The Whispering Trees
From £2,400.00The 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?
Better Never Than Late
From £2,000.00Better Never Than Late charts the unconventional lives and love affairs of a group of Nigerian migrants, making their way in Belgium. The collection is centred around Prosperous and her husband Agu, and the various visitors who gather at their apartment each week. These interconnected stories explore their struggles and triumphs, from unhappy marriages (of convenience or otherwise), to the pain of homesickness, and the tragic paradox in longing to leave Nigeria so that you may one day return to it.
Nights of the Creaking Bed
From £2,000.00Nights of the Creaking Bed is full of colourful characters involved in affecting dramas: a girl who is rejected in love because she has three brothers to look after; a middle aged housewife who finds love again but has an impossible decision to make; a young man who can’t get the image of his naked, beautiful mother out of his mind; a child so poor he has to hawk onions on Christmas day – and many others. Some, initially full of hope, find their lives blighted by the cruelty of others, or by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or by just not knowing the “right” people.
Corruption, religious intolerance, gratuitous violence, the irresponsible attitudes of some men to their offspring and the importance of joy are some of the big themes that underlie this memorable collection.
German Calendar, No December
From £2,800.00Olivia Evezi’s childhood is a happy one; her days are spent listening to highlife records and poring over colourful postcards from Germany. When she leaves her hometown of Warri behind to live out her Enid Blyton fantasies in a boarding school in Lagos, instead of adventure and lacrosse, she is met with punishments, endless chores and hazing rituals.
Olivia’s restlessness takes her to Germany, her mother’s homeland, where she is thrown into a hidden world of workers and migrants; a world of constant vigilance, where a piece of paper can hold the key to survival. Olivia finds that she is destined to always be an outsider – too white for Nigeria and too black for Germany – and so must learn to define herself and her place in the world beyond the labels that have been given to her: exotic, foreign, oyinbo.
German Calendar, No December is a candid and reflective coming of age tale about learning to navigate the world, with the help of good music, good books, good friends, and a touch of courage.