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Random House
February 2011
On Sale: February 8, 2011
272 pages
ISBN: 1400068096
EAN: 9781400068098
Hardcover
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Fiction
“The past, if there is such a thing, is mostly empty space,
great expanses of nothing, in which significant persons and
events float. Nigeria was like that for me: mostly
forgotten, except for those few things that I remembered
with outsize intensity.”
Along the streets of Manhattan, a young Nigerian doctor
doing his residency wanders aimlessly. The walks meet a need
for Julius: they are a release from the tightly regulated
mental environment of work, and they give him the
opportunity to process his relationships, his recent breakup
with his girlfriend, his present, his past. Though he is
navigating the busy parts of town, the impression of
countless faces does nothing to assuage his feelings of
isolation. But it is not only a physical landscape he covers; Julius
crisscrosses social territory as well, encountering people
from different cultures and classes who will provide insight
on his journey—which takes him to Brussels, to the Nigeria
of his youth, and into the most unrecognizable facets of his
own soul. A haunting novel about national identity, race, liberty,
loss, dislocation, and surrender, Teju Cole’s Open City
seethes with intelligence. Written in a clear, rhythmic
voice that lingers, this book is a mature, profound work by
an important new author who has much to say about our
country and our world.
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