num_pages: 146
description: In an unnamed African nation the people are subject to a state of perpetual warfare and to an Orwellian abuse of language that strips from language its meaning and renders life senseless. And in a bare room lit only by moonlight a young man hides waiting for the mysterious crocodile-men to come and help him escape from the violent tyranny of the state. While he waits he tells his story.This is Kossi Efouis catastrophic and carnivalesque dreamscape the dark setting of The Shadow of Things to Come. Here men and women are taken in the night spirited away from their families and sent to plantation penal colonies to be worked to the edge of madness. When they return they are empty shells their lost time referred to as the Time of Annexation. But though his parents were taken our protagonist survived first in the care of a quirky benefactress named Mama Maize then under the wing of the state itself as a student at one of its elite schools. When he meets a bookseller named Axis Kemal however he has found a surrogate father an eccentric and wise man who can bring him out of the meaningless confusion and tell him the truth about the society he lives in.Through his characters Efoui speaks out against atrocity and the abuse of power but more he writes against political rhetoric and the destruction of meaning by government. This novel is a love letter to language and in Chris Turners dazzling translation it becomes a stunning introduction for English-language readers to an exciting new talent.
language: English
title: The Shadow of Things to Come
publisher: Seagull Books