Politics & Prose at Busboys and Poets 14th & V welcomes Okey Ndibe to present their new book "Never Look an American in the Eye: A Memoir of Flying Turtles, Colonial Ghosts, and the Making of a Nigerian American."
A seasoned journalist and magazine editor, Ndibe came to the U.S. from Nigeria in 1988 to help Chinua Achebe launch African Commentary, which became a noted journal of ideas under Ndibe’s editorship. In his third book, Ndibe, also the author of the novels Foreign Gods, Inc. and Arrows of Rain, looks back over his immigration experience, from the shock of a racial profiling incident two weeks after his arrival, to his teaching experiences at Brown, Trinity College, and other institutions. The engaging wit and humor that captivated readers of Ndibe’s fiction is here as well, especially when he compares Nigerian and American social norms and stereotypes, contrasting the magic of Nigerian folktales with the magical thinking of Wall Street.