A collection of short stories by the writer of "The Famished Road".
Critics talk about how his work is in the tradition of magic realism. I can see this, in that he brings in a whole world of spirits and demons, visions and magic. But to me his work seems more a portrait of place where the borders between superstition and a more objective reality are highly blurred, where demons and potions and magic actually form an important part of the fabric of life. There is also a recurring theme of crowd hysteria leading to injury and death with no regard for the reality of accusations and supposed crimes. (In current newspapers you can read about this kind of mass hysteria leading to murder and rioting in places like India and Pakistan.)
He paints a picture of Lagos and Nigeria as a place of absolute chaos and corruption, a chaos created deliberately by the political class to enable the corruption. His portrait of the rest of the society is one of ignorance, anger, frustration, desperation.
An ugly world.
I should reread "Famished Road".
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