Exploring Being "On the Margins": A Review of Eloghosa Osunde's Vagabonds! by Boakye D. Alpha
Subliminal. Surreal. I always found myself pausing in the middle of my reading just to admire the gold I had in my hand.
In the bustling streets and cloistered homes of Lagos, a cast of vivid characters—some haunted, some defiant—navigate danger, demons, and love in a quest to lead true lives.
✨ First of all, this book is nothing like I have read before. It is bold!
There were times I got teary—the good kind of teary! My mind would scream: She's good, God!
✨ There is a way that Eloghosa Osunde writes that keeps me in awe, gives me shivers even—like I've had a dose of something, anything, I didn't know I needed so bad! Very refreshing.
Vagabonds! follows the lives of several "vagabonds" throughout Lagos, obscuring the lines between the living and the dead - those driven underground by cultural conventions or by law, those who are poor, ghosts, queer, or otherwise unknown by day but appear at night.
✨ The novel comes out as a collection of short stories...stories that are interconnected in ways that are mesmerising, though they seem at first unconnected.
The story unfolds mostly in Lagos, where the city serves as a character in itself, taking on the role of a mythical, godlike figure that towers above everything and everyone. The city comes to life and the stories of every character are bound to it.
✨ Then, all through it, there are hints of Nigeria as it is, as it can be and as should be. Eloghosa addresses some issues of gender or sexual identity, and poverty among others.
✨ Subliminal. Surreal. Daring.
I often found myself pausing in the middle of my reading just to admire the gold I had in my hand. The writing is complex and fully enchanting, and it is filled with narratives that hang remarkably from being devastating to shockingly powerful to daringly absurd and unconventional. You go from freaking out to being afraid to be sympathetic to smiling to questioning society…a lot. Just a rollercoaster.
✨ I have scribbled all over my copy going back and forth between previously read chapters and the one I would be reading, connecting some dots and making links.
As it has highly been publicised, the subject and themes in the book might not be for everyone. Approach the book with an open mind—the kind that is accommodative.
✨ And, oh, read between and beyond the lines. You might still not understand certain things. Come to social media and scream if you get overwhelmed 😅 and know that you are not alone. It can definitely be a difficult read (sometimes) but fret not, with something this rich, that’s bound to happen.
There’s this audacity that comes with the storytelling and the writing that you found yourself asking: “how could she?” and you have no choice but to just dive in and let a book carry you wherever it would.
Without question, I know it will be one of my favourite books of 2022. It is a five-star for me!
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About the Book:
As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities. Eloghosa Osunde's brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city's dark energy. Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde's characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion.
Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph.