Books of the Month

'A Life Elsewhere' by Segun Afolabi

A debut collection of short stories by the Nigerian-born, London-dwelling, Caine Prize-winning writer. At the book’s heart are stories of migration. Most tell of a character, or characters, finding themselves in a country other than their native one, and who must struggle with the consequences. In many cases these situations create isolation, misunderstanding, and loneliness, but there are also stories where new countries lead to new opportunities and new loves.

While it was the first story in the collection, ‘Monday Morning’, which won Afolabi the coveted Caine Prize, it’s by no means the only gem. The wonderful ‘Two Sisters’ describes an African family picnic where a Dutch newcomer, Mr Ooststroom, finds himself on the receiving end of a less than warm welcome from a group of socially-competitive friends. The story is narrated by a young boy, who struggles to grasp the meaning behind the banter and one-upmanship, and the way in which these people turn against the foreigner. In the end though, it is the boy’s own world which becomes new and lonely, and in a masterly final paragraph he is forced to reconsider both Mr Ooststroom and the way in which he has treated. ‘Now That I’m Back’ is impressively written from the point of view of a twenty-three-year-old wheelchair-bound boy wrestling with love for his mother, endurance of his condition, and the surging of his hormones. And ‘Jumbo and Jacinta’ is an affecting tale of an ageing couple who, when forced to spend time alone together on holiday, must struggle to remember what it was that brought them together in the first place.

The range of these stories is impressive. They’re convincingly set in Africa, Asia, the Far East, North America and the UK. The situations described are varied and far from formulaic. Above all though, what impresses is the humanity and subtlety in Afolabi’s writing. He’s definitely a writer to keep a very close eye on.

Susan Tranter

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