Perseus Academic: The Reverend's Apprentice by David N. Odhiambo

A powerful, tragicomic novel about power, culture, and identity politics in contemporary America, as seen through the eyes of an African student. Jonah Ayot is a graduate student from a fictional central African nation, studying in a fictional American city some time after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003; the novel mirrors Jonah’s own struggle as a newcomer to American life, trying to organize his perceptions around an identity that is global rather than parochial.

But those perceptions become muddied in the reality of the new war zone—on American soil, where the foreign becomes familiar, and the familiar is no longer what it used to be.

David N. Odhiambo is a novelist, poet, and playwright and the author of two previous novels, Kipligat’s Chance and Diss/ed Banded Nation. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, he now resides in Honolulu, Hawaii.

David N. Odhiambo is a novelist, poet and playwright and the author of two previous novels. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, he moved to Canada in 1977, where he lived in Montreal and Vancouver. He subsequently studied writing in Cambridge, Massachusetts and now lives in Honolulu, Hawaii.