Pillaging the Dead

A sharp, darkly funny political satire about a young street bookseller drawn into a dangerous world of censorship, resistance and authoritarian power in an unnamed African dictatorship.

On the streets of this city, banned books travel faster than fear. Tarik is a university student selling banned books, pirated music and his own political cartoons to commuters caught in the city's endless traffic. But when a police raid turns violent and lands him in the custody of the feared Central Investigation Bureau, Tarik is drawn into a dangerous world of underground printers, dissidents, activists and state surveillance. As he navigates corrupt officials, revolutionary artists, secret police and citizens struggling to survive under authoritarian rule, Tarik begins to understand the true cost of dissent in a country where satire is treated as a threat to the state. Darkly comic, propulsive and deeply unsettling, Pillaging the Dead captures the absurdities of life under dictatorship with sharp wit and emotional force. Degol Hailu's debut announces an exciting new voice in contemporary African fiction.