'Magical, beguiling... Carries echoes of Toni Morrison's Beloved' Guardian

A Vulture 'Book We Can't Wait to Read in 2022'

They had not lost anyone that year, or the ones they had lost were not worth remembering...

Set in the fictional Kenyan town of Mapeli, Things They Lost tells the story of four generations of women, each haunted by the mysterious curse that hangs over the Brown family. At the heart of the novel is Ayosa Ataraxis Brown, twelve years old and the loneliest girl in the world.

Okwiri Oduor's stunningly original debut novel sings with Kenyan folklore and myth as it traces Ayosa's fragile, toxic relationship with Nabumbo Promise, her mysterious and beguiling mother who comes and goes like tumbleweed: lost, but not quite gone.

From the 2014 Caine Prize winner comes an astonishing debut novel, riven through with mystery and magic, about a daughter's quest to save her mother

About the Author
Okwiri Oduor was born in Nairobi, Kenya. At the age of 25, she won the Caine Prize for African Writing 2014 for her story 'My Father's Head'. Later that year, she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 African writers under 40 who would define trends in African literature. She has been a MacDowell Colony fellow, and she received her MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. She has a story forthcoming in Granta, and Things They Lost is her debut novel. She lives in Germany.

Reviews

'Dazzling... In giddily exuberant prose, Oduor gradually reveals a terrifying story of generations of maternal abuse and dysfunction.'

-- Financial Times

'Oduor's magical, beguiling debut novel carries echoes of Toni Morrison's Beloved... Beautifully written, compelling, ominous and mysterious, with a strong, young, female Kenyan voice at the centre.'

-- Guardian

'An extraordinary tale about love, longing, and the bond between mothers and daughters.'

-- Vogue, 25 Books by Black Authors We Can't Wait to Read in 2022

'A tale steeped in the acrid surrealism of childhood, populated by wicked wraiths and held together by the vicious spell mothers can cast on their daughters.'

* Leila Aboulela, author of Bird Summons *

'The supernatural runs amok, for good and ill, in this boisterous and bittersweet saga tracking four generations of women from a cursed family in a fictional East African town... Oduor's freewheeling invention [is] an undeniable strength.'

-- Daily Mail

'Things They Lost, written by Caine Prize-winning Kenyan author Oduor, defies categorisation... The writing is mesmeric, at times as warm and rhythmic as a lullaby, and filled with gentle, keen observations of the natural world. A book with a big heart that feels like a hug.'

-- New Internationalist

'An original and dazzling debut novel ... A haunting, magical union of Kenyan folklore and the sometimes fragile union between mother and daughter.'

* New African *

'[A] story that injects the fantastic into the mystery of Kenya's disappearing girls... [Things They Lost] will appeal to any reader who has survived or wants to understand girlhood as a time of complexity, laced with unparalleled creativity and expansion.'

-- Vogue

'A soaring debut. Things They Lost is an exhilarating read. I could not put it down.'

-- Peace Adzo Medie, author of His Only Wife

'From the start, Oduor - a winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, among other honors - broadcasts her tremendous talents ... Come for the beguiling narrative, and stay for the rich, evocative language.'

-- Vulture, Most Anticipated of 2022

'Oduor has produced page after page of gorgeous, elegiac prose. Dense and rich as a black Christmas cake and alternately whimsical, sweet and dark, Things They Lost is a complex work, brimming with uncompromisingly African magical realism, about the ambiguity of toxic mother-daughter relationships.'

-- New York Times

'What a singular and palpable world, teeming with life and wonder. In exuberant prose, at once witty and poetic, Okwiri Oduor threads a wondrous tale of girlhood, longing, and community with the ghosts that both love and hurt us. I read this book with gratefulness and awe! We will be reading Ms. Oduor for years to come.'

-- Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, author of House of Stone



Book Information
ISBN 9780861543878
Author Okwiri Oduor
Format Hardback
Page Count 368
Imprint Oneworld Publications
Publisher Oneworld Publications
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 153mm * 32mm