Things They Lost
Longlisted for the 2023 Dylan Thomas Prize
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A haunting bond between mother and daughter is examined in Oduor's ambitious debut. In Mapeli Town, somewhere in East Africa, Ayosa Brown grows up with the ability to see the memories of her mother, Nabumbo Promise, from before she was born. She also witnessed Nabumbo Promise being attacked by a man with a knife, followed by her mother's act of retaliation. Now, at 13, Ayosa is often left alone for weeks or months by Nabumbo Promise as she travels for work as a photographer. Nabumbo Promise is tortured by painful secrets from her childhood involving her dead brother and estranged twin sister, which Ayosa knows about but keeps to herself. Ayosa and her mother have an intense, intoxicating relationship; Ayosa's love is ever replenishing and full of forgiveness, even though her mother's kisses sometimes repulse her, "like roaches crawling across face," and her mother's love is "lukewarm at best." On her own, Ayosa bonds with Sindano, a woman who owns a café that no one visits, and with Mbiu, a girl who stands outside various windows, sometimes for hours at a time. In their company, Ayosa comes to understand unconditional love. Oduor makes loss and familial disappointment palpable through her potent and visceral prose. This keeps the reader holding their breath. Jackie Ko, Wylie Agency.