Vagabonds! - A Novel

Informationen zum Autor Eloghosa Osunde is a Nigerian writer and artist. An alumna of the Farafina Creative Writing Workshop, the Caine Prize Workshop, and the New York Film Academy, she has been published in The Paris Review , Gulf Coast, Guernica, Catapult , and other venues. Winner of the 2021 Plimpton Prize for Fiction and the recipient of a Miles Morland Scholarship, she is a 2019 Lambda Literary Fellow and a 2020 MacDowell Colony Fellow. Klappentext NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE AND THE VCU CABELL FIRST NOVELIST AWARD “If you read one debut novel in 2022, this should be it.” — Los Angeles Times In the bustling streets and cloistered homes of Lagos, a cast of vivid characters—some haunted, some defiant—navigate danger, demons, and love in a quest to lead true lives.   As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities. Eloghosa Osunde's brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city's dark energy. Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde's characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion.   Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph. Leseprobe Thomas   "Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."   -Jesus, in John 20:29   There's a story Nigerians know and pass on with the conviction reserved for Holy Communion bread. Here, a slice of our history: we don't lose unless something happens; unless there's foul play. Here: an extra source to cite when defending our collective arrogance. It's the story of that football match where Nigeria played against India and India scored 99 goals against Nigeria's 1. Most Nigerians remember this match, whether they were born at the time or not; know the story like they know God-with a fervent, fastidious faith. No need to question it, or search for it, or relive it. It's a story that happens to you once and then lives with you forever.   Throughout the full ninety minutes of the match, Nigeria's players did their best, as Nigerians do; sprightly on their feet and quick to react, just as their coach had taught them. But something kept happening: Every time one of the players went near the ball, it morphed into something else. Some say it was a lion that came roaring into the air, all hungry-mouthed and thirsty-eyed; some say it was a snake uncoiling itself from the dead leather; others say it was both interchangeably. The rest claim that the match was only confusing because the ball kept on doubling, or tripling, and Nigeria's goalkeeper found it impossible to know which one to focus on. The latter was what Thomas's uncle claimed.   "That day? Ha! The whole Nigeria went hay...

Product details

• Authors: Eloghosa Osunde
• Publisher: Riverhead
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 01.03.2023
• EAN: 9780593330036
• ISBN: 978-0-593-33003-6
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 131 mm x 202 mm x 21 mm
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature; Fiction > Narrative literature > Contemporary literature (from 1945)