ANDY HEDGECOCK is entertained by a playful novel that embeds a fictional game at its heart
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A fine evocation of today’s Nigeria
MARJORIE MAYO recommends the story of two families caught up in the riptides of wealth, power, romantic obsession and political corruption
Buying and selling in Mushin Oloosa market, Lagos-Nigeria, 2018
[Omoeko Media/CC]
Death comes for Liberals, entitled murder, Vatican hit squads, and fraternising with the Blitz killer
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GABRIELE NEHER draws attention to an astoundingly skilled Flemish painter who defied the notion that women cannot paint like men
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KEVIN DONNELLY outlines how the bourgeois institutions inhibit our ability to to view art in revolutionary ways, and suggests some tactics to overturn it
A Spell of Good Things
Ayobami Adebayo
Canongate, £9.99
AYOBAMI ADEBAYO’S second novel has been widely praised for being eminently readable as well as extremely relevant, combining the personal with the political in 21st century Nigeria.
Set against the background of the restoration of democracy following years of military dictatorships, it shows a context fraught with the problems of rising inequalities, decaying public services and political corruption, along with gender inequalities and domestic violence.
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MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility