot the plot or how to make anything happen. There was so much going on, the writing was weird, so many unnecessary back stories, and nothing made sense.
Fina is DUMB DUMB. In fact, all the characters are somehow.
Disappointing.
⭐️⭐️
That feeling faded fast. It started to feel like the author forgot the plot or how to make anything happen. There was so much going on, the writing was weird, so many unnecessary back stories, and nothing made sense.
Fina is DUMB DUMB. In fact, all the characters are somehow.
Disappointing.
⭐️⭐️
July 12, 2025
So the path does not die is a very wholesome and emotional book, an aspect i especially enjoyed was the bit on African immigrants returning back to change their country i liked how the author gave different perspectives to that argument.
July 29, 2018
The folk tale in the beginning is compelling. Not entirely about FGM as promoted. Easy read though.
August 29, 2024
It is a book which explores African female experiences in the past.
Read
June 30, 2025summaries the novel
July 6, 2025
I DNFed it but overall rating from our Book Club was 3.5
Read
August 29, 2013"This absorbing novel vividly brings the African diaspora to life." - Kathryn VanSpanckeren, University of Tampa
This book was reviewed in the September 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/19RaXYZ
This book was reviewed in the September 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website: http://bit.ly/19RaXYZ
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