Whites Can Dance Too by Kalaf Epalanga

'Fizzes with energy.' GUARDIAN
'Insistent and propulsive and unforgettable.' MAAZA MENGISTE
'A hugely original, lyrical odyssey.' JOHNY PITTS

Translated by Daniel Hahn

Hours before performing at one of Europe's most iconic music festivals, Kalaf is detained on suspicion of being an illegal immigrant. Trapped in his precarity, his thoughts soon strum to the beat of kuduro, the blistering, techno-infused Angolan music which has taken him from Luanda to Kristiansund, Beirut to Lisbon. Shifting between his reflections while incarcerated, the stories of a friend at the heart of Lisbon's dance scene and those of the immigration policeman who holds Kalaf's fate in his hands, Whites Can Dance Too is at once an exhilarating novel and a transporting paean to cultural roots, to freedom and to love.