Gabriela Babnik’s novel Dry Season takes on the themes of racism, the role of women in modern society and the loneliness of the human condition.
A record of an unusual love affair between Anna, a 62-year-old designer from Central Europe, and Ismael, a 27-year-old African who was brought up, victimised, and abused on the street. What unites them is the loneliness of their bodies, a tragic childhood and the dry season, or ‘Harmattan’, during which neither nature nor love is able to flourish.
Cleverly written as an alternating narrative of both sides in the relationship, the novel is interlaced with magic realism and accurately perceived fragments of African political reality.