Items17The creator’s order
  1. 1Welcome to Lagos (2017)Welcome to Lagos (2017) 4.7/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2017Two soldiers desert their posts and reach Lagos with other people trying to start over. The group makes a home in a politician’s empty apartment and gets tangled in a scandal about public money. Start here for a fast ensemble novel about who finds shelter in the city and who can afford to keep an…0
  2. 2The Mechanics of Yenagoa (2020)The Mechanics of Yenagoa (2020) 8.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2020Ebinimi earns his living fixing cars on Yenagoa’s Kalakala Street. Taking a customer’s car for an unauthorized spin brings a mechanic with ordinary money and relationship troubles into contact with crooked politicians. The pace is quick, but the shop and its working-class customers give you a place…0
  3. 3Fine Boys (2021)Fine Boys (2021) 2.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2021Ewaen leaves an unhappy home in Warri for the University of Benin. Hanging out in parking lots and joking in pidgin with new friends are part of the freedom he was after. The campus begins to feel different when strikes disrupt study and violent student fraternities start looking for recruits.0
  4. 4The Joys of Motherhood (1979)The Joys of Motherhood (1979) 9.7/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 1979Nnu Ego moves to Lagos to marry again and raise a family. The city changes what it takes to feed and keep a household, especially when a distant war reaches into the family’s finances. Read it for a view of colonial Lagos centered on a mother’s labor and the cost of the duties others hold up as her…0
  5. 5Sin Is a Puppy That Follows You HomeSin Is a Puppy That Follows You HomeAliyu Kamal’s translation takes you into Kano households through Hausa popular fiction. A marriage can make and break alliances among entire families here, with black magic and scheming rivals sharpening the domestic stakes. Choose it for the pleasures of a brisk soap opera and a sense of what its…0
  6. 6Yellow-Yellow (2006)Yellow-Yellow (2006)Published Jan 1, 2006Zilayefa leaves a Niger Delta village for Port Harcourt after an oil spill ruins her mother’s farmland. The hotel job she finds gives her a foothold and exposes how differently people treat her because of her light skin. Choose it for a young woman’s view of what the oil city can offer after the…0
  7. 7The Fishermen (2015)The Fishermen (2015) 7.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2015In Akure, four brothers slip away to fish in a forbidden river while their father is working in another city. Nine-year-old Benjamin tells the story, so you learn the neighborhood through places the boys can reach and the trouble they can keep from their parents. A prophecy puts all that childhood…0
  8. 8Night Dancer (2011)Night Dancer (2011) 10.0/10 on Open LibraryPublished Jan 1, 2011After her mother’s death, Mma goes through the letters she left behind in Enugu and starts asking about the father and family she never knew. The letters turn a daughter’s account of a difficult household into a longer story about the price of making a life apart from relatives. It is a good choice…0
  9. 9Jagua Nana (1963)Jagua Nana (1963)Published Jan 1, 1963For a night out in Lagos, follow Jagua and her younger boyfriend Freddie to the Tropicana. The club has a pull of its own, but Jagua keeps moving between parties, politics, and disputes that reach back to village life. Her appetite for a bigger life gives this city portrait its speed.0
  10. 10City of memories (2012)City of memories (2012)Published Jan 1, 2012Faruk Ibrahim and the woman he loves have family histories that reach into an older story of thwarted love. In contemporary Jos, the ambitions of their parents make the connections between those stories a matter of public consequence. Pick this for a novel in which political belonging has to be…0