![]() debut, Onuzo anatomizes a tumultuous city and its inhabitants, from street hustlers. The book starts a little slowly as we're introduced to many of the characters, but was really good once the characters were all assembled. Catapult (PGW, dist.), 26 (304p) ISBN 978-1-93. The story is told with a mix of fatalism and optimism, with an equal chance of opportunity or disaster around every corner. While much of the story centers around the refugees before and after arriving in Lagos, it feels like the title also applies to the reader of the book as we're introduced to the various elements of Lagos and Nigerian society. The author did a good job of weaving all these characters into the story. Rounding out the cast of characters are an independent newspaper publisher who has returned from an education abroad, two white British journalists (one who has made an effort to understand the culture the other utterly uninterested and indifferent), a small group of non-Nigerians who make up the journalists' crew, and a few Nigerians living in England and America. The individual members of the group represent many different parts of Nigerian society: soldiers, a young militant, a city girl lost and separated from her family, a former house-wife on the run from her husband, and a very corrupt and out-of-favor politician. They meet through different circumstances and form a sort of family trying to survive. This story follows the path of a very unlikely group of people, each one a refugee who finds themselves in the city of Lagos. ![]()
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