A Siege of Owls

Nigerian author Awoke (The Liquid Eye of a Moon) offers a captivating and magic-fueled adventure set in contemporary Africa. Ten-year-old Ekwe defies his father’s warning that if he touches a forbidden leaf called an ekwukwonju, he will “be blown away by wild wandering winds.” Not long after, Ekwe falls asleep on a bus, arriving unintentionally in Maidaguri in northeastern Nigeria after riding all night. He’s taken in by a cow herder, Danjuma, and slowly learns the family’s language. One evening, as the family sits down for supper, Muslim extremists burst into their home and open fire, injuring Danjuma and killing one of his wives and a daughter. Afterward, Danjuma migrates with his surviving family to the south, where they briefly find peace, until local tensions between farmers and cow herders erupt in violence. Ekwe is then borne away by a large owl to Central Africa, where he is mentored by a mercenary named Jafari. When he and his fellow mercenaries are abandoned by their employer, Jafari and Ekwe resort to petty crime, until Jafari accepts a proposal from a shady war profiteer who makes him swear allegiance to the Mesopotamian goddess Lamashtu. Then, suddenly, Ekwe wakes up at home, “confused and dizzy,” and learns that a much older, richer man is courting his 12-year-old sister, Oyibo. Awoke weaves his immersive and lyrical tale with folklore and vivid scenes of real-world violence. This one hits hard. Agent: Annie DeWitt, Shipman Agency. (May)