Wilderness of Mirrors

Exquisitely written and deeply absorbing, Olufemi Terry's remarkable debut explores the effects of colonialism, social atomization and the rootlessness of affluence.

To satisfy his father's sentimental demand that he rescue his drifting cousin, Emil - a young trainee surgeon born into an affluent creole family - sets aside his studies and moves into his aunt's house in a remote multiracial African city, Stadmutter. Among his indifferent relatives, Emil is disquieted by days of unaccustomed aimlessness and by an encounter with Bolling, a wealthy and mystical foreigner who woos him intellectually and sexually. He is seduced by Tamsin, a historian of Sigmund Freud working to define herself against the fading privilege of her background.

Beneath a veneer of indolence, Stadmutter seethes. Bolling is covertly working with Braeem Shaka, an advocate for reparations to creoles, to foment tension that imperils the country's fragile racial progress. Emil is increasingly diverted from his initial mission into uncharted waters and - as Shaka becomes a wanted man - pulled by his relationships with Bolling and Tamsin toward the impossibility of returning to his former existence as a promising medical student.