Fiction Friday: “Our First American” by EC Osondu
Untitled Books have published one of EC Osondu’s short stories, “Our First American”, on their website.
The story is part of Osondu’s collection, Voice of America, which also includes the short piece “Debriefing” previously published in our Fiction Friday section.
In “Our First American”, Osondu, winner of the 2009 Caine Prize for African Writing, tells the story of a Nigerian prostitute called Beauty who is dating an American man and giving her neighbours plenty to gossip about:
The first American we really got to know up close was a guy called Mark. He lived on our street with a prostitute named Beauty. She was what we called a club girl. She visited various Lagos nightclubs to drink and dance with men and would go home with any who offered her enough money. Sometimes the men would drop her off in the mornings. On other occasions a motorcycle taxi would drop her off at the street entrance. She would enter the street through the smaller pedestrian entrance, clutching her bag in one hand and her high-heeled shoes in the other. She would stop over at the neighbourhood corner shop to buy cigarettes. You could tell from the way she walked into the street whether she had had a successful night or not. She either walked in with a swagger, her buttocks swishing, or on bad days came in with drooping shoulders. On days that her night had not been good, she tore into Mark as soon as he opened the door of their one-room apartment.
Book details
- Voice of America by EC Osondu
EAN: 9780061990861
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Apr
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