Every Day is for the Thief

Resumen del libro

A young man returns to Nigeria after fifteen years in New York. Like him, his childhood country has grown up quickly: found fast-food restaurants, email cafes, contempt for authority; the all-consuming draw of money for nothing. From the consulate in Manhattan to the dusty streets of Lagos, life in modern Nigeria runs like clockwork - as long as you pay the fee.
A bribe for the visa clerk, a 'Christmas gift' at immigration, cash - no receipt - at the unofficial tollbooth. Petrol pumps are rigged to overcharge and internet cafes overflow with career scammers, but the police are too busy doling out bogus fines to care. In a country routinely plundered of its oil and ancient treasures, who is to say who can thieve and who can't? As our narrator makes the difficult journey back to his family house and its memories, he is confronted by the paradox of a country he wants to love, as burdened by its impoverished past as it is blinded by the spoils of the future.

Biografía del autor

Teju Cole (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1975) creció en Nigeria y en 1992 se estableció en Estados Unidos. Es escritor, fotógrafo e historiador del arte. Debutó en 2007 con la presente obra, a la que siguió Ciudad abierta (Acantilado , 2012), novela aclamada y galardonada con el Premio PEN/ Hemingway, el New York City Book Award for Fiction y el Premio Rosenthal de la American Academy of Arts and Letters. En la actualidad vive en Nueva York.