Vagabonds: Life on the Streets of Nineteenth-century London – Shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2023

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was a finalist for the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. In Britain today, the extremes of squalor described in the book are unimaginable, and it is hard not to feel grateful to be alive now, and not then. It is told like a collection of short stories but you can easily see and feel the thread connecting all of the Vagabonds of Lagos together.

Indeed Jensen's foreword is strictly against those types of conclusions, rather he wants to give an opportunity of these people who are usually glossed over in history a chance to speak. An exuberant tribute to the 'vagabonds' who live their lives in the margins, Osunde's freewheeling takedown of Nigerian capitalism takes readers on a twilight tour of the spirits and misfits of Lagos. The series will include unique anti-capitalist, anti-racist, queer and feminist voices towards revolutionary change and collective liberation.In “Johnny Just Come,” Aniekan changes his name to Johnny and moves from a small town to Lagos to drive for a trafficker in human organs. While Chris doesn’t walk the Pacific Crest Trail, he immerses himself into wild nature with an incredible willingness to discover depths of himself that few are willing to examine.

For all ebook purchases, you will be prompted to create an account or login with your existing HarperCollins username and password. I'm really interested in social history and found this book fascinating in shedding a light on the vagabonds of 19th century London. His latest book, Vagabonds, uses a series of case studies to show us what it was like to be on the street in the eighteenth and nineteenth.Psal must risk losing the little respect his father has for him and face the dangers of the unmaking night to find the Constant Tower and save all of humanity. Osunde’s magnificent magical realist debut crafts a mosaic of struggle and pain in Lagos held together by Tatafo, a supernatural choruslike figure who does the bidding of “cityspirit” Eko.

With care, compassion and a gimlet eye for hypocrisy, Osunde builds a universe from Lagos, Nigeria’s little-seen citizens: The gay, the trans, the abused and others. I read two books this summer: Vagabonding, given to me by Caroline, in turn given to her by a former colleague; and Vagabonds!This includes her historic Calendar Year Triple Crown hike in 2018 when she hiked all three of those trails in one March-November season, making her the first female to do so. Writing with an elegance and emotional intelligence that exceeds many novels, he presents us with the lives of beggars (children and adults), match sellers, buskers, milkmaids, pickpockets, prostitutes and the odd famous actor.

After skipping through, reading “the easy bits” I feel I have a better understanding of Osunde’s style, and can now go back and get more out of this book. So we get chapters of birth, boys, girls (less on girls because society wasn't as interested in them, and then it was in a different way).

Little Anjos had questions, but his mother had long decided for him that he would keep liking his life, and that no spirit would come out of nowhere to claim him. She is the winner of the 2021 Paris Review Plimpton Prize for Fiction, as well as an ASME Award for fiction. For the characters vibrantly rendered here, life itself is a form of resistance and Osunde captures them all with a singular tenderness and vivacity. Until now, our view of bustling late Georgian and Victorian London has been filtered through its great chroniclers, who did not themselves come from poverty – Dickens, Mayhew, Gustave Doré.