By Prisca Sam-Duru

Looking at 2022 with maximum optimism, it’s expected that the global literary community will be bustling with new offerings this year, as most writers made good use of the lockdowns at the height of the pandemic to write.

Already, there are books in diverse categories- thrillers, coming-of-age stories, comedies, romance and historical fiction competing to make everyone’s to-be-read list. Interestingly, there are also books that are already tackling the dilemma of living in a COVID-troubled world even as funny, horror reads and books covering politics in Nigeria and beyond, are seeking readers’ attention as well. A few of these captivating books have been listed here for people’s reading pleasure.

From the award-winning US-based author of Nigerian descent, Nnedi Okoroafor, comes the electrifying third book; Akata Woman, in the series that started with Akata Witch, named one of Time Magazine’s “100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time” and “100 Best YA Books of All Time.”

In this series, according to Time Magazine, “Okorafor creates a stunningly original world of African magic that draws on Nigerian folk beliefs and rituals instead of relying on the predictable tropes of Western fantasy novels.” Get ready to be wowed by this thrilling fiction.

Although the science fiction thriller by Nnedi Okorafor, titled: Remote Control, was released in 2021, the book still makes an interesting read this year. In the thrilling novella, the Nigerian-American award winning speculative fiction novelist, weaves together an account of female empowerment alongside the importance of community, set against a futuristic backdrop that as usual, integrates Okorafor’s Nigerian heritage.

In the compelling and moving narrative by the critically acclaimed author of Who Fears Death, Binti, Akata Witch, “a young girl named Fatima’s life is forever changed after an alien artefact transforms her into Death’s adopted daughter. With a new name, Sankofa, she walks the earth, with no one but a fox as a companion, in search of answers. What will be the future of Death’s daughter?”

Another beautiful book is Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband? by Lizzie Damilola Blackburn which is billed to step into the public domain on January 18.

The novel narrates the life of Yinka, an Oxford-educated, British-Nigerian woman, whose Nigerian relatives will not stop bugging about getting married at over 30 years. The new romance novel centred on Nigerian culture, trails the protagonist, as she searches for a date to her cousin’s wedding while at the same time, making efforts to balance ‘traditional expectations and her modern beliefs about love.’

The novel to be published by Pamela Dorman Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, has been described as a “witty, feel-good love story”, chronicling the life of an illustrious Nigerian woman in Britain, as she navigates marital pressures from family and friends.

Yinka Where is your Huzband?, is Blackburn’s debut novel, reportedly based on her own experience with spinsterhood.

The We Need New Names Zimbabwean author, and 2014 winner of the inaugural Etisalat Prize For Literature, NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory, is another book that’ll make very interesting read. The plot of the novel to be released March 8, is inspired by the fall of Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe in 2017.

In Glory, a political fiction, Bulawayo whose real names are Elizabeth Tshele, tells the story about the “demise of an oppressive regime and the chaos of revolution, presented in an uncannily recognisable anthropomorphic allegory. In her bold, vividly imagined novel, animal voices call out the dangerous absurdity of contemporary global politics.”

The 576-page story according to Open Country Magazine’s book report, centres on Old Horse, a once charismatic leader in whom the animals relied upon in the face of colonisers, who rules for 40 years with the help of his elite band of Chosen Ones as well as Marvellous, his ambitious donkey wife, until his appalling fall.

Finally, Nigerian 2017 Caine Prize Finalist, Arinze Ifeakandu’s short story collection, titled: God’s Children Are Little Broken Things will be published June 2022 by A Public Space Books.

The collection written by the Caine Prize finalist, who is also a Public Space Writing Fellow, features nine short stories that revolve around “queer male intimacy brim with simmering secrecy, ecstasy, loneliness, and love in their depictions of what it means to be gay in contemporary Nigeria.” Reports say some early versions of the collection have been released and have received praise and applause. The stories expose “whole worlds of longing and travail, youth and aging, queer love expressed in so many of its facets.”

Away from her usual tales revolving round female characters with queer habits, one of Africa’s most established contemporary authors, Chinelo Okparanta is coming out this year with a new novel titled: Harry Sylvester Bird. The book being her third, follows the story collection, Happiness Like Water (2013) and the novel, Under the Udala Trees (2015).
Harry Sylvester Bird tells the story of a “White American man whose life is caught between his education and mis-education as a result of his conservative upbringing. His life faces new twists and turns as he moves to New York City where he is confronted with white supremacy and other social anxieties.”

Award-winning author of the celebrated novel, On Black Sister’s Street, which won the NLNG-sponsored The Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2012, Chika Unigwe’s new novel titled: Leaving Meshach, will definitely make a captivating read. The novel, said to be published by Dzanc Books in the United States this 2022, is Chika’s number eight book.

As reported by Punch, Leaving Meshach is set in Enugu and partly in Atlanta, GA in the 2000s. It revolves around Nani, a vulnerable teenager who is lured in by a much older man, Meshach, a self-proclaimed Man of God, and how she takes charge of her own life several years later.

Akwaeke Emezi’s romance novel titled: You Made A Fool Of Me With Your Beauty, coming out in May, should also be on your to-be-read list this new year.

The deeply warm romance fiction promises to be a good companion to its readers. It narrates the story about a woman named Feyi who makes a come back into the dating scene after an accident claims the love of her life five years earlier.

To start this beautiful year on a fascinating note, you also need to pick up a copy of A Million Bullets and A Rose by our own amiable multiple award-winning author and scholar, Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo. With a totally fresh and alluring new look, the book is one of the most captivating accounts of Nigeria’s worst nightmarish post-colonial encounter – the Nigerian civil war. Even if read once, the beautifully written novel should be re-read to grasp more knowledge of the important event that shaped the history of the country.

Vanguard News Nigeria