Now the children have gone back to school I’m hoping to have time to read more. Each year I set myself a target to read a certain number of books and it feels like the year is running away from me! I love to share the books I read with you and share the odd book giveaway too. Today I am delighted to have a copy of Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were to giveaway.

How Beautiful We Were by Imbolo Mbue

We should have known the end was near. So begins Imbolo Mbue’s powerful second novel, How Beautiful We Were. Set in the fictional African village of Kosawa, it tells of a people living in fear amid environmental degradation wrought by an American oil company. Pipeline spills have rendered farmlands infertile. Children are dying from drinking toxic water. Promises of cleanup and financial reparations to the villagers are made—and ignored. The country’s government, led by a brazen dictator, exists to serve its own interests. Left with few choices, the people of Kosawa decide to fight back. Their struggle will last for decades and come at a steep price.

Told from the perspective of a generation of children and the family of a girl named Thula who grows up to become a revolutionary, How Beautiful We Were is a masterful exploration of what happens when the reckless drive for profit, coupled with the ghost of colonialism, comes up against one community’s determination to hold on to its ancestral land and a young woman’s willingness to sacrifice everything for the sake of her people’s freedom.

Win How Beautiful We Were

One reader of the gingerbread house can win a copy of How Beautiful We Were. To enter my giveaway you must answer the question via the Rafflecopter widget below and leave a comment to win, there are some bonus entries too. The giveaway is open to those with a UK postal address only and ends on 2nd October. The winners names will appear on this post. Good luck!

Don’t forget to check out my other giveaways on my competition page. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway