Still Life with Rage

By Jacob Tsunda Salihu

A painting should not be able to watch you.

Yet from the moment Damian Crest inherits a forgotten colonial estate in Enugu, he cannot escape the feeling that the woman in the portrait has been waiting for him.

The estate was supposed to be a quick sale.

Four weeks. A valuation. A signature.

Then Damian uncovers a seventy-year-old mystery buried beneath family wealth, colonial privilege, and a silence generations have carefully protected.

The portrait belongs to Ifeoma Nnaji, a brilliant young woman whose intelligence, independence, and refusal to be controlled made her dangerous in a world determined to diminish her. She sat for the painting in 1948.

Then she vanished.

As Damian pieces together the truth, strange events begin to unfold within the old house. A painting seems alive with memory. A presence lingers in forgotten rooms. Voices from the past refuse to remain buried. The deeper he digs, the more he discovers that the greatest inheritance left by his family is not land, wealth, or property.

It is guilt.

Now Damian must decide whether some histories deserve to stay hidden, or whether justice can still be served long after the dead have stopped speaking.

Elegant, haunting, and emotionally powerful, Still Life with Rage is a gripping novel about memory, power, love, colonial violence, and the enduring strength of a woman history tried to erase.

For readers who love atmospheric literary fiction, historical mysteries, family secrets, and stories that refuse to let the past rest.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H4GRT9T5
• ISBN13: 9798180554826
• Release Date: June 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"