A Kind of Madness (paperback)
by Uche Okonkwo
** Includes the 2024 Caine Prize-shortlisted story, 'Animals' **
** A finalist for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work **
A searing, unflinching collection of stories set in Nigeria that explores community expectations, familial strife and the struggle for survival.
A one-eyed chicken, a chimpanzee forgotten in a cage, a tormented daughter searching for a link to past lives. Everday madness and monsters are explored against the backdrop of an indifferent Lagos in Uche Okonkwo's dynamic debut collection.
Across ten evocative stories, A Kind of Madness dips in and out of the lives of Nigerians, weaving through their lunacy and longing, unravelling the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings and more.
Brimming with vitality, these bites of mundane madness mark the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction and will leave you hungering for more. Perfect for fans of Love in Colour by Bolu Babalola, Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri and Nearly All the Men in Lagos are Mad by Damilare Kuku.
'[An] outstanding debut. The ten insightful tales, set in modern-day Nigeria, thrum with tension and tenderness' - Daily Mail
'Okonkwo is a storming and brilliant writer and it was a pleasure to step into her world' - Daisy Johnson, author of Fen and The Hotel
'Crackling with energy and alive to our whole kaleidoscope of feeling, these stories will rip you open and light up your insides' - Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes