Description

** AN OBSERVER BEST DEBUT NOVELIST AND BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR 2023 **
** SHORTLISTED FOR THE NERO BOOK AWARDS 2023: DEBUT FICTION **

‘A voice unlike any other’ OBSERVER
‘I fell in love immediately’ MAX PORTER
‘A writer of imagination and flair’ ECONOMIST
‘Smart, subversive, funny, heartbreaking’ KAMILA SHAMSIE
‘Buoro’s writing deserves to inspire a generation of superheroes’ THE TIMES

Fifteen-year-old Andrew Aziza lives in Kontagora, Nigeria, where his days are spent about town with his droogs, Slim and Morocca, grappling with his fantasies about white girls – especially blondes – and wondering who his father is. When he’s not in church, at school or attempting to form ‘Africa’s first superheroes’, he obsesses over mathematical theorems, ideas of black power and HXVX: the Curse of Africa.

Sure enough, the reluctantly nicknamed ‘Andy Africa’ soon falls hopelessly and inappropriately in love with the first white girl he lays eyes on, Eileen. But at the church party held to celebrate her arrival, multiple crises loom. An unfamiliar man claims, despite his mother’s denials, to be Andy’s father, and the gathering of an anti-Christian mob is headed for the church – both set to shake the foundations of everything Andy knows and loves.

The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa announces a dazzling, distinctive, new literary voice. Profound, exhilarating and highly original, this tragicomic novel is a stunning exploration of the contemporary African ‘condition’, the relentless infiltration of Western culture and, most of all, the ordinary but impossible challenges of coming of age in a turbulent world.

Publisher Review

An exhilarating, tragicomic novel that questions what it means to come of age in Nigeria today . . . A voice unlike any other * Observer * A barnstorming, heartbreaking debut . . . Tackling the perils of carving out a unique identity in a world of carnage and confusion, in the shadow of colonialism, this assured, engaging book, will make you fall in love with teenager Andy Aziza, and will undoubtedly make a star of Stephen Buoro * Harper's Bazaar, Highlights for 2023 * This novel exudes a wonderfully vivid sense of place and leads the reader inside the head of its teenage hero . . . It's a narrative of depth that also manages to be instantly engaging -- Ian Rankin I fell in love with this novel immediately. [It has] hilarious energy, a satirical but also wildly ambitious philosophical framework ... It's eccentric, profound, timely, specific but it also has global concerns and a really, really brilliant central character -- Max Porter Fascinating; unashamedly, brilliantly intelligent,. It grapples with ideas around maths, Afrofuturism, biblical myth . . . profound philosophical stuff, but fundamentally it's a really playful, pleasurable book about young boy who's falling madly in love, and has a difficult, intense, loving relationship with his mother -- Sarah Perry Stephen Buoro's wonderful The Five Sorrowful Mysteries of Andy Africa is filled with lovable, memorable characters. You'll meet a young man pining over a fantasy; his fierce mother who tries to shield him as best she can; a friend who confides; and others who just want happiness. This novel is at once funny and heartbreaking. Most importantly, it's honest -- De'Shawn Charles Winslow, author of DECENT PEOPLE and IN THE WEST MILLS A blazing debut - smart, subversive, funny, heartbreaking. I'm already impatient for Buoro's next book -- Kamila Shamsie