Paperback of Tope Folarin’s debut “A Particular Kind of Black Man” now available

The paperback edition of A Particular Kind of Black Man (Simon & Schuster, 2019), debut novel by the 2013 Caine Prize for African Writing Winner, Tope Folarin, is out.

Originally published 6 August, 2019, the paperback was made available by the publishers Yesterday, 13 August, 2020.

The novel won the NPR Best Book of 2019, was praised by Publishers Weekly as “electrifying”, “Sweeping, stirring, and perspective-shifting” by the New York Times Book Review among other wins.

It follows the story of a Nigerian family living in Utah and their uneasy assimilation to American life.

Full synopsis:

Living in small-town Utah has always been an uncomfortable fit for Tunde Akinola’s family, especially for his Nigeria-born parents. Though Tunde speaks English with a Midwestern accent, he can’t escape the children who rub his skin and ask why the black won’t come off. As he struggles to fit in, he finds little solace from his parents who are grappling with their own issues.

Tunde’s father, ever the optimist, works tirelessly chasing his American dream while his wife, lonely in Utah without family and friends, sinks deeper into schizophrenia. Then one otherwise-ordinary morning, Tunde’s mother wakes him with a hug, bundles him and his baby brother into the car, and takes them away from the only home they’ve ever known.

But running away doesn’t bring her, or her children, any relief; once Tunde’s father tracks them down, she flees to Nigeria, and Tunde never feels at home again. He spends the rest of his childhood and young adulthood searching for connection—to the wary stepmother and stepbrothers he gains when his father remarries; to the Utah residents who mock his father’s accent; to evangelical religion; to his Texas middle school’s crowd of African-Americans; to the fraternity brothers of his historically black college. In so doing, he discovers something that sends him on a journey away from everything he has known.

Tope Folarin is a Nigerian-American writer based in Washington, DC. He won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2013 and was shortlisted once again in 2016. He was also recently named to the Africa39 list of the most promising African writers under 40. He was educated at Morehouse College and the University of Oxford, where he earned two Masters degrees as a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author of A Particular Kind of Black Man.

Purchase here.