Uchenna Awoke

A Siege of Owls

A Novel

An urgent and unforgettable work of magical realism following a young man coming of age in rural West Africa as he bears witness to the violence, upheaval, and hope in a rapidly changing society

After touching a forbidden leaf that his father warns will trap him in astral planes, young Ekwe embarks on a journey across West Africa and back to his own village, where his twelve-year-old sister is being pressured to marry a wealthy adult suitor. Ekwe becomes obsessed with how much their lives would improve if she married this man, but Oyibo, stubborn and proud, resists the path that is laid out for her.

A Siege of Owls does not shy away from tragedy, yet the prose’s lush lyricism and surprising comedy offer hope and grace in spite of its depiction of social upheaval. A love story takes shape as family and land disintegrate and re-form; characters are rendered fully dimensional while still being executors of violence and power.

In a rich poetic style all his own, Uchenna Awoke sheds light on conflicts of land, an ever-shifting diaspora, and the violence of child marriage.

The Liquid Eye of a Moon

A Novel

A Nigerian Catcher in the Rye, Uchenna Awoke’s masterful debut breaks the silence about a hidden and dangerous contemporary caste system

Fifteen-year-old Dimkpa dreams of the day his father will be made village head. He will return to school and maybe even go on to university; his mother will no longer have to break her back foraging wild food to sell at market; they will have the money to build a fine tomb for his aunt Okike; and his family’s status as ohu ma, the lowest Igbo caste, won’t matter anymore. But when his father is passed over for a younger man, breaking tradition, Dimkpa realizes that he must make his own fate.

Journeying from his small village in rural Nigeria, to Lagos, Awka, and home again, Dimkpa learns that no money is easy money, that superstition runs deep, that knowledge is power, and that sometimes it is better to live in the present than to always be chasing a future just out of reach.

The Liquid Eye of a Moon is by turns hilarious and poignant, capturing all the messiness of adolescence, and the difficulty of making your own way in a world that seeks to oppress you.