Michael Jackson, Distinguished Visiting Professor in World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, is an award-winning poet, novelist, and anthropologist. His many books include The Palm at the End of the Mind, Excursions, In Sierra Leone, and At Home in the World, all also published by Duke University Press.

Imagining Firawa ix
Fathers and Sons 1
Forty Days 13
Scenes from a Marriage 30
Smoke and Mirrors 46
Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World 63
The Reopening of the Gate of Effort 77
Something's Missing 88
The Politics of Storytelling 100
The Road to Kabala 112
Their Eyes Were Watching God 122
Albitaiya 134
The Year of Supernatural Abundance 145
Strings Attached 158
The Shape of the Inconstruable Question 172
Not to Find One's Way in a City 187
Coda 199
Acknowledgments 201
Notes 203
Index 225