Speak Gigantular – Irenosen Okojie
Speak Gigantular is a startling debut short story collection from one of Britain’s rising literary stars. These stories are captivating, erotic, enigmatic and disturbing. Irenosen Okojie’s gift is in her understated humour, her light touch, her razor-sharp assessment of the best and worst of humankind, and her unflinching gaze into the darkest corners of the human experience.
In these stories, Okojie creates worlds where lovelorn aliens abduct innocent coffee shop waitresses, where the London Underground is inhabited by the ghosts of errant Londoners caught between here and the hereafter, where insensitive men cheat on their mistresses and can only muster enough interest to fall for one-dimensional poster girls and where brave young women attempt to be erotically empowered at their own peril. Sexy, serious, and at times downright disturbing, this brilliant collection sizzles with originality.
Speak Gigantular is filled with luminous prose and harsh realities cloaked in magical realism. There is insight, imagination, and subtle humour that balances out the persistent thread of darkness connecting these tales. No two stories are alike.
Irenosen Okojie is a Nigerian-British writer who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Southbank Centre, and the Caine Prize and was a Writer in Residence for TEDx East End. In 2015 the Evening Standard named her as one of the top debut novelists of the summer with for her novel Butterfly Fish.
