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BLESSINGS
Obiefuna has always been the black sheep of his family—sensitive where his father, Anozie, is pragmatic, a dancer where his brother, Ekene, is a natural athlete. But when Obiefuna’s father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and another boy, his deepest fears are confirmed, and Obiefuna is banished to boarding school.
As he navigates his new school’s strict hierarchy and unpredictable violence, Obiefuna both finds and hides who he truly is. Back home, his mother, Uzoamaka, must contend with the absence of her beloved son, her husband’s cryptic reasons for sending him away, and the hard truths that they’ve all been hiding from. As Nigeria teeters on the brink of criminalizing same-sex relationships, Obiefuna’s identity becomes more dangerous than ever before, and the life he wants drifts further out of reach.
Set in post-military Nigeria and culminating in the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2013, Blessings is an elegant and exquisitely moving story that asks how to live freely in a country that forbids one’s truest self, and what it takes for love to flourish despite it all.
₦6,700 -
MAMA IT’S A GIRL
For years, the people of KAMINWANAGA have lived by specific rules and traditions, but the birth of a feisty, determined and resilient young girl would shake up the whole village. Her curiosity about the world beyond KAMINWANAGA and determination not to be a statistic leads to a series of life-altering events that causes her to grow into the woman who would change the course of history for her people.
₦4,600 -
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ONYEKA AND THE ACADEMY OF THE SUN
Onyeka has a lot of hair—the kind that makes strangers stop in the street and her peers whisper behind her back. At least she has Cheyenne, her best friend, who couldn’t care less what other people think. Still, Onyeka has always felt insecure about her vibrant curls…until the day Cheyenne almost drowns and Onyeka’s hair takes on a life of its own, inexplicably pulling Cheyenne from the water.
₦8,000 -
OGADINMA
Ukamaka Olisakwe’s heart-wrenching novel tells the story of the naïve and trusting Ogadinma as she battles against Nigeria’s deeply-ingrained patriarchal systems in the 1980s, a time of coups, food shortages and religious extremism.
₦10,000 -
NOMAD
The Lambda Award-shortlisted poet’s debut, Sacrament of Bodies, was an epochal moment in Nigerian poetry, exploring masculinity and queerness.
His follow-up widens his range, taking in exile, history, slavery, colonialism and postcolonialism, and contemporary politics of identity. Its narrative of seeing and surviving the world takes us through the West African countries of Benin Republic, Togo, Burkina Faso, Mali, Ghana, Senegal, and Côte d’Ivoire.
₦4,100 -
IN THE PALACE OF FLOWERS
Set in Iran at the end of the 19th Century ―in the Persian royal court of the Qajars―, In The Palace of Flowers is an atmospheric historical novel about Jamila, an Abyssinian slave who stands at the funeral of a Persian nobleman, watching the rites with empty eyes. In that very moment, she realises that her life will never be acknowledged or mourned with the same significance.
₦6,300 -