Tarisai Ngangura, a journalist and photographer born and raised in Zimbabwe, made her debut novel a satisfying reading experience with The Ones We Loved.

Book summary: On a bus moving across rural landscapes from town to town, two young people are escaping with nothing to hold except hope. She has committed a horrifying act for which there will certainly be retribution. He is staggering from a devastating discovery. They will find each other and attempt to move forward, even as their grief leaves wounds on their new beginnings.

Seamlessly transitioning between past lives and present realities, The Ones We Loved tenderly weaves both myth and memory into an account of two people desperate for connection and yearning for a place to belong. They will find sunflowers carrying death, rivers that whisper secrets and trees that will see it all.

The Ones We Loved is told in the rhythms of oral retellings practiced in Zimbabwe, where a ngano (story)—its melodies, pauses and lifts—creates a call-and-response with the audience. It is a breathtakingly beautiful story about the homes we leave behind, the lonely voices that find us and the painful consequences of experiencing a love that has never known how to let go.

Tarisai completed her post-secondary education at what was then Ryerson University in Canada. Reporting from Brazil, Canada and the US, her essays and interviews have appeared in RookieMag, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Lapham’s Quarterly and the Globe and Mail. Previously at Vanity Fair, Ngangura currently splits her time between Toronto and Manhattan. The Ones We Loved is her debut novel. You can find her on Tumblr, where she’ll answer all your questions.