God's Children Are Little Broken Things

Stories

De: Arinze Ifeakandu

Narrado por: Mirron Willis

"Surprisingly hopeful…[Arinze's Ifeakandu's] understated style encourages close reading and elicits a strong sense of what it is like for the characters to endure the perils of being gay in Nigeria. The author leaves readers with a painful and powerful group portrait."—Publishers Weekly

"Contemporary love stories with moments of real surprise and revelation."—Brandon Taylor, author of Filthy Animals

"In these gorgeous stories, Ifeakandu takes on big, untidy emotions—love, loneliness, yearning, grief—and writes about them with extraordinary deftness and grace. This is a hugely impressive collection, full of subtlety, wisdom and heart."—Sarah Waters, author of The Paying Guests

The audiobook edition of God's Children Are Little Broken Things includes an exclusive introduction voiced by the author.

In this stunning debut from one of Nigeria's most exciting young writers, the stakes of love meet a society in flux.

These nine stories of queer male intimacy brim with simmering secrecy, ecstasy, loneliness, and love in their depictions of what it means to be gay in contemporary Nigeria. A man revisits the university campus where he lost his first love, aware now of what he couldn't understand then. A daughter returns home to Lagos after the death of her father, where she must face her past—and future—relationship with his longtime partner. A young musician rises to fame at the price of pieces of himself, and the man who loves him.

Generations collide, families break and are remade, languages and cultures intertwine, and lovers find their ways to futures. From childhood through adulthood, on university campuses, city centers, and neighborhoods where church bells mingle with the morning call to prayer, love is consistent even in the presence of loss. God's Children Are Little Broken Things from Caine Prize finalist Arinze Ifeakandu is a debut of emotional charge, with the touch of grace and the compassionate signature of an important new voice.

©2022 Arinze Ifeakandu (P)2022 Spotify Audiobooks

Amazing Book, Wonderful Narrator

Mesmerising storytelling, poignant stories. Great narrator who brought these stories to life, even though he struggled a bit with the Nigerian names and Nigerian Pidgin.

Voice capable of reprogramming what is possible

arinze ifeakandu’s “what the singers say about love” is the first and black black queer love story of its kind i’ve ever read. i didn’t know we could tell stories about ourselves like this that weren’t scored by grief, or how much i needed to hear such a simple story of black queer love on a bodily, cellular level; simple as in complex but not obviously dysfunctional or self-destructive, about to implode. i have much more to say about each story—listen to and read this book!