In Rihata, a small sleepy backwater town in a fictitious African state, a couple and their family struggle to come to terms with each other against a background of political maneuvering and upheaval. Marie Helene, far from her native home in Guadeloupe, lives unhappily with her African husband, Zek. Their uneasy existence is further disturbed by the arrival of Zek's brother Madou, now Minister for Rural Development, on an official visit to Rihata. Murky events from the past resurface and send ripples through their lives. This portrait of an African community torn between progress and tradition and subject to the whims of a dictatorship unfolds through a subtle web of personal relationships. A Season in Rihata is a novel of political power, exile, grief, and loneliness.