Blogs in August 2020

Hands Washing Water 3rd August 2020

“Chris Abani’s poetry resonates with a devastating beauty which cuts through to the heart of human strength.”—Pride Hands Washing Water is Chris Abani’s fourth poetry collection—a mischievous book of displacement, exile, ancestry, and subversive humor. The central section, “Buffalo...

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Kalakuta Republic 3rd August 2020

This powerful collection of poems details the harrowing experiences endured by Abani and other political prisoners at the hands of Nigeria’s military regime in the late 1980s.

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Becoming Abigail 30th July 2020

Tough, spirited, and fiercely independent Abigail is brought as a teenager to London from Nigeria by relatives who attempt to force her into prostitution. She flees, struggling to find herself in the shadow of a strong but dead mother....

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Song for Night 30th July 2020

“Not since Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird or Agota Kristof’s Notebook Trilogy has there been such a harrowing novel about what it’s like to be a young person in a war. That Chris Abani is able to find humanity,...

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GraceLand 28th July 2020

This novel is set in Maroko, a sprawling, swampy, crazy and colorful ghetto of Lagos, Nigeria, and unfolds against a backdrop of lush reggae and highlife music, American movies and a harsh urban existence. Elvis Oke, a teenage Elvis...

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