The Book of God
Akashic Books
Cover art by Ficre Ghebreyesus
Ejiofor Ugwu’s The Book of God is an honest and powerful examination of the intricate relationship between the living and the dead, a book deeply rooted in our African oral tradition and mythology, an urgently necessary book that takes us back to our roots.
Patricia Jabbeh Wesley, from the prefaceRats
“Rats,” by Ejiofor UgwuWhen you sleep in the midst of rats
a night so beautifully started
can be un-night,
then you keep sleepwalking
on rat tracks,
the feces forming slippery pads.
Rats are very movable people.
They sleep very little at night.
Rats don’t sleep at night.
And it happens to you that
the man next door
escaped the war of rats
when he took sleeping pills
and woke up in his silent coffin,
chewing away at his own lips,
crying out blood.
Life cleans up the world that way.
But why do men keep rats
in their inner rooms?
And for the last time, the voice spoke:
It’s a rat world.
You only live to keep them out
or on the way.
They like human flesh.
They are carnivores, always busy
sharpening their claws and incisors.