“The land is mine. I am the earth.” Samuel is a seventy-year-old lighthouse keeper and the only inhabitant of a small island off the coast of an African country. He tends his garden, lighthouse and chickens, content with a modest life. The bodies of refugees often wash up on the shores of his island. Samuel understands that the government does not care about these unfortunate people, so he buries them himself. But one day he discovers that one stranger is still breathing. While saving a stranger, he feels a strange threat and is plunged into memories of the past: about his life, the struggle for independence and freedom of his country, which he lost. He is tormented by feelings of guilt and shame. In the presence of a stranger, Samuel begins to ponder, as in his youth: what does it mean to own land and belong to it? What would it be like to lose your home forever? The novel has been longlisted for the 2021 Man Booker Prize. “Jennings paints with broad strokes a portrait of the dark childhood and social conditions that made Samuel who he is. In the hands of the author, the blows of fate and the failures of this anti-hero acquire a textured authenticity, from which it is difficult to look away. At every turn he disappoints both himself and others. These disappointments are layered on top of each other, like the bodies he buries under stones. This book can be compared to "The Woman in the Sand" by Kobo Abe. No plot summary can do justice to such a carefully woven story, whose strength lies in its deliberate pacing and precise distribution of details.” - Lydia Millett, columnist for The New York Times