A review by gerhard
Nigerians in Space by Deji Bryce Olukotun

2.0

Despite the title, there is not much about ‘Nigerians’ nor ‘Space’ here, apart from a rather rushed coda in Abuja. This starts out as some kind of a Dan Brown thriller, focused mainly on abalone smuggling in Cape Town, with an aside about moon-rock theft in Houston in the US … and then it mysteriously devolves into some kind of a magic realist novel based on a rather unique treatment of race (cue the moonlight). What is it about Nigeria and magic realism / Lovecraftian fantasy? (Nnedi Okorafor anyone). The last 50 pages or so are the best, but are rather disconnected from the rest, like a spare rocket stage on a spacecraft. The South Africanisms are rather archaic, with no index for international readers (a common bugbear for me with local novels.) Still, Deji Bryce Olukotun is a writer willing to take chances and wrongfoot his readers, which is always a good thing. I will definitely be on the lookout for his next novel.