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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2021 by Andrea N. Lee

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First Scribner hardcover edition March 2021

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Interior design by Wendy Blum

Jacket design by Tristan Offit

Jacket artwork: Figure by Image Source/Getty Images;

Background artwork by Florilegius/Alamy Stock Photo

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020022686

ISBN 978-1-9821-3780-9

ISBN 978-1-9821-3819-6 (ebook)

Permissions

Naivo, “Beyond the Rice Fields,” translated by Allison M. Charette, Restless Books, 2017.

Lee Harding, How to Read a Folktale: The Ibonia Epic from Madagascar, Cambridge, UK: Open Book Publishers, 2013.

“Old Merina Theme,” by Flavien Ranaivo, and “Lovely Woman,” by Esther Nirina, translated by Marjolijn de Jager, from Voices from Madagascar: An Anthology of Francophone Literature, edited by Jacques Bourgeacq and Liliane Ramarosoa. Copyright Ohio University Press © 2003 This material is used by permission of Ohio University Press, www.ohioswallow.com.