THE BEAD COLLECTOR

313pp., paperback, First UK Edition, Oxford, 2019.

First published in the USA in 2018.

A novel set in Lagos about a brief friendship between a Nigerian woman and an American woman who claims to be an art dealer in Nigeria to buy rare beads.

"The Bead Collector is centered around a dialogue between two women, but radiates out through family and society and the political realm in Nigeria to form a vast, rich dialogue, one, ultimately, between tradition and progress. Sefi Atta has crafted yet another stunning novel, a deeply compelling, illuminating story of personal and national identity in a time of great transition." Gayle Brandeis, author of The Book of Dead Birds

"The Bead Collector offers a brilliant evocation of Lagos in the tense months before the coup attempt of 1976, through the eyes of Remi Lawal, a wife, mother and budding businesswoman who befriends a potentially suspicious American traveler. Sefi Atta brings to exhilarating life the textures, rhythms and byzantine subtexts of this complex society. It's been a long time since I felt so powerfully immersed in a novel.” Claire Messud, author of The Woman Upstairs

Sefi Atta is the author of Everything Good Will Come (2006 Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa) Swallow, News from Home, A Bit of Difference and Sefi Atta: selected plays. She divides her time between USA, UK and Nigeria.