Nudibranch: the collection from MBE for Literature recipient Irenosen Okojie

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GUARDIAN MUST READ BOOKS OF 2019

AFRICAN BOOK ADDICT MOST ANTICIPATED BOOKS 2019

NUDIBRANCH is Irenosen Okojie's second collection of short stories, a follow up to SPEAK GIGANTULAR which was shortlisted for the 2016 Jhalak Prize and 2017 Edge Hill Short Story Prize.

The collection focuses on offbeat characters caught up in extraordinary situations - a mysterious woman of the sea in search of love arrives on an island inhabited by eunuchs; dimensional-hopping monks navigating a season of silence face a bloody reckoning in the ruins of an abbey; an aspiring journalist returning from a failed excursion in Sydney becomes what she eats and a darker, Orwellian future is imagined where oddly detached children arrive in cycles and prove to be dangerous in unfamiliar surroundings.

Irenosen Okojie was a recipient of the 2016 Betty Trask Award and in 2015, the Evening Standard named her as one of top debut novelists of the summer for her novel, Butterfly Fish. Her writing has been featured in the Guardian and Observer and has been lauded by the likes of fellow writers such as Rupert Thompson, Ben Okri and Michele Roberts.

Reviews

Okojie has a sharp eye . . . and a turn of phrase that switches from elegance to brutality in a single line - Stella Duffy

An original and highly unpredictable imagination, in a single sentence, Irenosen Okojie can whip the rug from under your feet. She's that rare and admirable thing - a writer who is also a risk taker. Prepare to be startled - Rupert Thomson

One of the most original and innovative writers to emerge in many a year - Alex Wheatle MBE

Unique and imaginative - Diana Evans, Orange Prize Winner

Creates a whole new geography of the imagination - Michele Roberts

Author Bio

Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian British writer. Her debut novel Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask award and was shortlisted for an Edinburgh International First Book Award. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, the Observer, the Guardian, the BBC and the Huffington Post amongst other publications. Her short story collection Speak Gigantular was shortlisted for the Edgehill Short Story Prize, the Jhalak Prize, the Saboteur Awards and nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award. Nudibranch, her second collection was longlisted for the Jhalak Prize, the story Grace Jones won the 2020 AKO Caine Prize. A fellow and Vice Chair of The Royal Society of Literature, she is the co-presenter of the BBC's Novels That Shaped Our World podcast, Turn Up For The Books. She was awarded an MBE For Services to Literature in 2021.