Excerpt from When the Plums Are Ripe by Patrice Nganang, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"When are you going to get married?"

Pouka hadn't yet found a good answer for that question, which he'd read long ago in his father's inquisitive gaze, on the day he left the village. He was the eldest son, the first of some fifty children, many of whom already had passels of children to show the Old Man. And then there were his friends—especially Fritz. We'll come back to him later, but really, his name says it all. Yet right then, as he stared at his father, whose eyes still glowed with distant visions, Pouka suddenly realized that the war had become an ugly distraction in this peaceful forest.

"Hitler…" M'bangue continued.

This time, however, he didn't finish his sentence.

Excerpted from When the Plums Are Ripe by Patrice Nganang. Copyright © 2019 by Patrice Nganang. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.