A Life Elsewhere - Softcover

Afolabi, Segun

3.34

47 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099485184 ISBN 13: 9780099485186

Publisher: Vintage, 2007

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For the characters in Segun Afolabi's debut collection, 'elsewhere' is a place they must transform into home. In the award-winning 'Monday Morning' a refugee boy puzzles out his place in a new land. A bereaved father in 'Arithmetic' thinks back to a confusing, youthful sexual encounter that has left him emotionally scarred; Jacinta faces a long retirement with a husband she is not sure she likes in 'Jumbo and Jacinta' and 'The Wine Guitar' tells the story of an aging musician who pays a prostitute for the gift of her youth.

These are tales of diaspora, of people making their lives in new lands. Moving, funny and occasionally shocking, Afolabi's stories reflect the way we live now.

A Life Elsewhere was shorlisted for the Commonwealth Writers' Prize.

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Product Description:

Presents a collection of stories from The Far East, Europe, the Americas, and Africa. These stories reflect the way we live; exploring the universal need to establish family and identity in a world where the boundaries of geography, culture and language are increasingly fluid.

Review:

"Segun Afolabi is a writer of tremendous talent. His stories are subtly told and elegantly executed. His greatest skill though, is one possessed by only a few writers. He offers his readers a different way of seeing... and in so doing he elevates himself above the merely talented towards becoming a writer who will certainly make his mark in the world of literature" (Aminatta Forna)

"Afolabi captures snapshots of these lives with searing accuracy but also takes us on delicate sojourns into his characters minds" (The Times)

"These impressionistic tales sharply evoke landscapes both physical and mental" (Hephzibah Anderson Observer)

"Afolabi has a supple, disciplined style, capable of suggesting layers of complex emotion and memory in a few phrases ... a writer of exceptional promise" (Mike Phillips Guardian)

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