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Syncopation

By (author): Whitney French

In the aftermath of a Memory War, society is fragmented into strange new cultures, castes and coalitions. Set against a backdrop of retrofitted food garages, microchip-sorting factories and hyperloop terminals, Whitney French brings us a dazzling novel-in-verse where memory is the highest currency and love, like all revolutions, is dangerous, unruly and singed with hope.

O and Z are two young women searching for purpose in a world where a decades-long earthquake reverberates through the Earth’s crust, and the population scrambles to hide from deadly acid rain. Descended from space pirates, O is drawn to the sky, while Z is earthbound, a skilled forager with connections to the black market. The two become travel companions and lovers until, torn between choosing their values or each other, a fateful decision must be made at the el Corazón space station.

In this speculative and intoxicating novel, French offers readers an intricate future-world that resonates so powerfully with our own, as it explores a people gripped in the war-torn politics of migration, memory-keeping, labour, and survival.

AUTHOR

Whitney French

Whitney French (she/her) is a writer, educator and publisher. She is the editor of the award-winning anthology Black Writers Matter (University of Regina, 2019) and Griot: Six Writers’ Sojourn into the Dark (Penguin Random House, 2022). Whitney is a Black futurist who explores memory, loss, technology and nature in her work. She is a certified arts educator and an Assistant Professor in Creative Writing at the University of British Colombia. She is also the co-founder and publisher of Hush Harbour, the only Black queer feminist press in Canada.


Reviews

“Whitney French’s new novel-in-verse, Syncopation, is a beautiful, challenging narrative … Syncopation is ultimately a story about memory, history, and the dangers of forgetting far more than it is a story about ill-fated love in unlikely circumstances.”



“it is vigorous, insistent, and stimulating, the sort of book that sets you off in an unexpected new direction—the sort of book that you will find yourself endlessly puzzling over without ever being able to quite get it out of your head.”



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Details

Dimensions:

252 Pages
9in * 6in * 0.625in
400gr

Published:

February 03, 2026

ISBN:

9781998408283

Language:

eng

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