he one thing Mai Sennaar makes amply clear in her debut novel, They Dream in Gold, is to show beyond a shadow of doubt that the black experience is not a monolith. Each human being, regardless of race, has a unique story.

Of Senegalese origin, Mai Sennaar is a filmmaker and playwright, who has produced a masterly novel about the black diaspora in Europe and the US. It spans about 30 years and the author goes back and forth in time to weave a story as complicated as real life. Her canvas is huge in dimension and she makes bold, universal strokes on it, as well as filling in the finer details of each portrait that she limns.

The story opens with the pregnant Bonnie, an African American, waiting for her boyfriend, Mansour, a Senegalese-Swiss singer and musician. He has been touring Spain with his band, but she hasn`t heard from him in months.

To spice things up further, Bonnie is made to live with a bevy of women, Mansour`s aunts, in a dilapidated Swiss mansion, where they are trying to make a go of a Senegalese restaurant. To ask for police help in locating Mansour is not an option, both because of the ambiguous immigration status of the aunts and the official apathy toward African immigrants.

The police chief is happy to eat at the restaurant, which provides a welcome change to bland Swiss fare, but he considers himself racially superior to the women who run the place. Even the neighbours, whoroutinely get food delivered to them from the eatery, do not lift a finger when one of the aunts falls on the ice and hurts herself.

Mansour remains missing, but the reader is regaled with the back stories of all the characters with whom Sennaar peoples her novel.

Each tale opens the door into another tale and then another tale, like Russian nesting dolls. For lovers of well-told stories this book is a treasure trove.

Bonnie and Mansour come from vastly divergent backgrounds.

Their lives have gone through great upheavals and circumstances have tested them cruelly. The only common ground is their love of music. It takes them time to become comfortable in their relationship.

But once the spark is lit between the two, it is like they have been ripped from their roots and can find a home only with each other.

Music is such a big part of the novel that it is an entire character by itself. Sennaar`s depiction of music is not only lyrical but visceral. The reader cannot hear the music, but the description of its effect sends shivers down the spine and makes the hair stand on end. That is the power of the feeling that Sennaar has for music. No wonder, then, that the epigraph chosen by her is a quotation from Hafiz, `Stay close to any sounds that make you glad you are alive.

From childhood, Mansour is aware of the power of his voice. It is with this special gift that he aspires to make a place for himself in Europe and the US. His talent is manifest. All he needs is the help of Bonnie, his manager, and a pinch of luck to make it in the world of music. His big break comes not in Senegal, nor France, nor the US. The Carnival in Rio de Janeiro provides the stage for his great success.

Sennaar feels strongly that the whole world and its inhabitants are one on an essential level. The sands of African storms paint European skies and mix with the winds blowing from the Americas. The human condition is no different anywhere. It is just a futile conceit that any one nation or ethnicity has precedence over another.

Senegal and its culture, which are not normally the subject of books in English, are presented beautifully. Islamic words such as azaan, tajweed and tasbeeh and an allusion to the Quranic story of the`Sleepers of the Cave` are featured in the novel. A word from Black culture, chupse, is also used by Sennaar. It signifies the sound made by the sucking of air through the teeth to denote displeasure or surprise.

The novel is truly global in that even Pakistan, Lahore and Urdu are roped in. A doctor is cast as a Pakistani but his name, Emmanuel Alvi, seems to be an odd amalgam. Thankfully his wife is called Rabia Alvi, a more normal Pakistani moniker.

Aspects of magical realism, likely of African heritage, are expertly woven into the novel, which makes for interesting reading. Dreams are often imbued with significance. Mansour, far away in another country, can bring Bonnie close to himself and feel her presence.

Hundreds of miles away, Bonnie senses his proximity too.

It is a let-down, however, that the crux of the story, Mansour`s rescue, is handled in the hackneyed way of a B-grade movie. Spoiler alert: It is a happy ending. But a writer like Sennaar, who has no shortage of imagination, could have brought it about much more credibly. Even in the 1970s, it is difficult to digest that a plane can not only be stolen but be flown across international borders, land and take off twice, and not be picked up by any Air Traffic Controller.

At 400 plus pages, They Dream in Gold is a hefty novel. But because the language is simple and it has a flow, it never becomes burdensome to read. The chapters are short and well-marked with date and place. Many chapters end in eye-popping revelations. If this happens, the next chapter opens with a story to expand upon the foregoing momentous disclosure. This writing method may be an offshoot of Sennaar`s film and stage background: a sort of cliffhanger in print.

The author seems to be in her element as she takes us by the hand through the world she has conjured. Her genius shines throughout the novel. Sennar has the gift of storytelling. They Dream in Gold has only whetted the appetite of her readers for more. With bated breath we await her next opus.

The reviewer is afreelance writer, author of the novel T he Tea Trolley and the translator of Toofan Se Pehlay: Safar-i-Europe Ki Diary