Random House presents the audiobook release of The Aged Drift by Namwali Serpell, browse by Adjoa Andoh, Richard E. Offer and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.

Electrifying, playful, ambitious, excellent – a Zambian debut book that follows three generations of 3 families, telling the story of a nation, and of the grand sweep of time

‘It’s difficult to think about another novel that is at once thus sweepingly ambitious therefore intricately patterned, providing the pleasures of saga and poetry in identical measure..Read More about The Old Drift The Aged Drift is an endlessly innovative, voraciously excellent reserve, and Namwali Serpell has become the distinctive and fascinating authors to emerge in years.’ Garth Greenwell

In the banks of the Zambezi River, several miles in the majestic Victoria Falls, there is once a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. Here begins the epic tale of a little African nation, informed by a mystical swarm-like chorus that calls itself man’s very best nemesis. The story? A playful panorama of background, fairytale, love and science fiction. The moral? To err is usually human.

In 1904, in a smoky room on the hotel over the river, a vintage Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a blunder that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a routine of unwitting retribution between three Zambian households (black, white, dark brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the hundred years, in to the present and beyond. As the years pass, their lives – their triumphs, mistakes, losses and hopes – type a symphony about what it means to become human.

From a woman covered with hair and another plagued with endless tears, to forbidden love affairs and fiery political ones, to homegrown technological marvels like Afronauts, microdrones and viral vaccines – this gripping, unforgettable book sweeps over time and the globe, subverting expectations along the way. Exploding with color and energy, The Aged Drift is certainly a testament to your yearning to make and cross borders, and a deep breathing on the slow, grand passage of time.