The Guardian Bookshop makes over 180,000 books available with up to 40% discount, as well as highlighting some of our favourite publications in each genre.
Find out more.
The first novel in a major trilogy exposing the guilt, loneliness and nihilism of the ex-pat experience in post-colonial Africa. This is the first part of an acclaimed African Trilogy.
Synopsis
The first novel in a major trilogy exposing the guilt, loneliness and nihilism of the ex-pat experience in post-colonial Africa.
Book Details
Publisher:
Quercus Publishing
Publication Date:
27-Oct-2011
ISBN:
9780857050595
Guardian review
Exile by Jakob Ejersbo review
the guardian Tue 03 January 2012
Nordkraft, Ejersbo's study of wasters and weed-smokers in the Danish city of Aalborg, earned favourable comparisons with Irvine Welsh. Ejersbo died in 2008 aged only 40, but having completed a trilogy detailing his experiences growing up in Africa, of which this is the first part. Fifteen-year-old Samantha is at school in Tanzania where she struggles to make her own excitement: "It's entirely possible to smoke so much that your poo smells of nicotine. It's a matter of stamina, that's all." Dad is a former SAS man who sells his services to local despots; mum counts the hours till sundown when she can sink into an alcoholic stupor. The prospect of returning to Europe offers little comfort as Samantha feels "Too much of a negro I'm only white on the outside." Ejersbo clearly understood the enervating limbo of expatriate life, but his short, blunt sentences become wearying. "We spend New Year's Eve at Tanga Yacht Club. Welcome to 1984. It's tedium personified." Unfortunately 1985 and 1986 turn out to be pretty uneventful as well.
