"Meet the future of African literature" (Mukoma Wa Ngugi, author of
Nairobi Heat) with this "gorgeous, wildly funny, and, above all,
profoundly moving and humane" (Peter Orner, author of Am I Alone Here)
coming-of-age tale following a young man who is forced to flee his
homeland of Rwanda and make sense of his reality.
Nobody ever makes it to the start of a story, not even the people in
it. The most one can do is make some sort of start and then work toward
some kind of ending.
One might as well start with Séraphin: playlist-maker, nerd-jock hybrid,
self-appointed merchant of cool, Rwandan, stifled and living in Namibia.
Soon he will leave the confines of his family life for the cosmopolitan
city of Cape Town, where loyal friends, hormone-saturated parties,
adventurous conquests, and race controversies await. More than that, his
long-awaited final year in law school promises to deliver a crucial
puzzle piece of the Great Plan immigrant: a degree from a prestigious
university.
But a year is more than the sum of its parts, and en route to the
future, the present must be lived through and even the past must be
survived in this "hilarious and heartbreaking" (Adam Smyer, author of
Knucklehead) intersection of pre- and post-1994 Rwanda, colonial and
post-independence Windhoek, Paris and Brussels in the 70s, Nairobi
public schools, and the racially charged streets of Cape Town.
"Visually striking and beautiful told with youthful energy and hard-won
wisdom" (Rabeah Ghaffari, author of To Keep the Sun Alive), The
Eternal Audience of One is a lyrical and piquant tale of family,
migration, friendship, war, identity, and race that will sweep you off
your feet.
