![]() ![]() ![]() (As Bush explains in an author’s note, talibé are boys who study the Quran at residential schools with teachers known as marabouts.) In Dakar, where the novel is set, Ibrahimah and Étienne are dispatched by their marabout to beg for money, food, rice or sugar. “No Heaven for Good Boys,” Keisha Bush’s unflinching and poignant debut novel, explores the meager rewards and harsh trials of these young talibé in Senegal. He doesn’t want to live with 72 girls in Paradise after all, he and Étienne barely have enough to feed themselves here on earth: “How is having to share food with 72 girls a reward for being good?” When 6-year-old Ibrahimah is told by his older cousin Étienne that good Muslims get 72 virgins when they arrive in Paradise, the boy asks, “What’s a virgin?” ![]()
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