Great Boys: An African Childhood

Few coming-of-age accounts have come to us from Africa. Ojaide, a distinguished poet, is a fresh voice. The author writes: "I consider myself fortunate to have experienced traditional African culture firsthand before its transformation by modernity. Great Boys: An African Childhood is about my upbringing in the Niger Delta area of Nigeria. My grandmother who raised me told me the beginning of my life, including my father's visit to seek my mother's hand and why my father at my birth reported to relatives that I was a girl. I took over my story from when I was about three and a half years."