 First edition | |
| Author | A. Igoni Barrett |
|---|---|
| Country | Nigeria |
| Publisher | Chatto & Windus |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover) |
Blackass is a novel by Nigerian author A. Igoni Barrett. It was released in the United Kingdom and Nigeria in 2015, and 2016 in the United States. It received mixed reviews. [1] [2] [3]
Blackass is a story about a young Nigerian Furo Wariboko, [4] who wakes up on the eve of a job interview to discover that he has transformed into a white guy overnight. As he adjusts to his new appearance, he meets Arinze, who offers Furo a far more lucrative job than he expected. [5]
The Financial Times called Blackass "strange (and) compelling, (...with) something to tell us all", and explicitly compared it to Kafka's The Metamorphosis . [6] Writing in The Guardian , Helon Habila lauded Barrett for "his ability to satirise the ridiculous extents people, especially Lagosians, go to in order to appear important." [7] Claire Fallon for the Huffington Post found it to be "blunt (and) transparently written", but also "subtle (and) circumspect." [8] Aaron Bady of Okayafrica stated that it is "the most unapologetically Nigerian book that American publishers have published in a long time". [9]
In 2016 Blackass won the People's Literature Publishing House and the Chinese Foreign Literature Society's 21st Century Best Foreign Novel Award. [10] It was nominated for the inaugural FT/OppenheimerFunds Emerging Voices Awards, [11] the 2017 PEN Open Book Award, [12] the 2015 Kitschies Golden Tentacle Award, [13] and the inaugural Nommo Award for Best Novel. [14] In 2017 it was nominated for a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award in the debut fiction category. [15] [16]
Nigerian literature may be roughly defined as the literary writing by citizens of the nation of Nigeria for Nigerian readers, addressing Nigerian issues. This encompasses writers in a number of languages, including not only English but Igbo, Urhobo, Yoruba, and in the northern part of the county Hausa and Nupe. More broadly, it includes British Nigerians, Nigerian Americans and other members of the African diaspora.
Helon Habila Ngalabak is a Nigerian novelist and poet, whose writing has won many prizes, including the Caine Prize in 2001. He worked as a lecturer and journalist in Nigeria before moving in 2002 to England, where he was a Chevening Scholar at the University of East Anglia, and now teaches creative writing at George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia.
Adrian Igonibo Barrett is a Nigerian writer of short stories and novels. In 2014, he was named on the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. Following his two collections of short stories – From Caves of Rotten Teeth (2005) and Love Is Power, or Something Like That (2013) – his first novel, Blackass, was published in 2015, described by the Chicago Review of Books as "Kafka with a wink".
Chinelo Okparanta is a Nigerian-American novelist and short-story writer. She was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where she was raised until the age of 10, when she emigrated to the United States with her family.
Chigozie Obioma is a Nigerian writer who wrote the novels The Fishermen (2015) and An Orchestra of Minorities (2019), both of which were shortlisted for the Booker Prize in their respective years of publication. His work has been translated into more than 30 languages.
The Fishermen is the debut novel by Nigerian author Chigozie Obioma, published in 2015. The novel follows four brothers in a quiet neighbourhood of a Nigerian town, who were given a violent prophecy which shakes their family to the core. It is set in the 1990s, during the rule of Sani Abacha.
Tolu Ogunlesi is a Nigerian journalist, poet, photographer, fiction writer, and blogger. Ogunlesi was appointed to the role of special assistant on digital/new media by President Muhammadu Buhari on 18 February 2016.
The Aké Arts and Book Festival is a literary and artistic event held annually in Nigeria. It was founded in 2013 by Lola Shoneyin, a Nigerian writer and poet, in Abeokuta. It features new and established writers from across the world, and its primary focus has been to promote, develop, and celebrate the creativity of African writers, poets, and artists. The Aké Arts and Book Festival has been described as the African continent's biggest annual gathering of literary writers, editors, critics, and readers. The festival has an official website and a dedicated magazine, known as the Aké Review.
Oil on Water is a 2010 petrofiction novel by Nigerian author Helon Habila. The novel documents the experience of two journalists as they try to rescue a kidnapped European wife in the oil landscape of the Niger Delta. The novel explores themes of both the ecological and political consequences of oil conflict and petrodollars in the delta.
Becky Chambers is an American science fiction writer. She is the author of the Hugo Award-winning Wayfarers series as well as novellas including To Be Taught, if Fortunate (2019) and the Monk & Robot series, which begins with the Hugo Award-winning A Psalm for the Wild-Built (2021). She is known for her innovative world-building and character-driven stories, and is a pioneer of the hopepunk genre.
Imachibundu Oluwadara Onuzo is a Nigerian novelist. Her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Etisalat Prize for Literature.
Odafe Atogun is a Nigerian writer. His debut novel, Taduno's Song (2016), was selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, and he has been compared to Franz Kafka and George Orwell in critical reviews. Following his two-book deal with Canongate, Penguin Random House and Arche Verlag, Atogun's second novel, Wake Me When I’m Gone, was published in 2017. His work has been translated into several languages.
Parrésia, also Parrésia Publishers Ltd, is a publishing company in Nigeria founded by Azafi Omoluabi Ogosi and Richard Ali in 2012 with the aim of selling books to the Nigerian reading audience and promote the freedom of the imagination and the free press. It was described in 2017 by The New York Times as one of "a handful of influential new publishing houses" in Africa in the last decade.
Tade Thompson FRSL is a British-born Nigerian psychiatrist and writer. He is best known for his 2016 science fiction novel Rosewater, which won a Nommo Award and Arthur C. Clarke Award.
The Nommo Awards are literary awards presented by The African Speculative Fiction Society. The awards recognize works of speculative fiction by Africans, defined as "science fiction, fantasy, stories of magic and traditional belief, alternative histories, horror and strange stuff that might not fit in anywhere else."
Rosewater is a 2016 science fiction novel by Nigerian-British writer Tade Thompson. In Rosewater, Nigerian agent Kaaro uses his psychic powers to investigate a mysterious alien dome and deaths linked to it. It was followed by two sequels: The Rosewater Insurrection and The Rosewater Redemption which were published in 2019 simultaneously. The novel won the inaugural Nommo Award as well as the 2019 Arthur C. Clarke Award.
Welcome to Lagos is a 2016 novel written by Nigeria writer Chibundu Onuzo. It was first published on May 1, 2016, by Catapult & Co., an imprint of Black Balloon Publishing.
The Third Generation of Nigeria Writers is an emerging phase of Nigerian literature, in which there is a major shift in both the method of publishing and the themes explored. This set of writers are known for writing post-independence novels and poems. This generation is believed to be influenced by the western world, politics and the preceding generation of Mbari Club writers, Flora Nwapa and Buchi Emecheta. The emergence of the third generation of Nigerian writers has changed the publishing sector with a resurgence of new publishing firms such as Kachifo Limited, Parrésia Publishers, Cassava Republic Press and Farafina Books. These new writers create new genres and methods that deal with racism, class, abuse and violence.
The Chibok Girls styled as The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria is a 2016 non-fiction social novel by Nigerian author Helon Habila. The novel was developed due to 2014 kidnaping of 276 Chibok school girls from age 16 to 18 by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.