Before the Earth Was Round

Is it possible for human beings to live without enemies, or was violence written into our nature from the beginning? Set in prehistoric Africa circa 10,000 B.C.E., this cautionary tale by author Philip Golabuk offers a fictional account of the origins of civilization. The story centers around Tamal, a strong-willed teenager who leaves behind his beloved Thandi and defies the evil elders by attempting to walk around the earth to prove that it is round and complete his forbidden shamanic training. In his efforts to save his people from oppression by the elders and certain death at the hands of a neighboring cannibal tribe, Tamal “plants the seed of war in the soil of history,” unwittingly condemning humankind to a course of self-annihilation.