Proudly Nigerian

A debut collection of stories set in a hauntingly reimagined Lagos where characters vie for freedom from ancestral ties.

In this beguiling collection of twelve imaginative stories set in Lagos, Nigeria, ’Pemi Aguda dramatizes the tension between our yearning to be individuals and the ways we are haunted by what came before.

In “Manifest,” a woman sees the ghost of her abusive mother in her daughter’s face. Shortly after, the daughter is overtaken by wicked and destructive impulses. In “Breastmilk,” a wife forgives her husband for his infidelity. Months later, when she is unable to produce milk for her newborn, she blames herself for failing to uphold her mother’s feminist values and doubts her fitness for motherhood. In “Things Boys Do,” a trio of fathers finds something unnatural and unnerving about their infant sons. As their lives rapidly fall to pieces, they begin to fear that their sons are the cause of their troubles. And in “24, Alhaji Williams Street,” a teenage boy lives in the shadow of a mysterious disease that’s killing the boys on his street.

These and other stories in Ghostroots map emotional and physical worlds that lay bare the forces of family, myth, tradition, gender, and modernity in Nigerian society. Powered by a deep empathy and glinting with humor, they announce a major new literary talent.

A new pair of shoes, a university degree, a husband—these are the things that a girl dreams of in a Nigerian village. And with a government scholarship right around the corner, everyone can see that these dreams aren’t too far out of reach.

But the girl’s dreams turn to nightmares when her village is attacked by Boko Haram, a terrorist group, in the middle of the night. Kidnapped, she is taken with other girls and women into the forest where she is forced to follow her captors’ radical beliefs and watch as her best friend slowly accepts everything she’s been told.

Still, the girl defends her existence. As impossible as escape may seem, her life—her future—is hers to fight for.

In the early sixties, Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. There he discovers a whole generation high on visions of a new and better world. He meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of a former colonial officer.

Their story, which spans four decades, is a bittersweet tale of a brave but doomed affair and the universal desire to fall truly, madly and deeply in love. A lyrical and moving story of unfulfilled love fraught with the weight of history, race and geography and intertwined with questions of belonging, aging, faith and family secrets. In Dependence explores the complexities of contemporary Africa, its Diaspora and its interdependence with the rest of the world.

Religious fervour culminates in an exorcism for one unfortunate maid. A harrowing encounter on a train haunts Añuli. A mother abandons her child in search of personal freedom. A wife joins her husband, only to be met with news that threatens their relationship.

This richly imagined collage of interconnected stories follows Prosperous and Agu, and the motley community of Nigerian ex-pats who gather at their apartment each week. Their reality is one of dashed hopes, twisted love and the pain of homesickness, even as they fight to make their way in this new world.

Better Never Than Late is a layered and affecting portrayal of the everyday absurdities and adversities of migrant life.

Morayo Da Silva, a cosmopolitan Nigerian woman, lives in San Francisco. Almost seventy-five, she has a zest for life and enjoys road trips in her vintage Porsche. But when Morayo has an accident, crushing her independence, she is prompted to reassess her relationships and recollect her past life and loves. A humorous, joyful read.

Taramade Johnson seems to have it all. But she is stuck in a dead-end marriage, consumed by her desire for Adam Okoya, a male colleague, and burdened with a secret that could cause her to lose everything.

Things start to come undone when it is revealed that the Johnsons’ Marine Compact Bank, led by the tyrannical Damelda Johnson, Taramade’s mother-in-law, is not as healthy as it would appear. A bureaucratic reformer, Banke Olumide, soon emerges and takes Damelda’s place as MD of the troubled bank.

Meanwhile, Damelda retires to hatch a plan that will put control of the bank in her grip again. But there are others who want the bank just as much as Damelda does. And for some, it is a battle worth dying – or killing – for.