A Kind of Madness

A one-eyed chicken, a chimpanzee forgotten in a cage, a tormented daughter searching for a link to past lives. Everyday madness and monsters are explored against the backdrop of an indifferent Lagos in Uche Okonkwo's dynamic debut collection.

Across ten evocative stories, A Kind of Madness dips in and out of the lives of Nigerians, unravelling the tensions between mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, best friends, siblings and more. Brimming with vitality, these bites of mundane madness mark the arrival of an extraordinary new talent in fiction and will leave you hungering for more.

'Steady-handed and gut-punching. I'm in awe of this mad collection, this necessary writer.' NoViolet Bulawayo, author of Glory

'Crackling with energy and alive to our whole kaleidoscope of feeling, these stories will rip you open and light up your insides.' Saba Sams, author of Send Nudes

'Uche Okonkwo's voice is absorbing. I was immersed in the familiar world of these tender, playfully haunting, darkly funny stories. Okonkwo is a writer to watch.' Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees

'To read A Kind of Madness is to have an experience: of complex characters grappling with life's many troubles, of a robust culture, of history, of the battle between the domestic and the public, and all the big themes of life woven together. Like Jhumpa Lahiri, Okonkwo's mastery of the form is as rich as some of the short story's best practitioners and deserves every recognition it is sure to get.' Chigozie Obioma, author of An Orchestra of Minorities

'Touched my heart. Uche Okonkwo's stories are among the very best.' Sidik Fofana, author of Stories from the Tenants Downstairs

'Hilarious and heartbreaking...A delightful debut.' Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, author of A Girl is a Body of Water

'Okonkwo has a Chekhovian eye for the tangle of internal motivations and assumptions that steer her characters...Readers will be eager for more of Okonkwo's artful writing.' Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

'Surprising, illuminating, and deeply human.' Booklist

Uche Okonkwo's stories have been published in A Public Space, One Story, the Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2019, and Lagos Noir, among others. A former Bernard O'Keefe Scholar at Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and resident at Art Omi, she is a recipient of the George Bennett Fellowship at Phillips Exeter Academy, a Steinbeck Fellowship, and an Elizabeth George Foundation grant. Okonkwo grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and is currently pursuing a creative writing PhD at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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