They Dream in Gold by Mai Sennaar review – love and identity on the 1960s music scene

A storm in the Sahara inspired Baltimore-based Mai Sennaar’s terrific debut novel. She describes dust settling over western Europe: “A subtle amber muting to the sky… this strange sight, this strange colour, burrows so far into the subconscious minds of the people that for a few nights, they dream in gold… rare evidence that the world is one.” It’s a potent motif for our interconnectedness.

Spanning two decades and several continents, They Dream in Gold is a glorious exploration of the global music scene in the late 1960s. The main focus of this sprawling, intergenerational tale is the love that develops between Mansour, a gifted Senegalese singer, and Bonnie, the young Black American woman he meets in New York who becomes his manager.

Although two acts of racism are pivotal to the plot, Sennaar is more interested in observing the nuances of identity and culture within a diaspora

The story starts in 1969. A pregnant Bonnie is living with Mansour’s aunt in Switzerland while his band finish a tour of Spain. Then Mansour goes missing. As we wait to discover his fate, Sennaar reveals the pair’s troubled pasts – both were abandoned by their mothers – as well as the inspiration for Mansour’s unique fusion of Senegalese prayer songs, jazz and folk.

The riots of 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, are the backdrop to Bonnie and Mansour’s first encounter in America, but it’s their shared love of music, and their ambition, that drive the narrative. Although two acts of racism are pivotal to the plot, Sennaar is more interested in observing the nuances of identity and culture within a diaspora, and she paints vibrant portraits of Senegal in the 1950s, the New York jazz bars and underground Parisian clubs of the 1960s and a world music festival in Rio in 1969.

Sennaar is clearly familiar with this milieu – she wrote the book for the musical Carry On ! , scored by her composer mother, and her father was an agent for singers – and this is a richly layered account of artistic endeavour and resilience.

• They Dream in Gold by Mai Sennaar is published by Picador (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com . Delivery charges may apply