Pillaging the Dead
Will be published approx. on 5. November 2026
Book
Hardback
256 pages
978-1-913175-78-8 (ISBN)
Description
On the streets of this city, banned books travel faster than fear.
Tarik is a university student selling banned books, pirated music and his own political cartoons to commuters caught in the city's endless traffic. But when a police raid turns violent and lands him in the custody of the feared Central Investigation Bureau, Tarik is drawn into a dangerous world of underground printers, dissidents, activists and state surveillance.
As he navigates corrupt officials, revolutionary artists, secret police and citizens struggling to survive under authoritarian rule, Tarik begins to understand the true cost of dissent in a country where satire is treated as a threat to the state.
Darkly comic, propulsive and deeply unsettling, Pillaging the Dead captures the absurdities of life under dictatorship with sharp wit and emotional force. Degol Hailu's debut announces an exciting new voice in contemporary African fiction.
Tarik is a university student selling banned books, pirated music and his own political cartoons to commuters caught in the city's endless traffic. But when a police raid turns violent and lands him in the custody of the feared Central Investigation Bureau, Tarik is drawn into a dangerous world of underground printers, dissidents, activists and state surveillance.
As he navigates corrupt officials, revolutionary artists, secret police and citizens struggling to survive under authoritarian rule, Tarik begins to understand the true cost of dissent in a country where satire is treated as a threat to the state.
Darkly comic, propulsive and deeply unsettling, Pillaging the Dead captures the absurdities of life under dictatorship with sharp wit and emotional force. Degol Hailu's debut announces an exciting new voice in contemporary African fiction.
More details
Person
Degol Hailu was born in Ethiopia and is based in London. He earned a PhD in economics from SOAS, University of London, where he later worked as a research fellow, before joining the United Nations and working across Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and the United States. He has published widely on economic development. Pillaging the Dead is his debut novel.