Nnamdi Ehirim

A provocative debut novel by a brilliant young Nigerian writer, tackling politics, class, spirituality, and power as a group of friends come of age in Lagos Growing up in middle-class Lagos, Nigeria during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ihechi forms a band of close friends discovering Lagos together as teenagers with differing opinions of everything from film to football, Fela Kuti to spirituality, sex to politics. They remain close-knit until tragedy unfolds during an anti-government riot. Exiled from Lagos by his concerned mother, Ihechi moves in with his uncle's family, where he struggles to find himself outside his former circle of friends. Ihechi eventually finds success by leveraging his connection with a notorious prostitution linchpin and political heavyweight, earning favor among the ruling elite. But just as Ihechi is about to make his final ascent into the elite political class, he reunites with his childhood friends and experiences a crisis of conscience that forces him to question his world, his motives, and whom he should become. Nnamdi Ehirim's debut novel,Prince of Monkeys, is a lyrical, meditative observation of Nigerian life, religion, and politics at the end of the twentieth century.

A Novel

The Prince of Monkeys

Across ten interconnected stories, six former schoolmates navigate adulthood, haunted by the ghosts of their shared past. Set against the backdrop of contemporary Lagos and boarding school life in Ogun state, The Brevity of Beautiful Things weaves through time, revealing the unexpected consequences of childhood trauma.

Kamara wrestles with the shadow of his demanding father. Julius is lumbered with an imaginable burden after his father’s stroke, Iman escapes her family’s suffocating religious ties. Ufedo treads a precarious path in her pursuit of pleasure. Murtala harbours a secret he’s neverfully shared about his sex life. Faramade lives a life that he knows should be better.

As their paths cross again in adulthood, each character grapples with the fleeting nature of happiness, the weight of unrequited love, and the strain of loyalty. The Brevity of Beautiful Things is a poignant exploration of memory, perspective, and the fragile threads that connect us to our past and each other.

The Brevity of Beautiful Things

A provocative debut novel by a brilliant young Nigerian writer, tackling politics, class, spirituality, and power as a group of friends come of age in Lagos Growing up in middle–class Lagos, Nigeria during the late 1980s and early 1990s, Ihechi forms a band of close friends discovering Lagos together as teenagers with differing opinions of everything from film to football, Fela Kuti to spirituality, sex to politics. They remain close–knit until tragedy unfolds during an anti–government riot. Exiled from Lagos by his concerned mother, Ihechi moves in with his uncle’s family, where he struggles to find himself outside his former circle of friends. Ihechi eventually finds success by leveraging his connection with a notorious prostitution linchpin and political heavyweight, earning favor among the ruling elite. But just as Ihechi is about to make his final ascent into the elite political class, he reunites with his childhood friends and experiences a crisis of conscience that forces him to question his world, his motives, and whom he should become. Nnamdi Ehirim's debut novel, Prince of Monkeys, is a lyrical, meditative observation of Nigerian life, religion, and politics at the end of the twentieth century.

Nnamdi Ehirim

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