Fiction

A desperate doctor commits murder to appease his wife. A drug-dealing family comes undone following a police raid. A young foreign-educated graduate, brimming with patriotic zest, returns to Nigeria to help rebuild her country, but quickly becomes disillusioned as the hassle and unpredictability of Lagos overwhelm her. And in jaunty, pointed observations, “Two-Way Streets” collects and reflects on the motifs of typical Lagos living.

The stories in this anthology take on the beautiful, clustered Lagos with aplomb and all-knowing authority, the characters’ lives coming together to weave a rich tapestry of a city that is at once startling in its grime and entertaining in its glory.

Warri, October 1992: Seething with idleness and nonchalance, sick of watching his parents fight, 16-year-old Ewaen is waiting for university to begin, waiting for something to happen. Months later, Ewaen and friends are finally enrolled as freshmen at the University of Benin. Their routine now consists of hanging out in a parking lot trading jibes, chasing girls and sex, and learning to manage the staff strikes and crumbling infrastructure. But Nigerian campuses in the 1990s can be dangerous places, too. Violent confraternities stake territories and stalk for new recruits. An incident of petty crime snowballs into tragedy…

Fine Boys is Eghosa Imasuen’s second novel. In the witty, colloquial style fast becoming his trademark, Imasuen presents everyday Nigerian life against the backdrop of the pro-democracy riots of the 1980s and ’90s, the lost hopes of June 12th, and the terror of the Abacha years. Indeed Fine Boys is a chronicle of not just a time in Nigeria, but its post-Biafran generation.

Ifiok, a young journalist working for a public radio station in Lagos, Nigeria, aspires to always do the right thing but the odds seem to be stacked against him. Government pressures cause the funding to his radio drama to get cut off, his girlfriend leaves him when she discovers he is having an affair with an intern, and kidnappings and militancy are on the rise in the country. When Ifiok travels to his hometown to do a documentary on some ex-militants’ apparent redemption, a tragi-comic series of events will make him realise he is unable to swim against the tide. Radio Sunrise paints a satirical portrait of post-colonial Nigeria that builds on the legacy of the great African satirist tradition of Ngugi Wa Thiong’o and Ayi Kwei Armah.

Having inherited a house in Surelere from his father, and having waited ten years for the terms of the inheritance to be fulfilled, Adewale Maja-Pearce is eager to take possession of his house. He offers the tenants a one-year rent-free break to allow them search for other accommodation, after which they are to move out. They accept this, and it looks like smooth sailing. Little does Maja-Pearce know that, when the time comes to leave, his tenants will put him through one of the fiercest struggles of his life in their attempts to stay put. Psychological warfare, endless court cases, intimidation by the police and a possible attempt on his life make up Maja-Pearce’s experience in trying to claim the house his father left him.

Simple yet profound, The House My Father Built will delight you with its earnest, humorous delivery and keen insights into the psyche of a nation and its people.