Tail of the Blue Bird
  • Published: 15 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9781446466254
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176

Tail of the Blue Bird

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EBook
15 Jun 2010
Paperback
15 Jun 2010
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A beautiful meditation on the relationship between old and new worlds in developing Africa.


'A delightful book that combines the basic tug of the whodunit with the more elegant pleasures of the literary novel' Independent

Sonokrom, a village in the Ghanaian hinterland, has not changed for hundreds of years. Here, the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and walk alongside the spirits of their ancestors. The discovery of sinister remains - possibly human, definitely 'evil' - and the disappearance of a local man brings the intrusion of the city in the form of Kayo, a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries.

As old and new worlds clash and clasp, and Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba, delve deeper into the case, they discover a truth that leaves scientific explanations far behind.
  • Published: 15 June 2010
  • ISBN: 9781446466254
  • Imprint: Vintage Digital
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 176
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About the author

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Born in the UK in 1974 and raised in Ghana, Nii Parkes lives in Manchester. He has performed poetry in the UK, Europe, Ghana and the US and was a 2005 Associate Artist-in-Residence with BBC Radio 3. In 2007 he was writer-in-residence at California State University, and became one of the youngest living writers to be featured in the Poems on the Underground programme in London for his poem Tin Roof. Tail of the Blue Bird is his first novel.

Praise for Tail of the Blue Bird

A brilliant new voice

Time Out

A deeply complex novel; each character, every line entices the reader into feeling the beating heart of urban and rural Ghanaian lives... Parkes' steady, assured writing weaves a cosmological mystery that keeps you guessing to the very last page

Courttia Newland

A delightful book that combines the basic tug of the whodunit with the more elegant pleasures of the literary novel

Independent

A lyrically beautiful tale

Arise

A magical and engaging read

Margaret Busby

An African whodunit that alludes to the troublesome relationship that lies between the modernity and custom ... Parkes has managed to write fabulously poetic and fresh prose that is both vernacular and contemporary

Hisham Matar

In this tale of crime, punishment, and forgiveness Parkes' landscapes are filled with magic, his characters speak with the wisdom of the ancients; he has used his poet's sensibility to recreate for us the oral tales, fables and wonders of a world before time, a world overtaken by time

Helon Habila

The novel has a compelling draw; the supernatural is undercut by a psychological authenticity with strong Freudian resonance and a very human pull...like all good detective stories of the gentler persuasion, it is a humane investigation of human failing as much as it is about crime, but it also touches on more threatening and mysterious territory

Times Literary Supplement