Mehr lesen
As wrenching and luminous as Omar El Akkad''s What Strange Paradise and Mohsin Hamid''s Exit West, a searing exploration of the global migration crisis that moves from Nigeria to Libya to Italy, from an exciting new literary voice. Able God works for low pay at a four-star hotel where he must flash his "toothpaste-white smile" for wealthy guests. When not tending to the hotel''s overprivileged clientele, he muses over self-help books and draws life lessons from the game of chess. But Able''s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to interfere with Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dangerous hotel guest. Suddenly caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself--a journey that leads him into the desert with a group of drug-addled migrants, headed by a charismatic religious leader calling himself Ben Ten. The travelers'' dream of reaching Europe and a new life in a better place is shattered when they fall prey to human traffickers, suffer starvation, and find themselves on the precipice of death, fighting for their lives and their freedom. As Able God moves into the treacherous unknown, his consciousness becomes focused on survival and the foundations of his beliefs--his ideas about betterment and salvation--are forever altered. Suspenseful, incisive, and illuminating, The Road to the Salt Sea is a story of family, fate, religion, survival, the failures of the Nigerian class system, and what often happens to those who seek their fortunes elsewhere.
Über den Autor / die Autorin
Samuel Kọ´láwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, won the 2025 Whiting Award for Fiction, was a finalist for the 2025 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the International Book Awards, and was longlisted for the 2025 Aspen Words Literary Prize. Other honors for his work include being a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing, the Graywolf Press Africa Prize, and the UK's First Novel Prize. He studied at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and holds a Master of Arts degree in Creative Writing with distinction from Rhodes University, South Africa; is a graduate of the MFA in Writing and Publishing at Vermont College of Fine Arts; and earned his PhD in English and Creative Writing from Georgia State University. He teaches fiction writing full-time as an assistant professor of English and African studies at Pennsylvania State University. He recently joined the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers as a faculty member.
Zusammenfassung
WINNER OF THE 2025 WHITING AWARD FOR FICTION
PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD FINALIST • ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE LONGLIST
As wrenching and luminous as Omar El Akkad’s What Strange Paradise and Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West, a searing exploration of the global migration crisis that moves from Nigeria to Libya to Italy, from an exciting new literary voice.
Able God works for low pay at a four-star hotel where he must flash his “toothpaste-white smile” for wealthy guests. When not tending to the hotel’s overprivileged clientele, he muses over self-help books and draws life lessons from the game of chess.
But Able’s ordinary life is upended when an early morning room service order leads him to interfere with Akudo, a sex worker involved with a powerful but dangerous hotel guest. Suddenly caught in a web of violence, guilt, and fear, Able must run to save himself—a journey that takes him into the desert with a group of drug-addled migrants, headed by a charismatic religious leader calling himself Ben Ten. The travelers’ dream of reaching Europe—and a new life—is shattered when they fall prey to human traffickers, suffer starvation, and find themselves on the precipice of death, fighting for their lives and their freedom.
As Able God moves into the treacherous unknown, his consciousness becomes focused on survival and the foundations of his beliefs—his ideas about betterment and salvation—are forever altered. Suspenseful, incisive, and illuminating, The Road to the Salt Sea is a story of family, fate, religion, survival, the failures of the Nigerian class system, and what often happens to those who seek their fortunes elsewhere.
