After witnessing his parents’ deaths during Angolan independence, Elias becomes a ‘professional revolutionary’. Through him, we watch socialism’s march through Africa, but for Elias, revolution embodies not the pursuit of ideology, allegiance or power, but the fight for humanity and the transcendent love that can exist between two people. Whilst this is a bleak read, the poeticism of Makine’s meditations on the carve-up of post-colonial Africa beautifully translates the collateral damage of ‘History’ into human reality.

The novel presents a series of fragments, each distilling the inhumanity of war into a single poignant moment: a child fixates on his mother’s fragile collar bone being snapped by a prison guard’s boot; a dead woman’s mouth is probed for diamonds after she has been gang raped; a soldier takes a languid drag on his cigarette between loading his gun and killing a child’s father. These moments become motifs that echo through the story and remind Elias of why he must keep going. This book will transform even the most banal aspect of your daily life into an extraordinary gift.