Bullaun Press

Ryna comes home from abroad to the wake of her granny Darafeya in Nauhalnaye, a village in the drained marshlands near Lipen, in a remote corner of Belarus. That night as Ryna sits alone with the coffin, Darafeya, who lived to be a hundred, tells one last story. She and her grandmother, one-eyed Maryanka, known as the 'whisperers', managed to survive several brutal regimes, feared and respected by their neighbours for their powers of healing and witchcraft. Caustic; harrowing, yet leavened with black humour, What Now, Mr Wolf? offers an unforgettable oral testimony of the dark days of recent European history. Ryna, prisoner of her grandmother Darafeya's memories of relentless violence, tries to make her peace with them and remake a life for herself in this troubled place.

1829. Sainte-Suzanne, Bourbon Island. A Black orphan, a slave of only seven weeks, is placed – as if by fate – into the arms of Ferréol Beaumont, a botanist with a passion for orchids. He raises this child, Edmond, teaching him all he knows of the lush plants that populate his tropical garden. At twelve years old, the illiterate young prodigy unlocks the secret to hand-pollinating the vanilla orchid, revolutionizing not only the island’s economy but French patisserie, perfumes & more. While his discovery brings prosperity to others, the exhilarating aroma of the vanilla flower soon dissipates for Edmond as a bitter reality stretches out before him – his brilliance unrecognized, his name forgotten. A caustic look at the nineteenth-century history of Reunion Island under French colonial rule. For lovers of history, botany and vanilla ice cream.