They Dream in Gold

Shortlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize 2024

＂Extraordinary . . . a powerful and poignant exploration of the African diaspora and global Black identity . . . This book moves like the storm Sennaar begins it with.＂ --New York Times

A Real Simple Best Book of 2024 - A Washington Post Best Book of Summer - A TIME Best Book of July

A ＂luminous＂ (Tara Conklin) literary debut following two dreamers, one intercultural family, and the diasporic pursuit of home.

When Bonnie and Mansour meet in New York in 1968--his piercing gaze in a downtown jazz club threatening to carry her away--their connection is undeniable. Both from fractured homes, with childhoods spent crossing the Atlantic, they quickly find peace with each other. And as Mansour’s soaring Senegalese melodies continue to break new ground, keeping time with the sound of revolution and taking him and Bonnie from Paris to Rio and Switzerland, it seems as though happiness might finally be around the corner for them both.

Then Mansour goes missing. His Spanish tour was only meant to last three weeks, but three months later, he and his band have not returned. In his absence, Bonnie reckons with her memories of him, and comes to understand that the hopes of so many women--her mother and grandmother; his mother, aunt, childhood friend--rest on her perseverance. Stirred by the life growing inside her, Bonnie puts a plan in action to find him.

Spanning two decades and moving through the hotbeds of the African diaspora, They Dream in Gold is an epic yet intimate exploration of the migrant hunger for belonging and a powerful, intergenerational testament to our shared humanity, for lovers of Tara Stringfellow’s Memphis and Abi Daré’s The Girl with the Louding Voice.

＂Epic and hauntingly beautiful.＂ ―Nguyễn Phan Quế Mai
＂Wholly original.＂ ―Thao Thai
＂One of the most beautiful debuts I’ve ever read.＂ ―Dawnie Walton

Mai Sennaar is a graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The Smithsonian Affiliate Museum of the African Diaspora, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, and the Classical Theatre of Harlem are among the venues that have presented her plays. Her short film Wax Lovers’ Playlist premiered at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center and was an Official Selection of the Martha’s Vineyard African American Film Festival. She is the book writer for Carry On!, a new musical by Broadway composer Diana Wharton Sennaar and the creative director of the performing arts company MWPLive. They Dream in Gold is her first novel. She lives between Baltimore and Dakar.