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Hangman

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
208 Seiten
Englisch
ONEerschienen am03.08.2023
LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024 'A brilliantly surreal story of exile and homecoming' GUARDIAN'S BOOK OF THE DAY 'A slim, stark, and captivatingly enigmatic début' NEW YORKER A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years living in exile in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn't recognize the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone at the airport knows him-a man who calls him brother. As they travel to this man's house, the purpose of his visit comes into focus: he is here to find his real brother, who is dying. Hangman is his tragicomic journey through homecoming and loss. It is a hilarious and twisted odyssey, peopled by phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and taxi drivers, the relatives and riddles that lead this man along a circuitous path towards the truth. This is the strangely honest story of one man's search for refuge-in this world and the one that lies beyond it. *A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH, VULTURE, FRIEZE, BBC, READER'S DIGEST* __________ MORE PRAISE FOR HANGMAN: 'Urgent and emotionally resonant' VOGUE 'Reinvents the novel of return... keeps you hooked' MONICA ALI 'Melancholic but weirdly hopeful' FT 'Remarkably assured and distinctive' TLS 'Laconic and darkly humorous' FRIEZE 'A striking masterful debut' NAMWALI SERPELL 'A bravura twist on the immigrant novel' DAILY MAIL 'Ruthlessly honest and startingly beautiful' MAAZA MENGISTE 'Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious' ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN

Maya Binyam's work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, New York, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor at the Paris Review and has previously worked as an editor at Triple Canopy and the New Inquiry, and as a lecturer in the New School's Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program. Hangman is her debut novel.mehr
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Produkt

KlappentextLONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION 2024 'A brilliantly surreal story of exile and homecoming' GUARDIAN'S BOOK OF THE DAY 'A slim, stark, and captivatingly enigmatic début' NEW YORKER A man returns home to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty-six years living in exile in America. When he arrives, he finds that he doesn't recognize the country or anyone in it. Thankfully, someone at the airport knows him-a man who calls him brother. As they travel to this man's house, the purpose of his visit comes into focus: he is here to find his real brother, who is dying. Hangman is his tragicomic journey through homecoming and loss. It is a hilarious and twisted odyssey, peopled by phantoms and tricksters, aid workers and taxi drivers, the relatives and riddles that lead this man along a circuitous path towards the truth. This is the strangely honest story of one man's search for refuge-in this world and the one that lies beyond it. *A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TELEGRAPH, VULTURE, FRIEZE, BBC, READER'S DIGEST* __________ MORE PRAISE FOR HANGMAN: 'Urgent and emotionally resonant' VOGUE 'Reinvents the novel of return... keeps you hooked' MONICA ALI 'Melancholic but weirdly hopeful' FT 'Remarkably assured and distinctive' TLS 'Laconic and darkly humorous' FRIEZE 'A striking masterful debut' NAMWALI SERPELL 'A bravura twist on the immigrant novel' DAILY MAIL 'Ruthlessly honest and startingly beautiful' MAAZA MENGISTE 'Daring, intellectually rich, and unsettlingly hilarious' ALEXANDRA KLEEMAN

Maya Binyam's work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, New York, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor at the Paris Review and has previously worked as an editor at Triple Canopy and the New Inquiry, and as a lecturer in the New School's Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program. Hangman is her debut novel.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781911590781
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Verlag
Erscheinungsjahr2023
Erscheinungsdatum03.08.2023
Seiten208 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse827 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.12208219
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe



Two


I slept for days, at least a few hours. When I woke up, it was morning. At first, I thought that my room, the room I had been given to sleep in, was bigger than I imagined. But then I remembered that I hadn´t imagined any room at all. This was the house of my cousin and his family. Thankfully, after we arrived, he had discarded his ugly leather jacket onto a chair, where it didn´t look like anything. I forgot about its presence entirely. When I woke up, I felt like a new person, and everything that had happened the previous day was in my past.

I made the bed in my usual style. I wasn´t sure if it was the style my cousin preferred, but I thought it would suffice, especially if I was going to be sleeping in the bed for another night. In that case, I would be the only one to encounter the bed in the style in which I had made it. I thought about taking a shower. Luckily, the bathroom was attached to my room, so I didn´t have to ask my cousin or anyone else any questions. I just had to open the door. However, when I opened the door, I discovered that the bathroom was not my private bathroom at all, for on top of the toilet was a pigeon. Yes, a pigeon. I had no idea what kind of bathroom it was, available for use by guests and pigeons, or at least one pigeon, the one pigeon being the pigeon in front of me. I considered not showering but felt I had no choice, especially given my association with the dead man and the uncleanliness that might have accrued through that. Anyway, I thought, many things have probably changed since I left this country, and being open to sharing a shower with a pigeon may be one of them.

I turned on the faucet. There was no shower curtain, and, in fact, there was no barrier at all between the shower and the rest of the bathroom. There was simply a faucet and a drain beneath it, with the rest of the bathroom continuing on from there. The water splashed everywhere. I had no idea if pigeons liked water, or if this one in particular had a preference for water versus no water, so I was concerned for him, and tried my best to keep the water splashing in my personal shower zone. Anyway, he didn´t seem to mind. He just sat on top of the toilet and cleaned his feathers with his beak, or at least that was what I assumed he was doing, because I didn´t want to get too close. I was able to forget about him long enough to clean my body, and then I ran out of the bathroom and left him to whatever he was doing before I got there, I didn´t care to know.

In my luggage, I found clothes, cologne, a comb, and everything I needed to make myself presentable. I got dressed and looked in the mirror. Nothing to report, so I moved on to the next task: taking my blood pressure medication. Unfortunately, I couldn´t find my blood pressure medication anywhere, which really worried me. Without it, anything could happen, or at least my blood pressure would go up by an extremely high degree. I said to myself, let me try not to think about it, because thinking about it may in fact increase the effects of not having my blood pressure medication, in terms of raising my blood pressure, especially if thinking about it doesn´t lead to finding it, which may be the case if my blood pressure medication is nowhere to be found. I took an aspirin. It wasn´t a prescription, but my doctor thought it might be a good idea for me to take one daily, which is what I did on this day, my first day in the country I used to call home.

Finally, I was ready to present myself to the family I had not seen in twenty-six years. Actually, although I knew my cousin from childhood, I did not know his family at all. He had married only recently, and I had never spoken to his wife or their children, not even on the phone. To be honest, I was not close with this family whatsoever, but I was grateful to them for hosting me the previous night and for however many more nights I was supposed to stay. All in all, my appearance was in order, except for my beard, which I did not think it wise to shave, on account of the pigeon.

Just as I was thinking I looked good, I realized I smelled horrible. My first thought was that it might be the cologne, and I made a mental note never to choose that cologne again, even though I hadn´t chosen it in the first place. It had been packed on my behalf by someone, I wasn´t sure whom. I thought it might be possible that they had intended it as a gift, in which case, I realized, I should not judge it so harshly, given that everyone´s preferences are different, especially when it comes to cologne. I tried to imagine the kinds of people who would be pleased by this horrible smell, and wondered if my cousin and his family, whom I did not know, could be these kinds of people. But the smell was horrible, and nothing, not even my imagination or neat appearance, except for my beard, could overcome it.

I considered showering but thought that two showers and all the water associated with such showers might be too much for the pigeon, who might or might not still be present. Either way, I didn´t care to check, lest he become angry at all the intrusions and do something evil, the kind of thing only pigeons know how to do, and which I could not, never having encountered an angry pigeon, imagine. I approached the bottle of cologne, thinking that the first step to ensuring this never happened again would be to throw it away. But as I got closer, I realized that no smell was emanating from the bottle, and, in fact, when I raised it to my nostrils, it smelled amazing, not horrible at all, like something the pope would wear. Even if the pope was dead, it wouldn´t matter, for if he had a choice, I was sure he would choose to have his coffin sprayed with a cologne like this, that was how amazing it was.

So, the horrible smell was a mystery, one that might never be solved. I tried to forget it but couldn´t forget it, on account of the fact that I carried the horrible smell with me. There was nothing else for me to do to prepare myself for my presentation to the family, and yet I did not think it would be reasonable for me to present myself while the stench was still so potent. I said to myself, let me delay a little by continuing to look for my blood pressure medication, which was something else I was trying to forget, but which I thought might be worth remembering, if only to displace the memory of the horrible smell.

I looked in my carry-on luggage, which was not somewhere I had previously thought to look. Inside, it was disgusting. There was chicken and fish everywhere, so much so that the chicken and fish were indistinguishable from one another, despite belonging to entirely different categories of food. In that moment, I had to face the fact that I had created the smell and all my current problems when, instead of eating, I had decided to incorporate my two options, chicken and fish, into the group of items I carried with me through immigration, through customs, and into the home of my family, the majority of whom I had never met.

I wanted a garbage bin but had no garbage bin, and anyway it would be impossible to make sure that once I placed my garbage inside the garbage bin, it didn´t become someone else´s problem, someone else´s horrible smell, as placing it in the garbage bin would be only the first step in disposing of it completely. I felt like I had no choice but to carry this garbage with me for the rest of my life. But, I reminded myself, tomorrow would be a new day, and a new day could bring anything, including garbage bins. So, I closed my carry-on, opened the door to the bathroom, and let yesterday´s garbage live with today´s problem, the pigeon. I would deal with them both in the future, whenever that happened, and shut the door.

That was that. I looked in the mirror and saw that I looked the same as I did the last time I looked in the mirror. Unfortunately, my beard made me look old, especially in conjunction with my bald head. In fact, I was old, at least fifty-five. My skin looked gray and sagging, but that was just how aging was, and beyond it, death. Anyway, I was ready. I put a smile on my face and opened the door, prepared to greet my cousin, his wife, and their children, who had been waiting for me for twenty-six years, and in the case of the children, even before they were born. I walked through the open doorway and into the room. However, it was not a room. It was just a hallway that led somewhere, perhaps to another hallway, or, if I was lucky, to another room. Unfortunately, on account of my exhaustion the night before, I couldn´t remember anything about the house or how I had gotten to my room. I said hello, expecting to summon a guide in the form of one of my family members. No one came. No problem, I thought. The hallway leads to one place only, so no guide is necessary.

I walked down the hallway, which split in two directions, to the left and to the right. Personally, I hated hallways and didn´t understand their purpose, especially in a home where people were meant to come together, not be divided up. If my cousin´s house had been a hotel, I would have understood the presence of all the hallways, but given that it was not a hotel, there was no use for them, at least no use that I could discern. So, I had two options. I decided to go to the right. I have no idea why I decided that, but I did, and that was the direction I went in.

When that hallway was done, there was a door. I rearranged my mustache and prepared myself to greet my family. Hello, I said, opening the door. The door...

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Autor

Maya Binyam's work has appeared in the Paris Review, the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, New York, Bookforum, Columbia Journalism Review, the New York Times Book Review, and elsewhere. She is a contributing editor at the Paris Review and has previously worked as an editor at Triple Canopy and the New Inquiry, and as a lecturer in the New School's Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism program. Hangman is her debut novel.
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Binyam, Maya