The unnamed narrator is a Nigerian man who left home 15 years before the novel’s events to pursue a life and career in the US. The son of a Black father and a white mother, he’s often mistaken for an oyinbo (a Nigerian word for a white person or European), both because of his light skin and because his time in America has led people to assume that he’s a Westerner. After his father’s death, he left Nigeria without telling his mother, leading to their estrangement, and even though his mother has returned to America too, he hasn’t been in touch with her. His return to Nigeria for the wedding of an undisclosed family member is the first time he has seen his extended family since he left.

His relationship with Lagos is complicated: He sees the vibrancy of the culture and community but is troubled by the amount of corruption and violence that is an everyday occurrence there, and over the course of the novel he’s clearly considering moving back to Nigeria (though whether this is a real consideration or just a thought process he’s working out during his trip home is unclear). He’s seeking something in his wandering through the city: what he calls

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