Books by Teju Cole

A blazingly intelligent first collection of essays from the award-winning author of Open City and Every Day Is for the Thief. With these pieces on politics, photography, travel, history and literature - many of which have become viral sensations, shared and debated around the globe - Teju Cole solidifies his place as one of today's most powerful and original voices. On page after page, deploying prose dense with beauty and ideas, he finds fresh and potent ways to interpret art, people and historical moments. Cole tells of his engagement with Virginia Woolf through her diaries, before reflecting on an episode of temporary blindness in New York. He looks at the rise of Instagram and interrogates the value of its images. He examines the transition of the candidate Obama, the avid reader, into a 'forever-war' president on the global stage. Persuasive and provocative, erudite yet accessible, Known and Strange Things is an opportunity to live within Teju Cole's wide-ranging enthusiasms, curiosities and passions, and a chance to see the world in surprising and affecting new frames.'A book written with a scalpel, a microscope, and walking shoes, full of telling details and sometimes big surprises.' Rebecca Solnit

'The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space, great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and events float. Nigeria was like that for me: mostly forgotten, except for those few things that I remembered with outsize intensity.'Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor doing his residency wanders aimlessly. The walks meet a need for Julius: they are a release from the tightly regulated mental environment of work, and they give him the opportunity to process his relationships, his recent breakup with his girlfriend, his present, his past. Though he is navigating the busy parts of town, the impression of countless faces does nothing to assuage his feelings of isolation. But it is not only a physical landscape he covers; Julius crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people from different cultures and classes who will provide insight on his journey-which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria of his youth, and into the most unrecognizable facets of his own soul. A haunting novel about national identity, race, liberty, loss, dislocation, and surrender, Teju Cole's Open City seethes with intelligence. Written in a clear, rhythmic voice that lingers, this book is a mature, profound work by an important new author who has much to say about our world.

In Blind Spot, readers will follow Teju Cole's inimitable artistic vision into the visual realm, as he continues to refine the voice and intellectual obsessions that earned him such acclaim for Open City.

A young man decides to visit Nigeria after years of absence. Ahead lies the difficult journey back to the family house and all its memories; meetings with childhood friends and above all, facing up to the paradox of Nigeria, whose present is as burdened by the past as it is facing a new future.Along the way, our narrator encounters life in Lagos. He is captivated by a woman reading on a danfo; attempts to check his email are frustrated by Yahoo boys; he is charmingly duped buying fuel. He admires the grace of an aunty, bereaved by armed robbers and is inspired by the new malls and cultural venues. The question is: should he stay or should he leave?But before the story can even begin, he has to queue for his visa..Every Day is for the Thiefis a striking portrait of Nigeria in change. Through a series of cinematic portraits of everyday life in Lagos, Teju Cole provides a fresh approach to the returnee experience.- See more at: http://www.cassavarepublic.biz/products/every-day-is-for-the-thief#sthash.qe7r4oNv.dpuf

Åben by er en fortælling om den unge psykiater, Julius, som tilbringer sin tid efter arbejde med at gå rundt i New Yorks gader, alene og i timevis. Mens han går reflekterer han over sin barndom, sit forliste kærlighedsforhold og sin ensomhed og isolation i storbyen. Byen driver forbi ham, afslører spor af de mennesker som engang boede her. Ved hvert nyt møde trænger Julius dybere ind i New Yorks historie - og sin egen.Åben by en beretning om at være en fremmed i New York efter 9/11. En roman om vores tids store spørgsmål – om erindring, rodløshed og kunstens forløsende kraft. På en gang dagbog, flanørroman, essay og dagdrøm.Åben by er oversat til tolv sprog, var med på mere end tyve lister over årets bedste bøger, bl.a. i The New Yorker, Los Angeles Times og The Boston Globe, og indbragte flere priser.ANMELDERNE SKREV”En uforglemmelig og mesterlig debutroman..” THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW“Hvis Baudelaire havde været en ung afrikaner som gik rundt i New Yorks gader, er det her den bog han ville have skrevet. En melankolsk, smuk meditation over det moderne byliv som kan minde om W.G. Sebald og Walter Benjamin og som viser at Teju Cole tilhører en talentfuld ny generation af globale forfattere der har hjemme overalt i verden.” HARI KUNZU“En stærk og foruroligende undersøgelse af menneskets sjæl. Cole er fortjent blevet sammenlignet med litterære sværvægtere som J.M. Coetzee, W.G. Sebald and Henry James, men Åben by er først og fremmest et dybt originalt værk i sin egen ret: intellektuelt stimulerende og stilistisk medrivende og forførende.” - TIME MAGAZINE“Smuk, underfundig og original … det der driver fortællingen frem er skriften – begæret efter at skrive, at besejre ensomheden gennem skriften. Cole har lagt romanen så tæt på dagbogen som den overhovedet kan, med plads til refleksion, selvbiografi, stilstand og repetition. En ekstremt svær balance/øvelse som selv etablerede forfattere ville knække halsen på. Hos Cole lykkes det på mirakuløs og vidunderlig vis.” JAMES WOOD, THE NEW YORKER