Book picks similar to
Violence by Festus Iyayi


nigeria
abbi-book-shelf
non-white-authors
nigerian-literature

The Potter's Wheel


Vincent Chukwuemeka Ike - 1973
    In this novel, he tells of Obuechina, the only brother of six older sisters, prize pupil in the village school, apple of his doting mother's eye, eight years old and hopelessly spoilt. In a vain attempt to salvage his character, his father decides he must be sent away as a servant to a schoolmaster with a dragon of a wife. Obu goes - and comes back very different.

Burning Grass


Cyprian Ekwensi - 1962
    Mai Sunsaye, the hero of the story, is afflicted with the sokugo, wandering sickness.

Home and Exile


Chinua Achebe - 2001
    His fiction and poetry burn with a passionate commitment to political justice, bringing to life not only Africa's troubled encounters with Europe but also the dark side of contemporary African political life. Now, in Home and Exile, Achebe reveals the man behind his powerful work.

My Command


Olusegun Obasanjo - 1981
    

Granta 144: Generic Love Story


Sigrid Rausing - 2018
    An issue on gender and powerDevorah Baum reads Grace Paley to find out what women wantStella Duffy looks for LGBT voices in the #MeToo debateFernanda Eberstadt remembers the 70s drag scene in New YorkDebra Gwartney breaks her silenceOttessa Moshfegh gets what she wantsTaraShea Nesbit revisits her lost childhoodBrittany Newell deconstructs Paris Hilton's sex tapeLisa Wells on the process of revisiting traumaAlso: new fiction from: Tara Isabella Burton, Paul Dalla Rosa, Tommi Parrish, Sally Rooney, Miriam Toews, Zoe Whittall and Leni ZumasPlus: poetry by Momtaza Mehri and Fiona BensonAnd photoessays by Sébastien Lifshitz and Tomoko Sawada, introduced by Andrew McMillan and Sayaka Murata

Incidents at the Shrine: Short Stories


Ben Okri - 1987
    Whether the subject is a child's eye view of the Nigerian Civil War, Lagos and the spirit world or dispossession in a decaying British inner city, Okri's lyrical, poetic and humorous prose recreates the known and the unknown world with startling power.

Mist Over the Mersey


Lyn Andrews - 1994
    Nancy Butterworth and Abbie Kerrigan, lifelong residents of the place, tried to befriend Dee Chatterton, but her mother wants her to have nothing to do with such rough children. The Burgess family looks forward to the arrival of their young cousin Sean from Dublin, and Nancy is not the first to lose her heart to the Irish charmer.In 1914 things are to change dramatically, and the families are to find that money and social position mean nothing when the horrors of the First World War invade their lives and take away their sons...

Palm Beach


Pat Booth - 1985
    PAUL PIONEER PRESS & DISPATCHBeautiful, but poor, Lisa Sarr, has always dreamed of making a splash in Palm Beach. With the aid of the gang queen of Palm Beach society, she may finally make it. And Lisa will show the rich, handsome, and powerful that they are no match for her guts street smarts, and determination to win--no matter what.

The Name Is Rajinikanth


Gayathri Sreekanth
    

Granta 120: Medicine


John Freeman - 2012
    - Hippocratic OathClinicians have spent centuries perfecting the art of tending to broken bodies. What happens when their medicine succeeds? What happens when it fails us? Where do we turn for healing of the body and the mind?In this wide-ranging collection of essays, fiction, memoir, poetry and photography, Granta explores the mind of the physician, the plight of the patient and the maladies and fears that bring us together. From a young man struggling to regain his mental health, to a writer witnessing the surrender of her body to MS; from the dubiously labeled chalky horse-pills of faceless pharmaceutical conglomerates, to the hot-toddy that was Grandmother’s sworn remedy for everything from a bruised knee to a broken heart � here are the worldviews and the stories of both the surgeon, the shaman, and the patient.This collection shows that sometimes the best medicine is a story itself.

One Last Story and That's It


Etgar Keret - 2005
    

Voice of America


E.C. Osondu - 2009
    Many of the characters here have a relationship of sorts with the US, be it the refugee children who dream of being adopted by US parents or the mother who writes to her son who has emigrated to the US asking why his Western Union payments to her have dried up.He casts a pitiless eye on Nigeria: brutally artless on the commodification of women and young girls in much of Nigerian society, the wastrel dreams of many of its young men, and the savagery of the police force.

Waiting for an Angel


Helon Habila - 2003
    His mind is full of soul music and girls and the lyric novel he is writing. But his roommate is brutally attacked by soldiers; his first love is forced to marry a wealthy old man; and his neighbors on Poverty Street are planning a demonstration that is bound to incite riot and arrests. Lomba can no longer bury his head in the sand.Helon Habila's vivid, exciting, and heart-wrenching debut opens a window onto a world in some ways familiar-with its sensuously depicted streets, student life, and vibrant local characters-yet ruled by one of the world's most corrupt and oppressive regimes, a scandal that ultimately drives Lomba to take a risk in the name of something greater than himself. Habila captures the energy, sensitivity, despair, and stubborn hope of a new African generation with a combination of gritty realism and poetic beauty. Winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing 2001. Reading group guide included.

Tattoo


Earl Thompson - 1974
    It is an epic account of a generation--America in the 1940s.

A Nasty Bit of Rough


David Feherty - 2002
    In this first volume of his misadventures, Gussett sets his sights on the most prestigious prize in golf, the petrified middle finger of St. Andrew, patron saint of Scotland. Presiding over the world's most cantankerous golf club, Gussett must motivate his members through battles with incontinence, single malt Scotch, and a litany of other unmentionable afflictions in a friendly competition with their ancient rivals, the notorious McGregor clan. Anyone who loves the game or knows someone who does will be unable to resist Feherty's hilarious storytelling and golfing gravitas.