launch, I got to speak with her about selling her first novel as a teenager, the inspiration for 'Welcome to Lagos,' and why she believes so strongly in herself and in young writers. this month before returning to King’s College London to complete her doctorate in history. Onuzo, who grew up in Lagos and attended boarding school in England, will tour the U.S. debut, though both 'Welcome to Lagos' and her first novel, the award-winning 'The Spider King’s Daughter,' were previously published in the U.K. From there the story grows even livelier, as Onuzo spins a vivid and wild tale of crisscrossing lives and destinies in a city filled with injustice and opportunity, complexity and corruption. The unlikely comrades wind up in an abandoned basement apartment owned by Chief Sandayo, the country’s minister of education - who turns up one night, on the run with $10 million in his bags. He turns his back on his platoon and he and his junior officer, Yemi, depart for Lagos, accumulating a ragtag band of fellow travelers along the way: Isoken, a 16-year-old fleeing violence and assault at the hands of rebel fighters Fineboy, a rebel who has unlikely dreams of breaking into radio and Oma, a woman who has left her abusive spouse. Onuzo’s briskly plotted novel is a rewarding exploration of the limits of idealism and transparency against widespread cynicism and corruption.' (Catapult, May 1st) opens with Nigerian army officer Chike Ameobi, who is given an order to kill innocent civilians - an order he finds he cannot follow. Quintessential African politics,” thinks one BBC correspondent covering the minister’s story. What to do with the minister, and more important, with his money? Onuzo’s representation of Lagos as “a carnivore of a city that swallowed even bones” is often unromantic, but she also criticizes how the city is represented, or misrepresented, by Westerners: “Scandal, murder, intrigue. There they encounter someone desperately trying to leave Lagos: an education minister who has gone into hiding with $10 million meant for Nigeria’s schools. These characters form a family of sorts as they are welcomed to Lagos coolly, obliged to live in a homeless encampment before settling in an unoccupied house. Seeking refuge in the metropolis for various reasons, several Nigerian travelers group up en route to Lagos, including morally upright army deserter Chike swaggering teenage militant Fineboy well-to-do Oma, who is fleeing her abusive husband and a precocious but traumatized girl, Isoken.

debut, Onuzo anatomizes a tumultuous city and its inhabitants, from street hustlers to well-connected government ministers.

Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo