Chukwuebuka Ibeh

Obiefuna is the elder son of a couple who had long waited for a child. He's doing well at school, but isn't the football-playing, loud and gregarious lad his parents expected, unlike his younger brother Ekene. The arrival of a live-in apprentice arouses unexpected feelings in the boy, and his father catches them heading towards an intimate moment. We follow Obiefuna's adolescence as he's banished to a strict Christian seminary with little contact with his family, then goes on to university. His sexuality is always a source of shame in Nigeria's deeply homophobic society, but the enactment of draconian anti-gay laws makes it thoroughly dangerous too. Obiefuna is a sensitively drawn and rounded character, whose future is uncertain as the novel ends: he and his lover and friends know no freedom from fear. A compassionate, understated and beautifully written book.… (más)