Dazzling

Soon you will become the thing all other beasts fear.

Treasure and her mother lost everything when Treasure's daddy died. Haggling for scraps in the market, Treasure meets a spirit who promises to bring her father back - but she has to do something for him first.

Ozoemena has an itch in the middle of her back that can't be scratched. An itch that speaks to her patrilineal destiny, to defend her people by becoming a leopard. Her father impressed upon her what an honour this was before he vanished, but it's one she couldn't want less.

But as the two girls reckon with their burgeoning wildness and the legacy of their fathers' decisions, Ozoemena's fellow students at her new boarding school start to vanish. Treasure and Ozoemena will face terrible choices as each must ask herself: in a world that always says 'no' to women, what must two young girls sacrifice to get what is theirs?

About the Author

Chikodili Emelumadu was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and raised in Awka, Nigeria. A product of not one but two Nigerian boarding schools, she went on to attend Nnamdi Azikiwe University in Nigeria and the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. She was the winner of the Curtis Brown First Novel Prize in 2019. Her work has also been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards (2015), a Nommo Award (2020) and the Caine Prize for African Literature (2017 & 2020).