Face Me I Face You is a collection of witty and humorous poems existing at the interface of identity, class, and culture. It holds a mirror to the working class by capturing the narrative essence and dramatized aspirations of its characters. The deployed humor and satire humanizes our modern realities and reaches beyond the tragedy of these colorful archetypes of city life.
When the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic hits, Wumi finds herself jobless and decides to journal like the YouTubers suggest. What begins as a daily journal transitions into the rantings of a millennial exposing the frustrations and thoughts of a young immigrant Nigerian in cold London.
A searing exploration of the global migration crisis that moves from Nigeria to Libya to Italy, from an exciting new literary voice.
Able God works for low pay at a four-star hotel where he must flash his “toothpaste-white smile” for wealthy guests. When not tending to the hotel’s over privileged clientele, he muses over self-help books and draws life lessons from the game of chess.
But Able’s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to interfere with Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dangerous hotel guest. Suddenly caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself—a journey that leads him into the desert with a group of drug-addled migrants, headed by a charismatic religious leader calling himself Ben Ten. The travellers’ dream of reaching Europe—and a new life—is shattered when they fall prey to human traffickers, suffer starvation, and find themselves on the precipice of death, fighting for their lives and their freedom.
As Able God moves into the treacherous unknown, his consciousness becomes focused on survival and the foundations of his beliefs—his ideas about betterment and salvation—are forever altered. Suspenseful, incisive, and illuminating, The Road to the Salt Sea is a story of family, fate, religion, survival, the failures of the Nigerian class system, and what often happens to those who seek their fortunes elsewhere.
The prize-winning, bestselling author of Gingerbread; Boy, Snow, Bird; and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours returns with a vivid and inventive new novel about a couple forever changed by an unusual train voyage.
When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment—and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favorite breakfast. They seem to be the only people on board, until Otto discovers a secretive woman who issues a surprising message. As further clues and questions pile up, and the trip upends everything they thought they knew, Otto and Xavier begin to see connections to their own pasts, connections that now bind them together.
A spellbinding tale from a star author, Peaces is about what it means to be seen by another person—whether it’s your lover or a stranger on a train—and what happens when things you thought were firmly in the past turn out to be right beside you.
From the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and Nommo award nominated author of Shigidi and The Brass Head Of Obalufon comes a stunning new collection of stories that investigate the rapidly changing role of technology and belief in our lives as we search for meaning, for knowledge, for justice; constantly converging on our future selves.
In “An Arc of Electric Skin,” a roadside mechanic seeking justice volunteers to undergo a procedure that will increase the electrical conductivity of his skin by orders of magnitude. In “Blowout,” a woman races against time and a previously undocumented geological phenomenon to save her brother on the surface of Mars. In “Ganger,” a young woman trapped in a city run by machines must transfer her consciousness into an artificial body and find a way to give her life purpose. In “Debut,” Nairobi-based technical support engineer tries to understand what is happening when an AI art system begins malfunctioning in ways that could change the world.
The sixteen stories of Convergence Problems, which include work published for the first time in this collection, rare stories, and recently acclaimed work, showcase Talabi at his creative best: playful and profound, exciting and experimental, always interesting.
A page-turning novel about the dark side of social media.
Perfect for fans of The List or How to Kill Your Family.
Anuri Chinasa has had enough. She was the unwilling star of her stepmother’s social media empire before ‘mumfluencers’ were even a thing. For years, Ophelia documented every birthday, every skinned knee, every milestone and meltdown for millions of strangers to fawn over and pick apart.
Now twenty-five years old, Anuri is desperate to escape her public past and start living on her own terms. But so far, it’s not going well. She can barely walk down the street without being recognised, her PhD application is still unfinished and her drinking problem is getting worse. She wants her stepmother out of her life, but Ophelia has made it very clear she won’t let go without a fight.
But when Ophelia starts pushing Anuri’s five-year-old sister, Noelle, down a similar path, she reaches breaking point. Anuri won’t watch history repeat itself.
Allow Me to Introduce Myself is a darkly funny, heartfelt satire about the dangers of social media and the deceptive allure of the picture-perfect existence.
Here are three things you should know about my husband:
He was the great love of my life despite his penchant for going incommunicado.
He was, as far as I and everyone else could tell, perfectly happy. Which is significant because…
On New Year’s Eve, he died.
And here is one thing you should know about me:
I found him.
Bonus fact: No. I am not okay.
Someday, Maybe is a stunning, witty debut novel about a young woman’s emotional journey through unimaginable loss, pulled along by her tight-knit Nigerian family, a posse of friends, and the love and laughter she shared with her husband.
The word epidemic is a common one in our lexicon, but most people had never experienced one. All that changed in December 2019 when rumours of a “pneumonia-like illness” began to circulate from Wuhan, China. While many around the world may not have ignored it, an infectious disease epidemiologist on a Christmas break in Amaigbo, South-eastern Nigeria recognised a potential warning sign.
Before that day, a journey of detours, discovery and destiny began for Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, a path that led him to becoming the Director General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The work to build the NCDC into an institution of repute was complex and challenging. Each step, initiative, staff hire, and resource allocation contributed to Nigeria’s ability to respond to an unprecedented global event—a pandemic not witnessed at this scale in over a hundred years. COVID-19 was not just any outbreak, but a seismic shift in world affairs and history, leaving a lasting effect on lives, the economy, health, information dissemination, politics, and ideological systems.
This book explores the phenomenon never before witnessed in grand scale and in small details. It is a book about the love of humanity, the power of family, of hope, resilience, and collaboration. It is Chikwe and Vivianne Ihekweazu’s personal account, but also an important piece of history.
Feyi Adekola wants to learn how to be alive again.
It’s been five years since the accident that killed the love of her life and she’s almost a new person now—an artist with her own studio and sharing a brownstone apartment with her ride-or-die best friend, Joy, who insists it’s time for Feyi to ease back into the dating scene. Feyi isn’t ready for anything serious, but a steamy encounter at a rooftop party cascades into a whirlwind summer she could have never imagined: a luxury trip to a tropical island, decadent meals in the glamorous home of a celebrity chef, and a major curator who wants to launch her art career.
She’s even started dating the perfect guy, but their new relationship might be sabotaged before it has a chance by the overwhelming desire Feyi feels every time she locks eyes with the one person in the house who is most definitely off-limits—his father.
This new life she asked for just got a lot more complicated, and Feyi must begin her search for real answers. Who is she ready to become? Can she release her past and honor her grief while still embracing her future? And, of course, there’s the biggest question of all—how far is she willing to go for a second chance at love? Akwaeke Emezi’s vivid and passionate writing takes us deep into a world of possibility and healing, and the constant bravery of choosing love against all odds.
17-year-old Enore Adesuwa doesn’t dive into things, she walks in carefully. So when she, her mother, and her sister move from Nigeria to America shortly after her father’s death, she wants to be extremely prepared before attending an American high school. Her cousin, Adrian, doesn’t have time to explain the ins and outs to her but, luckily, he recommends the perfect research tool: teen movies.
Still dealing with grief but armed with a set of rules of survival gathered from these movies (including the crucial rule of keeping a low profile), Enore is ready for her senior year. But when she meets Davi Santiago, it may be much harder than she thought to keep to her rules. Because not only is he super thoughtful (and okay, very good looking), he constantly encourages her to share her incredible singing talent. Enore prefers the background but it just might be time for her to take center stage, even in spite of her mother’s strict expectations.
Maybe it would be easier to follow all the rules, the ones Enore set for herself and the ones her mom imposes, but as every teen movie has taught her, a coming-of-age is nothing without a little rebellion. And with help from her crush, her sister, and some new friends who don’t quite fit the roles she expects them to play, Enore’s senior year might indeed be cinematic.
One weekend.
The elite underbelly of a Nigerian city.
A party that goes awry.
A tangled web of sex and lies and corruption that leaves no one unscathed.
Aima and Kalu are a longtime couple who have just split. When Kalu, reeling from the breakup, visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos, brutally and suddenly upending their lives. Ola and Souraya, two Nigerian sex workers visiting from Kuala Lumpur, collide into the scene just as everything goes to hell. Sucked into the city’s corrupt and glittering underworld, they’re all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the dangerous threat that looms over them.
China today is both a land of opportunity for Africans blocked from commerce with most of Europe and Northern America, and an intersection of racism and prejudice.
Noo Saro-Wiwa goes in search of China’s ‘Black Ghosts’, African economic migrants in the People’s Republic, who live in clustered communities and are involved in the small-commodity trade between the continents. Her fascinating encounters include a cardiac surgeon, a drug dealer, a visa overstayer and men married to Chinese women who speak English with Nigerian accents.
In an imaginary Nigeria, a cunning entrepreneur is selling body parts stolen from Dr Menka’s hospital for use in ritualistic practices. Dr Menka shares the grisly news with his oldest college friend, bon viveur, star engineer, and Yoruba royal, Duyole Pitan-Payne. The life of every party, Duyole is about to assume a prestigious post at the United Nations in New York, but it now seems that someone is determined that he not make it there. And neither Dr Menka nor Duyole knows why, or how close the enemy is, or how powerful.
Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth is at once a literary hoot, a crafty whodunit, and a scathing indictment of political and social corruption. It is a stirring call to arms against the abuse of power from one of our fiercest political activists, who also happens to be a global literary giant.
How to Make a Space Masquerade artfully blends speculative fiction with Igbo cosmology, seamlessly merging the earthly realm with a dystopian world. It explores the complexities of the human spirit and the intersection of the two worlds.
A girl facing erasure for carrying a virus defies the government to save her life through a trial cure. A space engineer must explain the existence of his human love child resulting from a one- night stand with a robot.
The twelve stories in this collection stretch the imagination and demand a review of our notions of self-discovery, human connection and traditions.
Yinka wants to find love. Her problem? Her mum wants to find it for her.
She also has too many aunties who frequently pray for her delivery from singledom. Plus thereʼs her preference for chicken and chips over traditional Nigerian food, and a bum sheʼs sure is far too small as a result. Oh, and the fact that sheʼs thirty-one and doesnʼt believe in sex before marriage might be a bit of an obstacle too….
So when her cousin gets engaged, Yinka commences ʻOperation Find A Date for Rachelʼs Weddingʼ. Armed with a totally flawless, incredibly specific plan, will Yinka find herself a huzband? What if the thing she really needs to find is herself?
She’s the Pearl of Makoko and the world is her oyster.
In Makoko, the floating slum off mainland Lagos, Nigeria, nineteen-year-old Baby yearns for an existence where she can escape the future her father has planned for her. With opportunities scarce, Baby jumps at the chance to join a newly launched drone-mapping project, aimed at broadening the visibility of her community. Then a video of her at work goes viral and Baby finds herself with options she could never have imagined – including the possibility of leaving her birthplace to represent Makoko on the world stage. But will life beyond the lagoon be everything she’s dreamed of? Or has everything she wants been in front of her all along?
