About
About this site
Free reading and teaching materials for the novel, made to be used.
The author
M.J. Hydara holds a degree in philosophy and lives in the United Kingdom. Before that, home was Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Senegal. Songs of Dust and Water draws on those years in West Africa: on its villages and markets, its councils of elders, its festivals and its long memory of the empires that came before.
The author’s email address, for permissions and other enquiries:
Using these materials
Everything on this site may be printed, copied and adapted for non-commercial teaching and reading groups, with credit to the novel and its author. Please do not sell it or republish it as your own.
The reading and teaching materials were prepared for this site and checked against the published text in October 2026. They are not independent reviews, and they are not endorsed by any exam board. The example essays are written in the voices of imagined students; they are not the work of real pupils. Quotations are checked word for word against the paperback (ISBN 9798162251088), and page numbers refer to it; chapter references work in any edition.
Privacy
This site has no accounts, adverts or tracking. Three things are worth knowing:
- How far you have read, the stone you choose in the vote, your quiz scores and the stones in your ledger are saved only in your own browser, so the site remembers them next time. Nothing is sent anywhere. Clearing your browser’s site data removes them.
- There are no sign-up forms, accounts or comment boxes, so the site does not collect your name or email address.
- The fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, so your browser asks Google’s servers for them.
- The Translate button loads Google’s translation service only when you press it.
How to cite the novel
| Style | Reference |
|---|---|
| MLA | Hydara, M.J. Songs of Dust and Water. 2026. |
| APA | Hydara, M. J. (2026). Songs of dust and water. |
| Harvard | Hydara, M.J. (2026) Songs of Dust and Water. Paperback edn. ISBN 9798162251088. |
| In-text | (Hydara, 2026, p. 16) or (Hydara 16) |
The book
Paperback, hardcover and Kindle editions. Paperback ISBN 9798162251088 (252 pages); hardcover ISBN 9798162534938. 28 chapters and a Coda; lists of the people in each part, a glossary and a guide to saying the names are at the back.
