Reading: Teju Cole, Every Day is for the Thief, pp. 3-117.
1.How does the first chapter of the book prepare us for the narrator’s actual return to Nigeria?
Does it make us prejudge what comes after? If so, how?
2.
What role does bribery, tipping and criminality of many kinds play in the narrator’s Nigeria. At
some points he calls it an ‘informal economy’, at others he talks about a ‘patronage society’ and
most often his is irritated/annoyed by the practice. In what way does it challenge his own view
of himself and of his country?
3.
What do you think is the meaning of the young boy’s death in the market in Chap. 12? Given
that the narrator writes a great deal about what westerners might see as ‘criminality’ and/or
‘graft’, why is the most extreme violence and swiftest judgement meted out to an eleven year
old boy?
4.
Why is the narrator so fascinated by the woman on the bus carrying the novel by Michael
Ondaatjie (Chap. 8)? What does this chapter tell us about him? How is this chapter related to
the discussion of whether or not the narrator should stay in Lagos that occurs in Chap. 13? FYI –
Ondaatjie is a contemporary Canadian-Sri Lankan author who writes poetry and serious ‘literary’
fiction.
5.
At the end of his visit to the National Museum, the narrator asks “What . . . are the social
consequences of a life in a country that has no use of history?” (p. 79). What impact does this
visit have on the narrator? Why? He asks a similar question in Chap. 19 when he muses about
the connections (via slavery) of Lagos and New Orleans: “Why is history uncontested here?” (p.
117).
6.
Do you like the narrator? Why? Why not? Why is he even in Lagos after a 15 year absence and
what he refers to as an exit that occurred under a cloud? Is he more American/Western or
more Nigerian? Does he even know where his identity is centered?
