The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa
‘A literary blockbuster … Buoro commits to representing diversity within Blackness, the way Toni Morrison does.’
The Guardian
‘An exhilarating, tragicomic novel that questions what it means to come of age in Nigeria today … A voice unlike any other.’
The Observer
‘Buoro is a writer of imagination and flair . . . Andy Africa is an unforgettable character … Contemporary African literature is rich in coming-of-age stories. For its sheer energy, The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa is among the best.’
The Economist
Fifteen-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 he’s not in church, at school or attempting to form ‘Africa’s 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 mother’s denials, to be Andy’s 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.
Stephen Buoro