The God Child

by Nana Oforiatta Ayim

Overview

'Engrossing and memorable' Ben Okri

'Meditative, gestural, philosophic: a brave reinvention of the immigrant narrative ... Unprecedented' Taiye Selasi

'I read this novel very slowly. I didn't want to miss anything ... It is a rich, beautiful book and when I got to the end, I wanted to start again' Chibundu Onuzo

Maya grows up in Germany knowing that her parents are different: from one another, and from the rest of the world. Her reserved, studious father is distant; and her beautiful, volatile mother is a whirlwind, with a penchant for lavish shopping sprees and a mesmerising power for spinning stories of the family's former glory – of what was had, and what was lost.

And then Kojo arrives one Christmas, like an annunciation: Maya's cousin, and her mother's godson. Kojo has a way with words – a way of talking about Ghana, and empire, and what happens when a country's treasures are spirited away by colonialists. For the first time, Maya has someone who can help her understand why exile has made her parents the way they are. But then Maya and Kojo are separated, shuttled off to school in England, where they come face to face with the maddening rituals of Empire.

Returning to Ghana as a young woman, Maya is reunited with her powerful but increasingly troubled cousin. Her homecoming will set off an exorcism of their family and country's strangest, darkest demons. It is in this destruction's wake that Maya realises her own purpose: to tell the story of her mother, her cousin, their land and their loss, on her own terms, in her own voice.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408882405
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	11/14/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Nana Oforiatta Ayim is a Ghanaian writer, art historian and filmmaker. She is founder of the ANO Institute of Arts&Knowledge, through which she has pioneered a pan-African Cultural Encyclopaedia. Recently appointed a TORCH Global South Visiting Fellow to Oxford University, she is also the recipient of the 2015 Art&Technology Award from LACMA; of the 2016 AIR Award; and of the inaugural 2018 Soros Arts Fellowship. She is a contributor to the 2019 New Daughters of Africa anthology and in February 2019 delivered a TED Talk. Ayim will curate the Ghana's first pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2019. The God Child is her first novel. She lives in Ghana.

Editorial Reviews

This is a story that is obsessed with stories; indeed, The God Child could be described as a series of sharply drawn short fictions, each consequential on its own, each only glancingly connected to the others. As I read this book, with all its leaps in time and space, I sometimes had the sense that there was another narrative running just beneath the surface of the text, some alternate story that the characters I was reading about simultaneously inhabited…At times this feeling was thrilling, and at others maddening. Yet isn't this precisely the experience of migration, of trying to situate yourself in contexts that weren't created for you? Kojo and Maya's migrations eventually lead them back to Ghana, where they hope to find material they need to complete their story, years in the making. A story that, like this one, will illuminate Ghana's history; a story that will coax something whole from the broken parts of their lives.

The New York Times Book Review - Tope Folarin

10/07/2019

Ayim’s promising but uneven debut follows Ghanian expatriate Maya through her childhood and young adulthood in stultifying German society. Growing up in Germany and the U.K. during the 1970s and ’80s, with sporadic visits to Ghana, Maya is brought up in a wealthy, educated home and is fluent in both English and German. However, she is considered a foreigner in both European and Ghanian society and in the communities where she lives and attends school. After Maya’s father leaves the family when she’s in grade school, Maya’s beautiful and gregarious mother takes over the task of raising Maya and her cousin, Kojo, and tells them stories of their illustrious royal ancestors. While Maya is obedient, strives to fit in, and tries to ignore her peers’ racist remarks, Kojo’s impulsiveness makes him a target of bullies at school (and even at home). The narrative culminates in a visit to Ghana, where an adult Maya witnesses Kojo’s anguished struggle to establish a museum in Accra that he hopes will restore their family’s dynastic cultural lineage. While Ayim perceptively digs into the fragmented nature of family, colonialism, and transnational identity, these threads never combine to form a cohesive whole. Despite electric prose, sharp cultural allusions, and a charismatic protagonist, Ayim’s premise remains frustratingly ambiguous. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

A beautifully told story of family secrets and conflicting cultural expectations.” —Booklist (starred review)

“A compelling and ambitious novel . . . Through Maya's disjointed experiences of wandering-searching-leaving-returning, Ayim adroitly navigates the lasting consequences of family dysfunction, immigration, colonial legacy, and political upheaval. Part parable, part history, part warning, The God Child is a resonating, intimate drama of family gone awry across a shrinking global stage.” —Shelf Awareness

“Meditative, gestural, philosophic: a brave reinvention of the immigrant narrative, unapologetically inward-facing, seductively lyric. Cesaire's Notebook meets Duras' Lover. Unprecedented.” —Taiye Selasi, author of GHANA MUST GO

“I read this novel very slowly. I didn't want to miss anything. Maya's story is a journey through Akan history and culture, through migrating and returning home, through colonial subjugation and an assertion of African identity. It is a rich, beautiful book and when I got to the end, I wanted to start again” —Chibundu Onuzo, author of WELCOME TO LAGOS and THE SPIDER KING'S DAUGHTER

“It is a rare kind of woman who enjoys a project so vast that it's practically unfinishable, but Nana Oforiatta Ayim, a Ghanaian gallerist, writer, and historian, never quits what she has started.” —Vogue

“Ghanaian art historian, writer, and filmmaker Nana Oforiatta-Ayim is one of the foremost architects of the contemporary African arts scene . . . building a flourishing arts ecosystem.” —OkayAfrica

“Immigrant narratives are especially important now, and Nana Oforiatta Ayim's is one to take in fully and carefully. Examinations of family, cultural expectations, secrets, legacy and in(ter)dependence are skillfully woven throughout this extraordinary debut.” —Ms. Magazine

"Engrossing and memorable." - Ben Okri, Man Booker Prize-winning author of THE FAMISHED ROAD

“This is a story that is obsessed with stories . . . I sometimes had the sense that there was another narrative running just beneath the surface of the text . . . At times this feeling was thrilling, and at others maddening. Yet isn't this precisely the experience of migration, of trying to situate yourself in contexts that weren't created for you? . . . A story [like this one] will illuminate Ghana's history . . . will coax something whole from the broken parts.” —New York Times Book Review

"Expansive and contemplative." - Electric Literature

From the Publisher