Adam Zameenzad
Pepsi is a smart street kid in an unnamed South American country – an orphan of circumstance, whose mother is dead and whose father, a famous politician, has disowned him. At his side is Maria, a girl kidnapped from her real family who has found in Pepsi a true ‘brother’. In this hard-hitting yet fantastic tale, Pepsi’s mission is to escape the sadistic Caddy, a policeman in cahoots with his father, whose one aim is to exterminate him, and to return Maria to her home – the rubbish-tip township she calls ‘Heaven’.
Adam Zameenzad portrays the lives of social outcasts, loners, losers, the deprived and the dispossessed. He aims to give voice to the voiceless, and make visible the invisible. In this remarkable novel, the children’s zest for life and the beauty of the world around them ensure that their dramatic and poetic story, while dealing with the appalling reality of street children’s lives, is uplifting to the spirit.
Pepsi and Maria features Zameenzad’s unsentimental, trademark humour and distinctly fictional milieu, drawing attention to the plight of street children, trying to give voice to the voiceless. Without question an important novel – an incredibly moving story, and effortlessly entertaining too. From the highly acclaimed author of My Friend Matt and Hena the Whore, Cyrus, Cyrus, Love, Bones & Water and The Thirteenth House.
‘Imagine a hybrid of City of God and The Wizard of Oz… a crossover triumph.’ Independent
‘A beautifully crafted, multi-faceted book; at once a highly dramatic and gripping thriller… [and] a searing indictment of cruelty and inhumanity.’ New Internationalist
Sales
- Arcadia Books UK (WEL)
- Christian Bourgois France
- Yedioth Aharonoth Israel
- Teorema Portugal
- Ediciones Ambar Spain
Material: finished copies (317pp).