Things They Lost: Longlisted for the 2023 Dylan Thomas Prize

(Hardback)

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Description

Ayosa is a wandering spirit joyous, exuberant, filled to the brim with longing. Her only companions in the Kenyan town she calls home are as lonely as Ayosa herself: the ghostly Fatumas, the sullen milkman and Sindano, the owner of a cafe that no one ever visits. But a curse hangs over the women in Ayosas family, a curse which has blighted the life of her mother, Nabumbo Promise. When her new friend Mbui offers her an alternative life, one that would involve leaving Nabumbo Promise behind, Ayosa must decide how much she owes her fearsome, mercurial mama. Set at the intersection of the spirit world and the human one, suffused with Kenyan folklore and myth, Things They Lost is an unforgettable novel about mothers and daughters, about ghostly longing and about love at its most intoxicating and dangerous, from a standout new literary voice.

Reviews

'Dazzling... In giddily exuberant prose, Oduor gradually reveals a terrifying story of generations of maternal abuse and dysfunction.'

-- Financial Times

'Oduor's magical, beguiling debut novel carries echoes of Toni Morrison'sBelovedBeautifully written, compelling, ominous and mysterious, with a strong, young, female Kenyan voice at the centre.'

-- Guardian

'An extraordinary tale about love, longing, and the bond between mothers and daughters.'

-- Vogue, 25 Books by Black Authors We Cant Wait to Read in 2022

'A tale steeped in the acrid surrealism of childhood, populated by wicked wraiths and held together by the vicious spell mothers can cast on their daughters.'

* Leila Aboulela, author of Bird Summons *

'The supernatural runs amok, for good and ill, in this boisterous and bittersweet saga tracking four generations of women from a cursed family in a fictional East African town...Oduor's freewheeling invention [is] an undeniable strength.'

-- Daily Mail

'Things They Lost,written by Caine Prize-winning Kenyan author Oduor,defies categorisation... The writing is mesmeric, at times as warm and rhythmic as a lullaby, and filled with gentle, keen observations of the natural world. A book with a big heart that feels like a hug.'

-- New Internationalist

'An original and dazzling debut novel A haunting, magical union of Kenyan folklore and the sometimes fragile union between mother and daughter.

* New African *

'[A] story that injects the fantastic into the mystery of Kenya's disappearing girls... [Things They Lost] will appeal to any reader who has survived or wants to understand girlhood as a time of complexity, laced with unparalleled creativity and expansion.'

-- Vogue

'A soaring debut. Things They Lost is an exhilaratingread. I could not put it down.'

-- Peace Adzo Medie, author of His Only Wife

'From the start, Oduor a winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing, among other honors broadcasts her tremendous talents... Come for the beguiling narrative, and stay for the rich, evocative language.'

-- Vulture, Most Anticipated of 2022

'Oduor has produced page after page of gorgeous, elegiac prose. Dense and rich as a black Christmas cake and alternately whimsical, sweet and dark,Things They Lostis a complex work, brimming with uncompromisingly African magical realism, about the ambiguity of toxic mother-daughter relationships.'

-- New York Times

'What a singular and palpable world, teeming with life and wonder. In exuberant prose, at once witty and poetic, Okwiri Oduor threads a wondrous tale of girlhood, longing, and community with the ghosts that both love and hurt us. I read this book with gratefulness and awe! We will be reading Ms. Oduor for years to come.'

-- Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, author of House of Stone

Author Bio

Okwiri Oduor was born in Nairobi, Kenya. At age 25, she won the Caine Prize for African Writing 2014 for her story My Fathers Head. Later that year, she was named on the Hay Festivals Africa39 list of 39 African writers under 40 who would define trends in African literature. Her novella The Dream Chasers was highly commended in the Commonwealth Book Prize 2012. She has been a MacDowell Colony fellow, and she received her MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop. She has a story forthcoming in Granta.