.::Song Of The Little Road::.

Onyeka Nwelue

DADA Books, an imprint of Design and Dream Arts Agency, have signed a book deal with 20 year-old University of Nigeria sophomore, Onyeka Nwelue, to publish his novel, The Abyssinian Boy by December.

Onyeka Nwelue was born in Nigeria in 1988. After graduating from High School at 17, he travelled to South Asia, particularly to India, where he wrote the first draft of his novel in three months. He has been published in the Guardian, The Sun, Eclectica, Nigeria Village Square, Kafla InterContinental and Wild Goose Poetry Review. He has received a grant from the Institute for Research on African Women, Children and Culture (IRAWCC) and is currently working on his second novel.

Set in India and Nigeria (and scattered locations of the world), The Abyssinian Boy is about a family whose nine year-old child gets haunted by an albino dwarf ghost.

Ayodele Arigbabu, publisher of DADA Books, refusing to comment on the terms of the deal, rather said: ‘The Abyssinian Boy lays bare the many paradoxes of culture clash with thought provoking and often amusing ironies’. Chika Unigwe, Nigerian-Belgian author of The Phoenix describes it as ‘an ambitious novel’.

DADA Books was established earlier this year and has already published Jumoke Verissimo’s I am Memory.

Sources close to the publishers say the author has been paid an advance of N 2.5 million.

For enquiries, contact: DADA Books, 1^st Floor, 95 Bode Thomas Street, Surulere, Lagos; Tel: +234-01-7451990. E.mail: dreamarts.designagency@gmail.com

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