Open City
A Novel
by Teju Cole
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Pub Date Jan 17 2012 | Archive Date Sep 01 2012
Random House Publishing Group | Random House Trade Paperbacks
Description
“Cerebral and capacious, Teju Cole’s novel asks what it means to roam freely.”—The New York Times (One of the 25 Most Significant New York City Novels From the Last 100 Years)
“Influential . . . makes you think about what kind of city is revealed to us based on where we cannot go.”—Katie Kitamura, bestselling author of Intimacies
ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR • WINNER: PEN/Hemingway Award, Rosenthal Foundation Award, New York City Book Award
“A timely and compelling argument for tolerance and moral character in times of extreme antagonism.”—The New York Times
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor named Julius doing his residency wanders aimlessly. The walks are a release from the tightly regulated mental environment of work, and they give him the opportunity to process his relationships, his recent breakup, his present, his past. Though he’s navigating the busy parts of town, the impression of countless faces does nothing to assuage his feelings of isolation.
Julius crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people from different cultures and classes who provide insight on his journey—which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and into the most unrecognizable facets of his own soul.
Seething with intelligence and written in a clear, rhythmic voice, Open City is a haunting, mature, profound work about our country and our world.
FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle Award, Young Lions Fiction Award • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, Newsweek, The New Republic, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, GQ, Salon, Slate, New York, The Week, The Kansas City Star, Kirkus Reviews, The Guardian, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The Irish Times
“Influential . . . makes you think about what kind of city is revealed to us based on where we cannot go.”—Katie Kitamura, bestselling author of Intimacies
ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Time, NPR • WINNER: PEN/Hemingway Award, Rosenthal Foundation Award, New York City Book Award
“A timely and compelling argument for tolerance and moral character in times of extreme antagonism.”—The New York Times
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor named Julius doing his residency wanders aimlessly. The walks are a release from the tightly regulated mental environment of work, and they give him the opportunity to process his relationships, his recent breakup, his present, his past. Though he’s navigating the busy parts of town, the impression of countless faces does nothing to assuage his feelings of isolation.
Julius crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people from different cultures and classes who provide insight on his journey—which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and into the most unrecognizable facets of his own soul.
Seething with intelligence and written in a clear, rhythmic voice, Open City is a haunting, mature, profound work about our country and our world.
FINALIST: National Book Critics Circle Award, Young Lions Fiction Award • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, Newsweek, The New Republic, New York Daily News, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune, GQ, Salon, Slate, New York, The Week, The Kansas City Star, Kirkus Reviews, The Guardian, Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, The Irish Times
Advance Praise
"Open City is a meditation on history and culture, identity and solitude. The soft, exquisite rhythms of its prose, the display of sensibility, the lucid intelligence, make it a novel to savour and treasure."-Colm Toibin, author of The Master and Brooklyn
"The pages of Open City unfold with the tempo of a profound, contemplative walk through layers of histories and their posthumous excavations. The juxtaposition of encounters, seen through the eyes of a knowing flâneur, surface and then dissolve like a palimpsest composed, outside of time, by a brilliant master."-Rawi Hage, author of Cockroach and De Niro's Game, winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
"Open City is not a loud novel, nor a thriller, nor a nail-biter. What it is is a gorgeous, crystalline, and cumulative investigation of memory, identity, and erasure. It gathers its power inexorably, page by page, and ultimately reveals itself as nothing less than a searing tour de force. Teju Cole might just be a W. G. Sebald for the twenty-first century."-Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector
"Fascinating . . . [an] intelligent and panoramic first novel . . . engaged with the world in a rare and refreshing way."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"One of the most intriguing novels you'll likely read. . . [it] reads like Camus's The Stranger." -- Library Journal
"Masterful." - Kirkus, starred review
"The pages of Open City unfold with the tempo of a profound, contemplative walk through layers of histories and their posthumous excavations. The juxtaposition of encounters, seen through the eyes of a knowing flâneur, surface and then dissolve like a palimpsest composed, outside of time, by a brilliant master."-Rawi Hage, author of Cockroach and De Niro's Game, winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award
"Open City is not a loud novel, nor a thriller, nor a nail-biter. What it is is a gorgeous, crystalline, and cumulative investigation of memory, identity, and erasure. It gathers its power inexorably, page by page, and ultimately reveals itself as nothing less than a searing tour de force. Teju Cole might just be a W. G. Sebald for the twenty-first century."-Anthony Doerr, author of The Shell Collector
"Fascinating . . . [an] intelligent and panoramic first novel . . . engaged with the world in a rare and refreshing way."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"One of the most intriguing novels you'll likely read. . . [it] reads like Camus's The Stranger." -- Library Journal
"Masterful." - Kirkus, starred review
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9780812980097 |
| PRICE | $17.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 272 |
