When I Feel Lost . . .

The books that satisfy my soul are books written by immigrants. They give voice to feelings that lodge deep in my soul that I sometimes struggle to articulate, and they help me make sense of issues that weigh heavily on my mind.

I feel kinship with such authors regardless of where they are from. After all we are all in the same boat – away from home, in a foreign land, trying to make the best of our circumstances.

So I am always delighted when I discover a new “immigrant” author. Today, I came across Teju Cole, a Nigerian author in New York, who has published a new book, “Open City”.

Critic Taylor Antrim, of The Daily Beast, says “Teju Cole's meditative novel about a Nigerian immigrant in New York is the best, and darkest, first novel of this early year.”

According to Antrim, “Julius, the protagonist in the novel, looks like the bright side of globalism—born in Africa to a German mother and Nigerian father, educated in New York, now one year from his medical degree—but he feels off-step, adrift”.

This prompts Antrim to ask, “Is this the cost of emigration? An amorphous unease, a sense of never being at rest or at home?”

Many of us struggle with this feeling, never feeling quite at home, in our new home. I am interested to see how Cole tackles this issue. Needless to say, I will be ordering this book immediately.