How do you quickly come up with a blog entry? Search "gruesome novel Nigeria" in Google

Why search for that and see what you can find? It's more likely to get a hit than "Fairytale novel Nigeria"? (Well, no it isn't really; see tomorrow's post.) It did work: the first link led me to a nice review of a novel and writer I had not previously heard of, at Qantara.de, an interesting website in its own right.

Abdulrazak Gurnah – "Pilgrim's Way"

As Foreign as a Drop of Oil in Water

In his novel Pilgrim's Way, Abdulrazak Gurnah, two-time Booker Prize nominee and native of Zanzibar, writes about migrants and their foreignness. The book is an angry postcolonial "coming to terms" with society. Review by Jan Valk
Abdulrazak Gurnah
There are different forms of foreignness. There is the foreignness of the newcomer – of one who has yet to familiarize himself with a new environment. And then there is the foreignness of a drop of oil in a pail of water. This is more than a temporary state. It is the true existential form of foreignness: something insoluble.