The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa : Shortlisted for the Nero Book Awards 2023

Author: Buoro, Stephen

Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945)

Published on 13 April 2023 by Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (Bloomsbury Circus) in the United Kingdom.

Hardback | 336 pages
241 x 160 x 30 | 638g

** AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST AND BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR 2023 **** SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS 2023: DEBUT FICTION **A voice unlike any other OBSERVERI fell in love immediately MAX PORTERA writer of imagination and flair ECONOMISTSmart, subversive, funny, heartbreaking KAMILA SHAMSIEBuoro's writing deserves to inspire a generation of superheroes THE TIMESFifteen-year-old Andrew Aziza lives in Kontagora, Nigeria, where his days are spent about town with his droogs, Slim and Morocca, grappling with his fantasies about white girls especially blondes and wondering who his father is. When hes not in church, at school or attempting to form Africas first superheroes, he obsesses over mathematical theorems, ideas of black power and HXVX: the Curse of Africa.

Sure enough, the reluctantly nicknamed Andy Africa soon falls hopelessly and inappropriately in love with the first white girl he lays eyes on, Eileen. But at the church party held to celebrate her arrival, multiple crises loom. An unfamiliar man claims, despite his mothers denials, to be Andys father, and the gathering of an anti-Christian mob is headed for the church both set to shake the foundations of everything Andy knows and loves. The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa announces a dazzling, distinctive, new literary voice. Profound, exhilarating and highly original, this tragicomic novel is a stunning exploration of the contemporary African condition, the relentless infiltration of Western culture and, most of all, the ordinary but impossible challenges of coming of age in a turbulent world.