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A Possible Future: An Anthology of the Best Nigerian Writing (1789 – 2018)
Spanning two hundred years and multiple genres, A Possible Future uses gorgeous excerpts from over eighty literary works to showcase the inventiveness in Nigerian letters and the various zeitgeists—colonialism, despotism, Afropolitanism, postcolonialism, race and sexuality—that have defined it throughout the country’s history. The writers whose works are represented here—A. Igoni Barrett, Taiye Selasi, Gbenga Adesina, Helen Oyeyemi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Niyi Osundare, and many more—remind the world of our fraught yet rich literary backstory and point towards the immense possibilities awaiting us in its future.
₵120.00 – ₵245.00 -
Voice of America
Set in Nigeria and America, Voice of America moves from boys and girls in villages and refugee camps to the disillusionment and confusion of young married couples living in America, and back to bustling Lagos. It is the story of two countries and the frayed bonds between them.
In ‘Waiting’, two young refugees make their way through another day, fighting for meals and hoping for a miracle that will carry them out of the camp; in ‘A Simple Case’, the boyfriend of a prostitute gets rounded up by the local police and must charm his fellow prisoners for protection and survival; and in ‘Miracle Baby’, the trials of pregnancy and mothers-in-law are laid bare in a woman’s return to her homeland.
Written with exhilarating energy and warmth, the stories in Voice of America are full of humour, pathos and wisdom, marking the debut of an immensely talented new voice.
₵85.00Voice of America
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Season Of Crimson Blossoms
WINNER OF THE NLNG NIGERIA PRIZE FOR LITERATURE
An affair between 55-year-old widow Binta Zubairu and 25-year-old weed dealer Reza was bound to provoke condemnation in conservative Northern Nigeria. Brought together in unusual circumstances, Binta and Reza faced a need they could only satisfy in each other. Binta – previously reconciled with God – now yearns for intimacy after the sexual repression of her marriage, the pain of losing her first son and the privations of widowhood. Meanwhile, Reza’s heart lies empty and waiting to be filled due to the absence of a mother. The situation comes to a head when Binta’s wealthy son confronts Reza, with disastrous consequences. This story of love and longing – set against undercurrents of political violence – unfurls gently, revealing layers of emotion that defy age, class and religion.
₵120.00Season Of Crimson Blossoms
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The Whispering Trees
The magical tales in The Whispering Trees capture the essence of life, death and coincidence in Northern Nigeria. Myth and reality intertwine in stories featuring cat-eyed English witches, political agitators, newly-wedded widows, and the tormented whirlwind, Kyakkyawa. The two medicine men of Mazade battle against their egos, an epidemic and an enigmatic witch. And who is Okhiwo, whose arrival is heralded by a pair of little white butterflies?
₵95.00The Whispering Trees
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The Chameleon Girl
University lecturer, Soumaya Dramé, abandons her job in England to go after her mother, Pearl, who, in the wake of a quarrel with her Senegalese father, AI, has fled to Senegal. Determined to track Pearl down before her despondent father does something foolish, Soumaya enlists the help of a charismatic photographer, Aziz. As they navigate a place she is from but not quite a part of, Soumaya meets her Senegalese relatives – and also runs into a beautiful older woman who seems to be stalking her.
Set mostly in sunny Dakar, The Chameleon Girl is the story of a woman of dual identities confronting her parents’ past amid secrets, stereotypes and cross-cultural family tensions.
₵95.00The Chameleon Girl
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And After Many Days
And After Many Days is a novel of childhood, of the delicate, complex balance of power and love between siblings; the unique ecosystem of a family. It is also a portrait of a society, as the old world gives way to a new status quo. A novel of quiet, devastating force, And After Many Days holds at its centre a profound story of life, loss and becoming.
₵85.00And After Many Days
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Blackass
Furo Wariboko – born and bred in Lagos – wakes up on the morning of his job interview to discover he has turned into a white man. As he hits the city streets running, still reeling from his new-found condition, Furo is amazed to find the dead ends of his life wondrously open out before him.
As a white man in Nigeria, the world is seemingly his oyster – except for one thing: despite his radical transformation, his ass remains robustly black…
Funny, fierce, inventive and daringly provocative – this is a very modern satire, with a sting in the tail.
₵95.00Blackass
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Chasing Facades
Young and ambitious, Tayo Dabi is a rising star at Regent Detective Agency where she is a trainee detective. Driven by her passion to solve crimes – even as her brother’s murderer walks free – Tayo immerses herself in the job, delivering results that belie her newbie status.
But when Tayo is assigned a new, high-profile case, her confidence is shaken. Lawrence Gbade, a popular, wealthy contractor is murdered in his home, and as Tayo digs deeper things become less certain. Was Gbade’s murder a robbery gone wrong, or something much more sinister? Even as self-doubt sets in, Tayo has to battle resentment from older, more experienced detectives, an obnoxious male colleague and her growing attraction to Tony, the victim’s brother.
Romance meets crime thriller in this gripping story of betrayal, rage and the facades we put up to hide our true selves.
₵95.00Chasing Facades
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And Then He Sang a Lullaby
And Then He Sang a Lullaby is a breathtaking and captivating story of two gay men who find each other in Nigeria and are determined to love despite all that stands in their way.
August is a straight-passing track star who has left Enugu, his overbearing sisters, and an apathetic father to find himself at the University of Nigeria Nsukka. Segun is an openly gay student who is reluctant to fall in love with August, wanting only to be with a man who is comfortable with his sexuality and has the capacity to love without shame. But when the Same Sex (Marriage) Prohibition Act is passed, August and Segun must find a way to tend to their blossoming romance in a country determined to eradicate them. And even while they run into harshness and cruelty at the hands of people whose lives and loves are legal, the two young lovers find kindness, understanding, solace and comfort in the arms of each other and in unexpected places.
₵140.00And Then He Sang a Lullaby
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Pleasantview
Winner of the 2022 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. Winner of the 2022 CLMP Firecracker Award in Fiction. Shortlisted for the Society of Authors’ McKitterick Prize 2022
Coconut trees. Carnival. Rum and coke. To many outsiders, these and other sunny images are all they know about life in the Caribbean. However, if you want to learn how the locals truly live and experience the dark and often harrowing truths that lurk behind the idyllic imagery of Caribbean culture, then come visit the town of Pleasantview.
Come during election season, and see how one candidate sets out to slaughter endangered turtles- just for fun. Or come on the day the other candidate beats his outside woman,’ so badly she ends up losing their baby. Then come on the night of the political rally, where this grieving woman exacts very public revenge. Stay a while, and see how this single event has a trajectory far beyond the lives of the immediate actors, with often tragic and heartbreaking consequences.
Written in a remarkable combination of Standard English and Trinidad Creole. Pleasantview showcases the entrenched political, racial, patriarchal, and class dichotomies of life in Trinidad.
₵150.00Pleasantview
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Rose and the Burma Sky
A gripping and intimate historical novel of a black soldier’s experience in the Second World War – a rare and moving tale of love and sacrifice.
One war, one soldier, one enduring love
1939: In a village in south-east Nigeria on the brink of the Second World War, young Obi watches from a mango tree as a colonial army jeep speeds by, filled with soldiers laughing and shouting, their buttons shining in the sun. To Obi, their promise of a smart uniform and regular wages is hard to resist, especially as he has his sweetheart Rose to impress and a family to support.
Years later, when Rose falls pregnant to another man, his heart is shattered. As the Burma Campaign mounts, and Obi is shipped out to fight, he is haunted by the mystery of Rose’s lover. When his identity comes to light, Obi’s devastation leads to a tragic chain of unexpected events.
In Rose and the Burma Sky, Rosanna Amaka weaves together the realities of war, the pain of first love and how following your heart might not always be the best course of action. Its gritty boy’s-eye view brings a spare and impassioned intensity, charging it with universal resonance and power.
₵150.00Rose and the Burma Sky
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The Cabal
Bako Thomas lives a solitary life, a calm centre in an increasingly unstable world. The City outside his apartment is sliding towards a dystopia as a fuel crisis holds citizens to ransom. He is down to his final chance with Avé, his girlfriend of two years, and his relationships with his neighbours, The Law, Gebu and Mimi is fraught with anxiety and tension. When a tragedy forces him to go on the run, he soon finds himself being roped into the murky world of politics and corruption he thought he had left behind for good.
₵125.00The Cabal
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Swallow
It is the early 1830s, the countries of the global north are mired in internecine wars and poverty. The British Empire has set themselves up as the world power through the trans-atlantic slave trade and has started its long-term goal of sequestering and colonising the West Coast of Africa ahead of Germany and France. In their designs for Oduduwa nations, independent city-states in the south-west, they had factored in greed and the use of force, but what they hadn’t bargained for was resistance from the powerful women living in these areas.
These women with intertwined lives will learn of love and betrayal in the fight for survival. Efunsetan Aniwura fights to keep her family’s power. Efunporonye craves a place for herself in a world that is unforgiving to timid women. In trying to make their mark in a society dominated by men and their wars, these women will rise up against the incursions of The British Empire.
Swallow is a vivid reimagining of ancient Yoruba history that tells a sweeping tale of tradition and culture, family, legacy and love.
₵150.00Swallow
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A Good Name
Twelve years in America and Eziafa Okereke has nothing to show for it. Desperate to re-write his story, Eziafa returns to Nigeria to find a woman he can mold to his taste. Eighteen-year-old Zina has big dreams. An arranged marriage to a much older man isn’t one of them. Trapped by family expectations, Zina marries Eziafa, moves to Houston, and trains as a nurse. Buffeted by a series of disillusions, the couple stagger through a turbulent marriage until Zina decides to change the rules of engagement.
₵135.00A Good Name
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The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa
Fifteen-year-old Andrew Aziza lives in Kontagora, Nigeria, where his days are spent about town with his droogs, Slim and Morocca, grappling with his fantasies about white girls–especially blondes–and wondering who his father is. When he’s not in church, at school or attempting to form ‘Africa’s first superheroes’, he obsesses over mathematical theorems, ideas of black power and HXVX: the Curse of Africa.
Sure enough, the reluctantly nicknamed ‘Andy Africa’ soon falls hopelessly and inappropriately in love with the first white girl he lays eyes on, Eileen. But at the church party held to celebrate her arrival, multiple crises loom. An unfamiliar man claims, despite his mother’s denials, to be Andy’s father, and the gathering of an anti-Christian mob is headed for the church—both set to shake the foundations of everything Andy knows and loves.
The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa announces a dazzling, distinctive, new literary voice. Profound, exhilarating and highly original, this tragicomic novel is a stunning exploration of the contemporary African ‘condition’, the relentless infiltration of Western culture and, most of all, the ordinary but impossible challenges of coming of age in a turbulent world.
The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa won second prize in the 2020 Deborah Rogers Foundation Writers Award while still in manuscript form.
₵135.00