Overview

In the long-anticipated novel from the author of the critically acclaimed Beasts of No Nation, a revelation shared between two privileged teenagers from very different backgrounds sets off a chain of events with devastating consequences. On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, D.C., he's a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. But Niru has a painful secret: he is queer--an abominable sin to his conservative Nigerian parents. No one knows except Meredith, his best friend, the daughter of prominent Washington insiders--and the one person who seems not to judge him. When his father accidentally discovers Niru is gay, the fallout is brutal and swift. Coping with troubles of her own, however, Meredith finds that she has little left emotionally to offer him. As the two friends struggle to reconcile their desires against the expectations and institutions that seek to define them, they find themselves speeding toward a future more violent and senseless than they can imagine. Neither will escape unscathed. In the tradition of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, Speak No Evil explores what it means to be different in a fundamentally conformist society and how that difference plays out in our inner and outer struggles. It is a novel about the power of words and self-identification, about who gets to speak and who has the power to speak for other people. As heart-wrenching and timely as his breakout debut, Beasts of No Nation, Uzodinma Iweala's second novel cuts to the core of our humanity and leaves us reeling in its wake.

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9781538502310

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Reviews

A wrenching, tightly woven story about many kinds of love and many kinds of violence. Iweala's characters confront you in close-up, as viscerally, bodily alive as any in contemporary fiction. -- Larissa Macfarquhar, author of Strangers Drowning Speak No Evil is the rarest of novels: the one you start out just to read, then end up sinking so deeply into it, seeing yourself so clearly in it, that the novel starts reading you. -- Marlon James, author of The Book of Night Women Staggering...This novel is notable both for the raw force of Iweala's prose and the moving, powerful story. -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) Portraying cross-generational and -cultural misunderstandings with anything but simplicity, Iweala tells an essential American story. -- Booklist (starred review) Throughout a narrative spiraling toward tragedy, Niru's pain is so palpable it will make you gasp. Highly recommended. -- Library Journal (starred review) A lovely, slender volume that packs in entire worlds with complete mastery. Speak No Evil explains so much about our times and yet is never anything less than a scintillating, page-turning read. -- Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author Narrator Prentice Onayemi performs the bulk of this timely story of immigration, sexual identity, and black profiling... Onayemi's sympathetic delivery captures Niru's double life using a light tone for the teen's outer persona as a good son, friend, and student and becoming more somber when the boy broods about his suppressed homosexuality and his own vision of the future. Onayemi's rendition of the Nigerian accents is believable and respectful. Julia Whelan's performance of the sections told by Niru's best friend, Meredith, emphasizes the girl's youth and difficulty dealing with her role in Niru's ultimate fate. -- AudioFile

A lovely, slender volume that packs in entire worlds with complete mastery. Speak No Evil explains so much about our times and yet is never anything less than a scintillating, page-turning read. -- Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author Narrator Prentice Onayemi performs the bulk of this timely story of immigration, sexual identity, and black profiling... Onayemi's sympathetic delivery captures Niru's double life using a light tone for the teen's outer persona as a good son, friend, and student and becoming more somber when the boy broods about his suppressed homosexuality and his own vision of the future. Onayemi's rendition of the Nigerian accents is believable and respectful. Julia Whelan's performance of the sections told by Niru's best friend, Meredith, emphasizes the girl's youth and difficulty dealing with her role in Niru's ultimate fate. -- AudioFile A wrenching, tightly woven story about many kinds of love and many kinds of violence. Iweala's characters confront you in close-up, as viscerally, bodily alive as any in contemporary fiction. -- Larissa Macfarquhar, author of Strangers Drowning Speak No Evil is the rarest of novels: the one you start out just to read, then end up sinking so deeply into it, seeing yourself so clearly in it, that the novel starts reading you. -- Marlon James, author of The Book of Night Women Staggering...This novel is notable both for the raw force of Iweala's prose and the moving, powerful story. -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) Portraying cross-generational and -cultural misunderstandings with anything but simplicity, Iweala tells an essential American story. -- Booklist (starred review) Throughout a narrative spiraling toward tragedy, Niru's pain is so palpable it will make you gasp. Highly recommended. -- Library Journal (starred review)

Author Information

Uzodinma Iweala received the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, all for Beasts of No Nation. He was also selected as one of Granta's Best Young American Novelists. A graduate of Harvard University and the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, he lives in New York City and Lagos, Nigeria. Prentice Onayemi is an Earphones Award-winning audiobook narrator and a voice and film actor who is known for his roles in The Steam-Room Crooner, AmeriQua, and as Joey in the Tony Award-winning play War Horse. Julia Whelan, winner of numerous Earphones Awards, won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Romance Narration in 2013 and has also been a finalist for an Audie Award in other years. She was named one of AudioFile magazine's Best Voices of 2010, and two of her audio narrations were shortlisted for the American Library Association's notable recordings of 2010. Her narration of Jandy Nelson's The Sky Is Everywhere earned a place in the first round of 2011 Grammy nominations for Best Spoken Word Album. She is a former child actor who has appeared in multiple films and television shows, most notably ABC's Once and Again. After receiving her college degree, she returned to the film industry and is also a writer.

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