
New York, My Village
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Narrated by:
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Elnathan John
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By:
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Uwem Akpan
About this listen
A daring first novel in the great picaresque tradition - both buoyant comedy and devastating satire - by the author of the best-selling story collection Say You’re One of Them
Ekong Udousoro is a Nigerian editor undertaking a reckoning with the brutal recent history of his homeland by curating a collection of stories about the Biafran War. He is thrilled when a publishing fellowship gives him the opportunity to continue his work in Manhattan while learning the ins and outs of publishing. But while his sophisticated colleagues meet him with kindness and hospitality, he is soon exposed to the industry’s colder, ruthlessly commercial underbelly, boorish and hostile neighbors, and - beneath a superficial cosmopolitanism - a bedrock of White cultural superiority and racist assumptions about Africa, its peoples, and worst of all, its food. Haunted by the devastating darkness of civil war and searingly observant about the myriad ways that tribalism defines life everywhere from the villages of Africa to the villages within New York City, New York, My Village is nevertheless full of heart, hilarity, and hope.
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Can’t wait for more from this author!
- By Brian Sheldon on 06-04-23
So much promise but ultimately, bugged me
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Motif gone wrong?
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There are small incidents throughout the story — spoiler alert for bedbugs – which gets treated as more important and life shaking than the violence of traumatic horrific war stories.
There is a structural sophistication to the way in which the story is told, but the torturous duration of the present time story components coupled with the always unpredictable “will he be stupid or will he be smart” questions makes this almost unbearable.
The narrator’s voice is lovely to listen to, but put me to sleep while I was driving.
Tedious, repetitive narrative mars violent storyline
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