Every Day is for the Thief

A young man decides to visit Nigeria after years of absence. Ahead lies the difficult journey back to the family house and all its memories; meetings with childhood friends and above all, facing up to the paradox of Nigeria, whose present is as burdened by the past as it is facing a new future.



Along the way, our narrator encounters life in Lagos. He is captivated by a woman reading on a danfo; attempts to check his email are frustrated by Yahoo boys; he is charmingly duped buying fuel. He admires the grace of an aunty, bereaved by armed robbers and is inspired by the new malls and cultural venues. The question is: should he stay or should he leave?



But before the story can even begin, he has to queue for his visa..

Every Day is for the Thiefis a striking portrait of Nigeria in change. Through a series of cinematic portraits of everyday life in Lagos, Teju Cole provides a fresh approach to the returnee experience.- See more at: http://www.cassavarepublic.biz/products/every-day-is-for-the-thief#sthash.qe7r4oNv.dpuf



Teju Cole was brought up in Nigeria and moved to the USA in 1992. He is a writer, photographer and professional historian of early Netherlandish art. His novel Open City won the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New York City Book Award for Fiction and the Internationaler Literaturpreis, and was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Ondaatje Prize of the Royal Society of Literature. He lives in New York City.