Growing up is a strange affair for Sam, a young Nigerian, who lives in a slum called The Blocks. His father only speaks to his children once he's drunk enough alcohol, and his mother won’t accept that Sam is different from his siblings. Sam is formed by the people he meets: a young gay man he can't rescue from his tormentors, a girl whose rapist escapes when the women of the block seek justice, and Pa Suku, a strange figure who opens Sam’s eyes to books, music, poetry, and jazz. When Sam goes to college, he is faced with his own lack of belonging and confronts his own sexuality. This book is the lyrical, challenging account of the multiple lives of a young Nigerian who refuses to accept that he has been shaped by the traumas of his past.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy Ogene was born in Oyigbo, outside Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria. He is the sixth of seven children raised in a two room tenement block. He has since lived in Liberia, Germany, the US, and the UK. His poems, stories and reviews have appeared in Numero Cinq, Tincture Journal, One Throne Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, Tahoma Literary Review, The Missing Slate, Stirring, Kin Poetry Journal, Mad Swirl, Blue Rock Review, aaduna, Harvard Reviewand other places. His first collection of poetry, Descent & Other Poems, appeared this summer from Deerbrook Editions.
He holds a first degree in English and History from St. Edward’s University, a Master’s in World Literatures in English from the University of Oxford, and he is currenly working on a Master's in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia.