The Soul Ajar by Kiana Davenport
From bestselling Hawaiian author, Kiana Davenport, comes 'The Soul Ajar,' a riveting political thriller and love story. Set primarily in contemporary Russia and the United States, here is a novel that brilliantly knits together four seemingly unconnected lives: Adam, a CIA intelligence operative who suffers from albinism, and searches for the Russian assassin who killed his mother, an act he witnessed as a child; Lily, a young Hawaiian-Chinese journalist who falls in love with him; Bazil, an Indian intelligence operative from Mumbai who befriends Adam; and Zahira, a beautiful Afghani girl mutilated by the Taliban. In this searing and multi-faceted novel, Davenport reveals the paths these characters travel as their lives become intertwined in a haunting and timeless story of the love that binds humans together, and the wars that continue to tear us apart.
PRAISE FOR DAVENPORT'S EARLIER NOVELS
“A great story written in beautiful prose. It’s been a long time since I cried while reading a novel. Davenport is a brilliant writer.”
-- The Huffington Post
“A powerful story about love and war. Davenport is ingenious in the way she writes.
A novel you are unlikely to ever forget.”
-- Book Reporter
“A powerful and moving experience.”
-- The Washington Post
“A lush, ambitious novel that offers a fascinating glimpse into the beauty and contradictions of Native Hawaiian culture.”
-- Publishers Weekly
“Davenport mines the depths of emotion…Readers who enjoy a Doctor Zhivago-like saga will appreciate the broad scope of this novel.”
-- Library Journal
“Deeply moving. She possesses the qualities all great writers have, compassion for their subjects. You can’t read Kiana Davenport without being transformed.”
-- Alice Walker
“Incredible. Haunting. A powerful tale of love and loss.”
-- Booklist (starred review)
“What separates ‘Song of the Exile’ from popular novels is its intensity of feeling, its sensuous detail on every page, its dedication to a level of writing few bestsellers possess.”
-- Norman Mailer
“Great storytelling! An epic feminine saga…Davenport’s prose is sharp and shining as a sword. Yet her sense of poetry and love of nature permeate each line.”
-- Isabel Allende
“Torrid, yet intelligent. Compares with the fiction of Toni Morrison.”
-- Glamour
“A giant, image-fevered, luxuriant saga of a Hawaiian family…powerful, memorable, intoxicating!”
-- Kirkus Reviews
Author Kiana Davenport
KIANA DAVENPORT is descended from a full-blooded Native Hawaiian mother, and a Caucasian father from Talladega, Alabama. Her father, Braxton Bragg Davenport, was a sailor in the U.S. Navy, stationed at Pearl Harbor, when he fell in love with her mother, Emma Kealoha Awaawa Kanoho Houghtailing. On her mother's side, Kiana traces her ancestry back to the first Polynesian settlers to the Hawaiian Islands who arrived almost two thousand years ago from Tahiti and the Tuamotu's. On her father's side, she traces her ancestry to John Davenport, the puritan clergyman who co-founded the American colony of New Haven, Connecticut in 1638.
Kiana is the author of the internationally best-selling novels, SHARK DIALOGUES, SONG OF THE EXILE, HOUSE OF MANY GODS, THE SPY LOVER, and most recently, THE SOUL AJAR, now available in paperback and on Kindle. She is also the author of the collections, HOUSE OF SKIN PRIZE-WINNING STORIES, CANNIBAL NIGHTS, PACIFIC STORIES Volume II, and OPIUM DREAMS, PACIFIC STORIES, VOLUME III. All three collections have been Kindle bestsellers. She has also been a guest blogger on Huffington Post.
A graduate of the University of Hawaii, Kiana has been a Bunting Fellow at Harvard University, a Visiting Writer at Wesleyan University, and a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts grant. Her short stories have won numerous O. Henry Awards, Pushcart Prizes, and the Best American Short Story Award, 2000. Her novels and short stories have been translated into twenty-one languages. She lives in Hawaii and New York City.
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