Speak Gigantular
Edge Hill Prize for the Short Story, 2017
“Precise and illuminating.” – Bernardine Evaristo OBE.
Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Saboteur Awards, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Jhalak Prize.
Lovelorn aliens abduct innocent coffee shop waitresses. Ghosts of errant Londoners haunt the Underground, caught between here and the hereafter. Brave young women seek erotic empowerment… at their own peril.
These are the worlds of Speak Gigantular, the startling debut short story collection from acclaimed author Irenosen Okojie MBE. Understated in her humour and razor-sharp in her observations of humankind, Okojie’s eclectic anthology offers an unflinching gaze into the darkest corners of the human experience.
Sexy, serious, and often downright disturbing, this brilliant debut collection sizzles with originality.
“A work of rare confidence, luminous imagery and full of hidden sharp edges.” – Nina Allan, winner of the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.
“Irenosen Okojie’s Speak Gigantular should, if there is any literary justice, place her in a circle with writers like Shirley Jackson, Margaret Atwood, and Angela Carter.” – New Orleans Review.
Shortlisted for the Edge Hill Short Story Prize, the Saboteur Awards, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Jhalak Prize.
Lovelorn aliens abduct innocent coffee shop waitresses. Ghosts of errant Londoners haunt the Underground, caught between here and the hereafter. Brave young women seek erotic empowerment… at their own peril.
These are the worlds of Speak Gigantular, the startling debut short story collection from acclaimed author Irenosen Okojie MBE. Understated in her humour and razor-sharp in her observations of humankind, Okojie’s eclectic anthology offers an unflinching gaze into the darkest corners of the human experience.
Sexy, serious, and often downright disturbing, this brilliant debut collection sizzles with originality.
“A work of rare confidence, luminous imagery and full of hidden sharp edges.” – Nina Allan, winner of the Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire.
“Irenosen Okojie’s Speak Gigantular should, if there is any literary justice, place her in a circle with writers like Shirley Jackson, Margaret Atwood, and Angela Carter.” – New Orleans Review.
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Reviews
Each story featured is original, dark and with a witty but dark humour which disturbs and forces the reader to question exactly what a social norm is. This is fiction at its best, enacting change, driving the reader to act and it is spectacular.
Each story featured is original, dark and with a witty but dark humour which disturbs and forces the reader to question exactly what a social norm is. This is fiction at its best, enacting change, driving the reader to act and it is spectacular.
Speak Gigantular is a work of rare confidence, luminous imagery and full of hidden sharp edges. There are few things that bring greater joy in reading than coming upon a talent so delightful, so penetrating, so scandalous. Okojie's stories are magical in all the most interesting senses of that word: devious, enthralling, unexpected.
A beautiful, sombre collection with deep shadows and dazzling highlights.
Okojie delves into the painful, the unsayable, the unknowable. Her prose is precise and illuminating: love and loneliness are recurrent themes.
A liberatingly odd, seductive and fearless talent.