Named one of the best books of the year by the New York Times and National Public Radio, Every Day is for the Thief is about a young Nigerian living in New York City who goes home to Lagos for a short visit, finding a city both familiar and strange. He witnesses the “yahoo yahoos” diligently perpetrating email frauds from an Internet café, longs after a mysterious woman reading on a public bus, and recalls the tragic fate of an eleven-year-old boy accused of stealing at a local market. Along the way, the unnamed narrator reconnects with old friends, a former girlfriend, and extended family, and slowly begins to reconcile the profound changes that have taken place in his country and the truth about himself.
Raised in Nigeria, Teju Cole attended college in the United States and now lives in New York. His critically acclaimed debut novel, Open City, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is currently the photography critic of the New York Times Magazine and Distinguished Writer in Residence at Bard College.
Every Day is for the Thief concludes the library’s “New African Writers” discussion series, which also featured works by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and NoViolet Bulawayo.
