In an interview at the Seattle Public Library, the author explains that the reader intentionally never really sees Vivek come to the realization that he is a reincarnation. I would have liked a deeper exploration of the connection between Vivek’s blackouts and his reincarnation of his grandmother. While The Death of Vivek Oji didn’t match that written lyricism, I was drawn in by the realistic relationships created as young people shared secrets with one another, careful to keep their parents unaware of their relationships, conversations and actions and by the floating of time as the reader is taken forward and backward to unravel Vivek’s relationships, brief life and death. Chronicle of a Death Foretold, employed rhythm, lyricism, and magical realism as a murder mystery is unraveled by the victim. The novel is akin to a cover song, in this case a cover book, of Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The Death of Vivek Oji opened this door for me, intertwining the unfamiliarity of a Nigerian town with the contemporary and universal relationships among parents and youth and struggles of gender and sexual identity. Fiction can transport us to a time and place we may never otherwise travel, finding unknown delights or terrors or customs or food alongside experiences we have ourselves witnessed.
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