novel. The words are spoken by Livingstone ’s cook, Halima, a Nubian formerbondswoman who grew up in the service of the Omani sultan’s representative in Zanzibar. Halima is one of two narrators in Gappah’s novel; the other narrator is Jacob Wainwright, a Baganda freed in childhood from slavery and sent by the British to Bombay, India, to learn Christianity and “civilized” ways. Both narrators are semiunreliable , relating separate visions of the various members of Livingstone’s party as they journey nearly a year from the interior to the east coast of Africa to Bagamoyo, a hub of the Indian Ocean slave trade. Out of Darkness, Shining Light turns Livingstone’s love and revulsion for Africa back on him, using the real personnel of Livingstone’s expedition to navigate how his legacy has evolved in the wake of British colonialism and the establishment of nations like Zimbabwe, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda—all affected by Livingstone . Moreover, Gappah shows that even at the height of European colonialism , East Africa was a confluence of forces: British, Portuguese, Omani, Indian, and African. Gappah goes beyond the national histories that so many postcolonial novels provide and pays no attention to the national boundaries that will be drawn; instead, dozens of African tribes, kingdoms , and clans intermingle, their differences alive on the page, resisting the historical processes of nation-making that Europe will impose. We need novels like Gappah’s Out of Darkness, Shining Light, for they remember the stories that have been papered over by history—by whiteness and empire. As Gappah notes in her acknowledgments, these stories may not be real, but we also know that the histories we read are not totally real either, and stories like Halima’s and Jacob’s, told through Gappah’s expert characterization, are not not-real. They are the possibilities always at the edges of the master narratives we learn; they need only to be brought out of the darkness. Sean Guynes Michigan State University Keum Suk Gendry-Kim Grass Trans. Janet Hong. Montreal. Drawn & Quarterly. 2019. 480 pages. AN ORAL HISTORY in comics form, Grass tells the story of Korean national Lee Ok-Sun, who, at the age of fifteen, was abducted into sexual slavery as one of tens of thousands of “comfort women” serving (being raped by) Japanese soldiers during World War II. Sensitive and understated, this rendering of one woman’s horrific experiences—both during the war and after—does not shy from hard images. The artist-author’s pairing of spare words with lovely black-and-white ink artwork demonstrates that for some things there are not only no words but also really no images. Pages alternate between clearly defined scenes, partial images, and illegible smears of ink; between light and darkness; full-page bleeds and boxy frames. Natural imagery—trees, grasses, stars, flowers— scatter through and cradle the narrative, reminders of the inaccessible beauty and open spaces that surround these women’s closed and difficult daily lives. At times, the narrative moves very slowly. When this works best, the pace demands the reader stay in a difficult experience or offers quiet spaces for reflection. Yet, perhaps the result of documenting a life derailed, in this slow pace the story itself can feel a bit lost. The art is skillful and imaginative; the tale could use a stronger throughline—and a more nuanced development of who Lee became as an WORLDLIT.ORG 93 DAVID LIVINGSTONE ATTACKED BY A LION IN AFRICA. LITHOGRAPH. ICONOGRAPHIC COLLECTIONS / WELLCOME IMAGES individual. While Gendry-Kim builds a clear picture of a survivor, deeply admirable for her candor about the injustices done to her and others, I still feel I hardly know her. At one point the author pushes Lee, asking whether there might have been “better” men among all that she encountered . But Lee says no. Instead she offers examples of the many men who betrayed her trust—including her husband of fifty years. This isn’t a story with a happy ending , and it’s a story that still touches sore places. In the afterword, the author wonders why she feels the need to add this particular narrative to the many others already available...