The Whispering Trees by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

The Whispering Trees, award winning writer Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s debut collection of short stories, employs nuance, subtle drama and deadpan humour to capture colourful Nigerian lives. There’s Kyakkyawa, who sparks forbidden thoughts in her father and has a bit of angels and witches in her; there’s the mysterious butterfly girl who just might be a incarnation of Ohikwo’s long dead mother; there’s also a flummoxed white woman caught between two Nigerian brothers and an unfolding scandal, and, of course, the two medicine men of Mazade who battle against their egos, an epidemic and an enigmatic witch.