Chukwuebuka Ibeh
Source: Facebook.
Vikings UK recently acquired 22 year old Chukwuebuka Ibeh’s Debut in an exclusive submission. It will be published in spring 2024. On Twitter, Ibeh reacts:
Set in 2010, the coming of age story alternates between the perspectives of Obiefuna, a young gay man, and his mother, Uzoamaka.
The synopsis reads:
“When Obiefuna’s father witnesses an intimate moment between his teenage son and the family’s apprentice, newly arrived from the nearby village, he banishes Obiefuna to a strict Christian boarding school. Surrounded by unknown faces that soon become friends, lovers and enemies, Obiefuna finds and hides who he truly is, while his mother Uzoamaka grapples to hold on to her favourite son, her truest friend. Leaving school as a young man, Nigeria criminalises same-sex relationships – and Obiefuna’s life, or the life he wants to live, becomes even harder to envision – out of a reach in a way that is more dangerous and tangible than before.”
“I’ve long been interested in the Same Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014,” Ibeh comments of his work. “… in interrogating how unprovoked, cynical politics can impact ordinary lives.” The novel also explores “parental love, the question of self-hood, friends and friendships, loneliness and longing” which are themes at the heart of his writing.
“Ibeh’s talent is unmistakable,” Wall says to The Bookseller. She first came across Ibeh’s writing from a stunning short story of his online and contacted him if he’d be interested in writing a novel. “I could not be prouder to be bringing his miraculous debut into the world,” she says.
Leong, on the other hand, praises Ibeh’s writing as “masterful” ,”wise” and “instinctive”.
Chukwuebuka Ibeh hails from Port Harcourt, Nigeria. His writing has appeared in McSweeney’s, the New England Review of Books and Lolwe, among others. He is a staff writer at Brittle Paper. A Runner-up for the 2021 J.F Powers Prize for Fiction, a finalist for the Gerald Kraak Award and Morland Foundation Scholarship and profiled as one of the “Most Promising New Voices of Nigerian Fiction” in Electric Literature.
He is currently a student on a fully funded MFA programme at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, until 2024.
Congratulations, Chukwuebuka!
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