A particlar family unit in West Africa disintegrates after the turn of the nineteenth century. But this family, at the dawning of the twenty-first century, against all odds, is restored . . . In a bid to escape his father's tyranny in Arochukwu, Uzo Ogbonna elopes to far-away Calabar with his heartthrob, Ivuaku. But, while living among the Efiks, he is murdered by his best Efik friend, never to set eyes on his motherless triplet children. His life as an Anglophile pays off, finally; a young Welsh missionary in Calabar, Mary-Ann, takes ill and sails with the now orphaned triplets to England in 1923 as toddlers. Tracing their ancestral home in Africa, some years after, would have been a lot easier if Mary-Ann had not died, and if these triplets had not been separated within the ambit of the British Adoption Act. The "machinery" set in motion for the coming together of these triplets seventy-nine years after is skillfully narrated by the author in the Book Two and Book Three of this captivating family saga that spans four generations . . .

Proclaimed "one of the great American writers of short fiction" by the New York Times Book Review, William Goyen (1915-1983) had a quintessentially American literary career, in which national recognition came only after years of struggle to find his authentic voice, his audience, and an artistic milieu in which to create. These letters, which span the years 1937 to 1983, offer a compelling testament to what it means to be a writer in America. A prolific correspondent, Goyen wrote regularly to friends, family, editors, and other writers. Among the letters selected here are those to such major literary figures as W. H. Auden, Archibald MacLeish, Joyce Carol Oates, William Inge, Elia Kazan, Elizabeth Spencer, and Katherine Anne Porter. These letters constitute a virtual autobiography, as well as a fascinating introduction to Goyen's work. They add an important chapter to the study of American and Texas literature of the twentieth century.