THINGS THEY LOST

358pp., hardback, d.w., London, 2022

A coming-of-age novel set in Kenya, about a lonely 12-year-old girl longing for the love of her mother, an aloof photographer.

"Astonishing ... Oduor has produced page after page of gorgeous, elegiac prose. Dense and rich as a black Christmas cake and alternately whimsical, sweet and dark, Things They Lost is a complex work, brimming with uncompromisingly African magical realism." New York Times

"Otherworldly, unconventional, delectably surreal. One of the most magical and exhilarating introductions to a main character. Okwiri has taken language, sculpted something new and splendid out of it to deliver to the world. An array of some of the most memorable ‘in-between-worlds’ characters enter the literary world from Mapeli Town with aplomb. What a debut! What a gift!" Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, author of Dust and The Dragonfly Sea

Okwiri Oduor was born in Nairobi, Kenya. Her short story “My Father’s Head” won the 2014 Caine Prize for African Writing. She has been a fellow at MacDowell and Art Omi and a visiting writer at the Lannan Center and has an MFA in creative writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. She currently lives in Germany. Things They Lost is her debut novel.