The old drift

Namwali Serpell’s ground-shaking debut novel is an epic story of three generations of three Zambian families – one black, one brown and one white. Unfolding over 200 years, but set mainly in the twentieth century, one family begins in Italy, another in England and the third in Zambia.

The three families’ lives become entwined as each is plagued by a curse passed on down the generations. Hugely ambitious, each of the three ‘books’ that make up the novel – The Grandmothers, The Mothers, The Children – eng