Welcome to Lagos

March 1, 2018
A ragtag group of refugees from war, corruption, and domestic violence attempts to resettle in Nigeria's chaotic capital in Onuzo's second novel (The Spider King's Daughter, 2012).When Chike decides to desert the Nigerian army, unable to abide its violence against innocent citizens, he plans to travel light. But Yemi, one of the privates under his command, wants out, too; together, they soon meet Fineboy, another deserter; then Isoken, a young woman who'll be raped if left with her family; then Oma, who's escaping her abusive husband. Together they travel to Lagos, which is hard on newcomers with limited means: The only shelter they can afford is in a camp town under a bridge, and the quintet can only piece together side hustles. (Chike's brief stint directing traffic is at once comic and scarifying.) Fineboy stumbles across what seems to be an abandoned furnished apartment, but they're actually squatting in the home of Sandayo, a former education secretary who's stolen funds in hopes the money will go directly to schools instead of being squandered by bureaucrats. Onuzo's novel is at once a Robin Hood tale and a cross section of Nigerian society, and though she takes on a lot in terms of both themes and characters, she shepherds it along smoothly. She avoids grand defining statements about Lagos, smartly letting the predicaments of each character show how the city's lawlessness runs parallel to its bustle. ("Lagos would kill you if you wasted time on yesterday," she writes.) Simplified statements are for the smug BBC reporter parachuting in to cover Sandayo's story. ("One giant trash can," he thinks.) Not every character gets his or her due (a romantic subplot involving a muckraking journalist feels unfinished), but the novel is marked by lively storytelling throughout.A well-turned tribute to the freedom and frustrations of a diverse city.

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March 5, 2018
In her winning U.S. debut, Onuzo anatomizes a tumultuous city and its inhabitants, from street hustlers to well-connected government ministers. Seeking refuge in the metropolis for various reasons, several Nigerian travelers group up en route to Lagos, including morally upright army deserter Chike; swaggering teenage militant Fineboy; well-to-do Oma, who is fleeing her abusive husband; and a precocious but traumatized girl, Isoken. These characters form a family of sorts as they are welcomed to Lagos coolly, obliged to live in a homeless encampment before settling in an unoccupied house. There they encounter someone desperately trying to leave Lagos: an education minister who has gone into hiding with $10 million meant for Nigeria’s schools. What to do with the minister, and more important, with his money? Onuzo’s representation of Lagos as “a carnivore of a city that swallowed even bones” is often unromantic, but she also criticizes how the city is represented, or misrepresented, by Westerners: “Scandal, murder, intrigue. Quintessential African politics,” thinks one BBC correspondent covering the minister’s story. Onuzo’s briskly plotted novel is a rewarding exploration of the limits of idealism and transparency against widespread cynicism and corruption.

May 15, 2018

Nigeria's corrupt government, as witnessed by a disparate band of misfits hoping to disappear in the teeming capital city of Lagos, is the subject of this provocative novel. Soldiers Chike and Yemi are AWOL from an unjust conflict in the Niger delta, Oma has left an abusive husband, and Isoken seeks safety after a sexual assault. Then there's Fineboy, a street-smart troublemaker who dreams of becoming a radio announcer. They form a de facto family, with Chike as its conscience. But when their path crosses that of disgraced Minister of Education Remi Sandayo, a well-intentioned scheme to redistribute stolen wealth culminates in tragedy. Each chapter is prefaced by ironic excerpts from the "Nigerian Journal," the brainchild of Ahmed Bakare, educated in London but returned to Lagos to print unvarnished truth for the people. VERDICT Winner of the Betty Trask Award for her debut, The Spider King's Daughter, published when she was just 21, Onuzo writes biting social commentary with heart. Though set in Lagos, the work's themes of unscrupulous politicians, irresponsible news outlets, and the unbridgeable divide between privileged and poor are universal and should appeal to a wide audience. [For an essay on libraries by the author, see ow.ly/aF7l30jEXBk.--Ed.]--Sally Bissell, formerly with Lee Cty. Lib. Syst., Fort Myers, FL

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Starred review from April 15, 2018
How do you take the teeming microcosm that is Lagos, set it against a backdrop of Nigeria's slow suicide by oil, and still manage to write one helluva novel? You weave a crisp story that uses well-fleshed characters and a razor-tight plot and stick closely to the show not tell philosophy. This is exactly the theory that Onuzo (The Spider King's Daughter, 2012) subscribes to in this briskly narrated tale of five Nigerians who are mostly bound together by virtue of mucking around in the shadowy periphery of the cutthroat chaos of Lagos. Chike Ameobi, an army officer who deserts his post, is joined by his subordinate, Yemi; Isoken, a woman facing the abyss back home; Oma, fleeing an abusive husband; and Fineboy, who dreams of his own radio show. Their hardscrabble fates intertwine with Nigeria's education minister, Chief Sandayo, and a principled journalist, Ahmed Bakare. What follows is a tangy Ocean's Eleven-esque escapade that exposes class and ethnic divides in the country even as it manages to mock the West for its colonial gaze toward the African continent as a whole. Full of nuance, the story spares no one as it careens toward its satisfying finale.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)