Chris Abani

Uno de los 25 mejores libros del año, según Los Angeles Times

For Black, a mural artist in East L.A., the city's tumbledown landscape is his canvas. Residing in a ramshackle apartment above 'The Ugly Store', he lives for his art and obsesses over Sweet Girl, the transvestite stripper who serves as his muse. Black navigates life alongside the Los Angeles River, 'iridescent in its concrete sleeve', enlisting his friends - Iggy, the beautiful tattoo artist who has beguiled Hollywood's elite, and Bomboy, a wealthy Rwandan butcher - as he confronts his past and struggles to find his place in the world. This is a searing and dazzlingly written novel of a tarnished City of Angels filled with indelible images and unforgettable characters. Chris Abani touches on the far reaches of psychic pain, religious and sexual, and takes the reader on an unforgettable journey.

Even with the knowledge that there are some sins too big for even God to forgive, every night my sky is still full of stars; a wonderful song for night. Trained as a human mine detector, a boy soldier in West Africa witnesses and takes part in unspeakable brutality. At 12 his vocal cords are cut to prevent him from screaming and giving away his platoons presence, should he be blown up. Awaking after an explosion to find that hes lost his platoon, he traces his steps back through abandoned villages and rotting corpses - and through his own memories - in search of his comrades. The horror of past events is relived and gradually come to terms with as he finds some glimmers of hope and beauty in this nightmarish place. A daring blend of horror and beauty The Observer Song for Night contains, at once, an extraordinary ferocity and a vulnerable beauty all its own. New York Times Song for Night is a devastating portrait of a boy holding onto the shreds of his innocence during a war that deliberately, remorselessly works to yank it away. Los Angeles Times If you want to get at the molten heart of contemporary fiction, Abani is the starting point. Dave Eggers Abani...brings to mind Babel, Hemingway, McCarthy. Esquire Chris Abani is a writer of mesmerizing powers, embracing warmth, and transcendent compassion. Donna Seaman in BookLust The genius of Abanis work derives from his intellectual engagement with our world and his unflinching depictions, in the most mesmerizing language imaginable, of its most insidious horrors and its richest beauties. Song for Night demonstrates, yet again, why Abani ranks among our most incendiary and emotionally devastating and important writers. Miami Herald

A gritty, riveting, and wholly original murder mystery from PEN/Hemingway Award-winning author and 2015 Edgar Awards winner Chris Abani Before he can retire, Las Vegas detective Salazar is determined to solve a recent spate of murders. When he encounters a pair of conjoined twins with a container of blood near their car, hes sure he has apprehended the killers, and enlists the help of Dr. Sunil Singh, a South African transplant who specializes in the study of psychopaths. As Sunil tries to crack the twins, the implications of his research grow darker. Haunted by his betrayal of loved ones back home during apartheid, he seeks solace in the love of Asia, a prostitute with hopes of escaping that life. But Sunils own troubled past is fast on his heels in the form of a would-be assassin. Suspenseful through the last page, The Secret History of Las Vegas is Chris Abanis most accomplished work to date, with his trademark visionary prose and a striking compassion for the inner lives of outsiders.

For Black, a mural artist in East L.A., the citys tumbledown landscape is his canvas. Residing in a ramshackle apartment above The Ugly Store, he lives for his art and obsesses over Sweet Girl, the transvestite stripper who serves as his muse. Black navigates life alongside the Los Angeles River, iridescent in its concrete sleeve, enlisting his friends - Iggy, the beautiful tattoo artist who has beguiled Hollywoods elite, and Bomboy, a wealthy Rwandan butcher - as he confronts his past and struggles to find his place in the world.Chris Abani touches on the far reaches of psychic pain, religious and sexual, and takes the reader on an unforgettable journey.

This powerful collection of poems details the harrowing experiences endured by Abani and other political prisoners at the hands of Nigerias military regime in the late 1980s.Abani vividly describes the characters that peopled this dark world, from prison inmates such as John James, tortured to death at the age of fourteen, to the general overseers. First published after his release from jail in 1991, Kalakuta Republic remains a paean to those who suffered and to the indomitable human spirit.