The Day Ends Like Any Day [1] (Holland House Books, 2017) is a coming-of-age novel by Nigerian poet and novelist Timothy Ogene. [2] Excerpts appeared in One Throne Magazine [3] and The Missing Slate. [4]
"Timothy Ogene's beautiful novel is a new form of Bildungsroman: Sam's story is also a journey through books and memories, so much so that a life's journey is not only oriented forwards, but also backwards." — African Book Review [5]
"Sensitive, incisive, compelling and moving, this unusual fictional memoir lingers in the reader’s mind, breaking through our usual reluctance to face the troubling questions it embodies."— LitNet [6]
"A refreshing increase in Nigerian literature in recent years – of which this is a welcome contribution . . .." — Hong Kong Review of Books [7]
"Timothy Ogene’s The Day Ends Like Any Day illustrates the ways in which human beings carry their pasts with them no matter where they go. It is a powerful novel that demands reconciliation, from the reader and its protagonist alike." — Foreword Reviews [8]
'Timothy Ogene's The Day Ends LikeAny Day is . . . a lyrical, vibrant, and challenging coming-of-age account of the multiple identities and multiple personalities of a young Nigerian growing up in a period when everything around him is changing but who refuses to accept that his life has been formed by the traumas and dependencies of his life and past.' — Africa Book Link [9]
'Timothy Ogene's beautiful novel is "a new form of Bildungsroman," in which the theme of coming of age becomes a coming of language: Sam's story is also a journey through books and memories, so much so that a life's journey is not only oriented forwards, but also backwards.' — Daily Trust, Nigeria [10]
In literary criticism, a Bildungsroman is a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from childhood to adulthood, in which character change is important. The term comes from the German words Bildung and Roman ("novel").
Carl Frederick Buechner was an American author, Presbyterian minister, preacher, and theologian. The author of thirty-nine published books, his career spanned more than six decades and encompassed many different genres. He wrote novels, including Godric, A Long Day's Dying and The Book of Bebb, his memoirs, including The Sacred Journey, and theological works, such as Secrets in the Dark, The Magnificent Defeat, and Telling the Truth.
Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the 2000 best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Eggers is also the founder of Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, a literary journal; a co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness; and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in several magazines.
The Farthest Shore is a fantasy novel by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin, first published by Atheneum in 1972. It is the third book in the series commonly called the Earthsea Cycle. As the next Earthsea novel, Tehanu, would not be released until 1990, The Farthest Shore is sometimes referred to as the final book in the so-called Earthsea trilogy, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea. The events of The Farthest Shore take place several decades after The Tombs of Atuan and continue the story of the wizard Ged.
Efuru is a novel by Flora Nwapa which was published in 1966 as number 26 in Heinemann's African Writers Series, making it the first book written by a Nigerian woman, in fact, any African woman, to be published internationally. The book is about Efuru, an Igbo woman who lives in a small village in colonial West Africa. Throughout the story, Efuru wishes to be a mother, though she is an independent-minded woman and respected for her trading ability. The book is rich in portrayals of the Igbo culture and of different scenarios, which have led to its current status as a feminist and cultural work.
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.
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".
Onitsha is a novel by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio. It was originally published in French in 1991 and an English translation was released in 1997.
Sarah Ladipo Manyika FRSL is a British-Nigerian writer of novels, short stories and essays and an active member of the literary community, particularly supporting and amplifying young writers and female voices. She is author of two well received novels, In Dependence (2009) and Like A Mule Bringing Ice Cream To The Sun (2016), as well as the non-fiction collection Between Starshine and Clay: Conversations from the African Diaspora (2022), and her writing has appeared in publications including Granta, Transition, Guernica, and OZY, and previously served as founding Books Editor of OZY. Manyika's work also features in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.
Pathfinder (2010) is a science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. The novel tells the story of Rigg and his unusual ability to perceive the "paths" of living things throughout time. It is the first book in the completed Pathfinder series, and is followed by Ruins and Visitors.
Yoruba Girl Dancing is the debut novel of Nigerian author Simi Bedford, which "tackles the weighty and painful issue of the extent to which Africans, even those who are members of the privileged classes, can gain social acceptance in 'the West.'" Yoruba Girl Dancing was first published in Great Britain in 1991 and then in the United States in 1992. It is extracted in the 2019 anthology New Daughters of Africa.
Who Fears Death is a science fantasy novel by Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, published in 2010 by DAW, an imprint of Penguin Books. It was awarded the 2011 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel, as well as the 2010 Carl Brandon Kindred Award "for an outstanding work of speculative fiction dealing with race and ethnicity." Okorafor wrote a prequel, the novel The Book of Phoenix, published by DAW in 2015.
Americanah is a 2013 novel by the Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, for which Adichie won the 2013 U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Americanah tells the story of a young Nigerian woman, Ifemelu, who immigrates to the United States to attend university. The novel traces Ifemelu's life in both countries, threaded by her love story with high school classmate Obinze. It was Adichie's third novel, published on May 14, 2013, by Alfred A. Knopf.
Joel Derfner is an American writer and composer. He is the author of three gay-themed books: Gay Haiku (2005), Swish: My Quest to Become the Gayest Person Ever and What Ended Up Happening Instead (2008), and Lawfully Wedded Husband: How My Gay Marriage Will Save the American Family (2013). His articles have appeared in publications including the Huffington Post, The Advocate, Time Out New York, and Between the Lines. Derfner and his works have been cited as references on gay culture, and he has been noted as one of "today's best-known gay writers".
Timothy Ogene is a writer and lecturer at Harvard. He is the author of Descent & Other Poems,The Day Ends Like Any Day, and Seesaw.
Yrsa Daley-Ward is an English writer, model and actor. She is known for her debut book, Bone, as well as for her spoken-word poetry, and for being an "Instagram poet". Her memoir, The Terrible, was published in 2018, and in 2019 it won the PEN/Ackerley Prize. She co-wrote Black Is King, Beyoncé's musical film and visual album, which also serves as a visual companion to the 2019 album The Lion King: The Gift.
Scoundrel Days is a memoir by Australian contemporary poet Brentley Frazer. Described as "a gritty, Gen X memoir, recounting wild escapades into an under-culture of drugs and violence and sex by ABC Radio National and by the publisher as "Tom Sawyer on acid, a 21st-century On the Road, a Holden Caulfield for punks", literary critic Rohan Wilson compared Frazer's ability to shock, surprise and unsettle with that of Marcel Duchamp, concluding: "Frazer is writing here in the tradition of Helen Garner, Andrew McGahan and Nick Earls.This is dirty realism at its dirtiest ".
Glory Edim is an American writer and entrepreneur. She is best known as the founder of the reading network Well-Read Black Girl. Edim received the 2017 Innovator's Award at the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for her work.
A Particular Kind of Black Man is 2019 novel by Nigerian writer Tope Folarin.
Seesaw is the second novel by Timothy Ogene. It was published in London in November 2021 by Swift Press, and was reviewed in The Guardian, The Times, Unherd, Isele Magazine, and Writers Mosaic. Excerpts appeared in Granta and The Johannesburg Review of Books. It can be considered as a classic road novel and, at the same time, a satire; the voice of an unreliable narrator depicts American culture and politics as seen through the eyes of a Nigerian scholar visiting Boston.