Masobe Books is set to publish books by three award-winning Nigerian authors in the first and second quarters of 2023.
Masobe Books is an independent publishing house located in Lekki, Lagos. They aim “to encourage reading by making available to the public great books by talented African authors who bring our stories to life.”
The forthcoming titles are:
“When We Were Fireflies” by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. The novel is about a “brooding artist, Yarima Lalo, who encounters a moving train for the first time, two serendipitous events occur. First, it triggers memories of past lives in which he was twice murdered—once on a train. He also meets Aziza, a woman with a complicated past of her own, who becomes key to helping him understand what he is experiencing. With a third death in his current life imminent, together they go hunting for remnants of his past lives. Will they find evidence that his mind is unravelling or discover lost loves and enemies from a forgotten past?”
Abubakar Adam Ibrahim is a Nigerian creative writer and journalist. His debut short-story collection The Whispering Trees was longlisted for the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature in 2014, with the title story shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing. Ibrahim has won the BBC African Performance Prize and the ANA Plateau/Amatu Braide Prize for Prose in 2014. He was selected for the Africa39 list of writers aged under 40 with potential and talent to define future trends in African literature. He won Africa’s largest literary prize, The Nigerian Prize for Literature for his first novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms, in 2016.
“Don’t Answer When They Call Your Name” by Ukamaka Olisakwe. The novel is set in a fantasy multiverse rooted in Igbo mythology.
Ukamaka Olisakwe was born in Kano, Nigeria, and now lives in Vermillion, SD. A UNESCO-World Book Capital “Africa 39” honouree and a University of Iowa’s International Writing Program Fellow, she is a winner of the VCFA Emerging Writer Scholarship; the SprinNg Women Authors Prize; a finalist for the Miles Morland Scholarship and the Brittle Paper Award for Creative Nonfiction, and runner-up for the Gerald Kraak Prize, among other honours. She is the founder of Isele Magazine and The Body Conversation.
“The Widow Who Died with Flowers in Her Mouth” by Obinna Udenwe. The book is the author’s first collection of short stories. The novel opens a window into Nigerian life and gives readers an unvarnished look at the country and its people in all of their thrilling, titillating, and terrible glory.
Obinna Udenwe is a Nigerian novelist and short story writer. The winner of the first edition of The Chinua Achebe Prize for Literature 2021 for his second book, Colours of Hatred which was also a finalist for The NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature 2021. His first book, Satans & Shaitans won the ANA Prize for Prose Fiction 2015. His short stories have won The Prairie Schooner-Glenna Luschei Prize 2020, The Short Story is Dead Prize 2016 and was a finalist in the Prairie Schooner-Raz Schumakar Prize 2020. His story It Has to do With Emilia was acquired for film & television in 2020 by Bridget Pickering at Bump films, shot in Yeoville, South Africa in 2021 and released as a motion picture in March 2022. His stories have appeared in Gutter Magazine, Prairie Schooner, Munyori Literary Journal, The Village Square Journal, Fiction 365, Brittle Paper, ANA Review, Ake Review, Expound Magazine, The Kalahari Review, The Short Story is Dead anthology Vol., 1 & 2, and many more. He lives in Abakaliki in southern Nigeria where he works as a writer, engineer, and farmer, and is very active in local politics.
For more information, please contact: Theresa Ominiabohs at 07018383286, email: info@masobebooks.com, follow us @Masobebooks on Instagram and Twitter, or visit the Masobe Books website at www.masobebooks.com
