Every Day is for the Thief

Teju Cole

Every Day is for the Thief
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Faber & Faber
Country
United Kingdom
Published
28 January 2015
Pages
176
ISBN
9780571307944

Every Day is for the Thief

Teju Cole

A young man returns to Nigeria after fifteen years in New York. Like him, his childhood country has grown up quickly: found fast-food restaurants, email caf s, contempt for authority; the all-consuming draw of money for nothing.

From the consulate in Manhattan to the dusty streets of Lagos, life in modern Nigeria runs like clockwork - as long as you pay the fee. A bribe for the visa clerk, a ‘Christmas gift’ at immigration, cash - no receipt - at the unofficial tollbooth. Petrol pumps are rigged to overcharge and internet caf s overflow with career scammers, but the police are too busy doling out bogus fines to care. In a country routinely plundered of its oil and ancient treasures, who is to say who can thieve and who can’t?

As our narrator makes the difficult journey back to his family house and its memories, he is confronted by the paradox of a country he wants to love, as burdened by its impoverished past as it is blinded by the spoils of the future.

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