Description
Book SynopsisWhen Desire Mensah, a disgraced school teacher in her thirties, meets Wolfgang “Wolf” Ofori, an eleven-year-old genius, a strange friendship develops between them. Set in 1990s Ghana, The Wolf at Number 4 is a chilling and funny gothic tale that forces us to confront whether the wolves around us are born or made.
Trade Review“
The Wolf at Number 4 is … a debut novel that, like many of the best debuts, manages to be simultaneously surprising and familiar … [It] manages to present dark material sincerely but also with a great deal of humor. Don’t miss it.” * Literary Hub *
“
The Wolf at Number 4 brings together … disparate influences, from 19th century Gothic fiction to the plays of Tennessee Williams, to tell the story of an unlikely bond that forms between two people whose paths cross in the city of Cape Coast, Ghana. The resulting narrative takes a host of twists along the way, blending the familiar with the unexpected.” * Vol. 1 Brooklyn *
“An eleven-year-old boy genius struggling with the human condition, a controlling father, an alcoholic schoolteacher on the run from her past, and a town that won’t let secrets remain buried. What could possibly go wrong?
The Wolf at Number Four is dark, bold, and shocking. I love this book.”
“Tamakloe-Garr is one of a new wave of African authors … deservedly beginning to reach a wider international audience.… The story, a blend of humour and unsettling Gothic darkness, zips along as Desire’s life descends further and further into chaos and there’s a doozy of a twist at the end.” * Still Not Fussed *
“Fast-paced and with unexpected twists,
The Wolf at Number Four throws together an unusual cast, led by an English teacher with a disturbing past looking for a fresh start but starting off on the wrong foot, and a precocious eleven-year-old on the cusp of winning a prestigious national competition. Right from the arrival of Desire, the quiet neighborhood is steadily rocked by greater and greater waves as the events rise to a gripping, inevitable, crescendo.”
Praise for previous books in the Modern African Writing series:
“Poignant, thrilling, and funny.…Nwokolo manages to brilliantly distill his branching plot into a singular portrayal of a threatened culture.”
* Publishers Weekly (starred review of Chuma Nwokolo’s The Exctinction of Menai) *
Praise for previous books in the Modern African Writing series:
“A fresh and moving account of contemporary Zimbabwe.”
* The New York Times Book Review (for Tendai Huchu’s The Hairdresser of Harare) *
Praise for previous books in the Modern African Writing series:
“The collected stories structure recalls David Mitchell's Ghostwritten, or Jennifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad.…A layered, multifaceted narrative.”
* Publishers Weekly, for Imraan Coovadia’s Tales of the Metric System *
Praise for previous books in the Modern African Writing series:
“A revelatory work as tough, humane, and unsentimental as its heroines.”
* More (for Chika Unigwe’s On Black Sisters Street) *
