New York My Village

New York, My Village is the debut novel by Nigerian author Uwem Akpan. Published in November 2021 by W. W. Norton & Company, the novel set in the United States and Nigeria centers on Ekong Udosoro, a Nigerian editor and winner of the Toni Morrison Publishing Company. While his sophisticated colleagues meet him with kindness and hospitality in New York City, he is soon exposed to a colder, ruthlessly commercial underbelly―callous agents, greedy landlords, boorish and hostile neighbors, and, beneath a superficial cosmopolitanism, a bedrock of white cultural superiority and racist assumptions about Africa, its peoples, and worst of all, its food.

New York, My Village, at the same time, is renowned for its depiction of the brutal woes of the minorities of the Niger Delta in the Biafran War (1967 to 1970). Reckoning with the recent history of the devastating and brutal Biafran War, in which Ekong's people were a minority of minorities caught up in the mutual slaughter of majority tribes, Ekong's life in New York becomes a saga of unanticipated strife. The great apartment deal wrangled by his editor turns out to be an illegal sublet crawling with bedbugs. The lights of Times Square slide off the hardened veneer of New Yorkers plowing past the tourists. A collective antagonism toward the "other" consumes Ekong's daily life. Yet in overcoming misunderstandings with his neighbors, Chinese and Latino and African American, and in bonding with his true allies at work and advocating for healing back home, Ekong proves that there is still hope in sharing our stories.

Akpan's novel has been described by scholars as "Kafkaesque" and explores significant themes, such as racism, unbelonging, and war. The novel's astute depiction of the current pandemic of bedbug infestation in New York City, where Akpan was first bitten by the frightening crawlers, serves as a powerful imagery and metaphor for the deep‑seated racism that the narrative cleverly parallels with the entrenched rut of tribalism, suggesting that both forms of prejudice burrow into society with the same stubborn persistence. The book brilliantly melds humor, tenderness, and pain to explore the myriad ways that tribalisms define life everywhere, from the villages of Nigeria to the villages within New York City. In this sense, Uwem Akpan's, New York, My Village is a triumph of storytelling and a testament to the life-sustaining power of community across borders and across boroughs.^[1] The novel was shortlisted for the 2022 ANA Chinua Achebe Prize for Literature and was longlisted for the 2025 Nigeria Prize for Literature.

New York, My Village is the debut novel and second work of fiction by Uwem Akpan after Say You're One of Them (2008). In an interview with Anote Ajeluorou, a seasoned journalist at The Guardian (Nigeria), Akpan revealed that it took him thirteen years to finish his debut novel's manuscript and thirty years of extensive research.^[2] In a post publication interview with TheCable, Akpan described the inspiration to write the novel and the anguish he experienced in the writing process, he said:

"I was born after the war. In 1977, when I began primary school at age six in Ekparakwa, I learnt a lot about the war. And when my family relocated to Ikot Ekpene, we even had more war "memories". As a ten-year-old, I was really frightened by stories of Biafra abducting young minority boys for their army and killing or raping those who escaped and were recaptured. They'd been branded as "saboteurs." Ikot Ekpene was a sad warfront. That was when I first learned that men could be raped. It was quite frightening to us kids because of how the adults whispered about it as absolute humiliation."^[3] Akpan explained that writing New York, My Village was both risky and tense, further recounting the existential fears he experienced writing as a Black man in America, an ex-priest in the Catholic church, and as a minority amongst the Igbos, Hausas, and Yorubas, the majority ethnic groups in Nigeria. In an interview with Olatoun Gabi-Williams of Borders Literature,^[4] he acknowledges and thanks several publishers in the US, members of diverse minority ethnic groups, especially his Annang folks, and Igbo friends who helped him with the rigorous but rewarding research process; adding, "The book is a crazy satire that invites everyone to be better than yesterday."

The story follows Ekong Udousoro, a Nigerian editor from the minority Anaang people, who wins a prestigious Toni Morrison Fellowship to work at a boutique publishing house in New York City. Ekong is curating a definitive anthology about the Biafran War (1967–1970) to give voice to the ethnic minorities often ignored in the dominant Igbo-centric narrative of the conflict. Before even leaving Nigeria, he faces systemic hurdles and racist profiling at the American embassy. Once in New York, his high expectations are met with a series of "rude awakenings". Living in a bedbug-infested apartment in Hell's Kitchen, Ekong navigates a city that is both majestic and hostile. At work, he encounters the "white cultural superiority" of the publishing industry, where progressive rhetoric often masks deep-seated biases. His professional and personal struggles culminate in a realization that the tribalism he left behind in Nigeria is mirrored in the racial and social silos, the "villages", of New York.

Uwem Akpan uses Ekong’s journey to show that while the "village" changes, the monsters living in it usually do not.

The novel draws sharp parallels between the ethnic tribalism that led to the Biafran War and the racial divisions in America. The most visceral imagery representing this theme is the bedbug infestation. The novel uses these pests to represent racism and tribalism: the bugs suggest that trauma and hate are not localized. Ekong finds that the “civilized" West has its own version of the blood-sucking biases he saw in Nigeria. Hence, Akpan challenges the Western idea that tribalism is an African problem while racism is an American one. In Nigeria, Ekong is a minority of minorities belonging to the Anaang people ethnic group marginalized by larger groups like the Igbo. In New York, he is simply Black, categorized by a different but equally rigid social hierarchy. The book argues that both systems rely on devaluing the other to maintain power for the majority. Consequently, New York, My Village highlights that both tribalism and racism are parasitic forces that burrow into society like the bedbugs in Ekong's apartment.

New York, My Village is a meta-commentary on who gets to tell history. A central theme is the danger of a single story. Most literature on the Biafran War focuses on the Igbo experience. Ekong’s anthology aims to show that minority tribes suffered uniquely, often targeted by both sides during the Biafran war. By trying to publish these stories, Ekong faces pushback from publishers who find his version of the war too “messy” or not aligned with the commercially successful “single story” of the Biafran conflict. But Ekong still fights to include minority perspectives of the Biafran war, challenging established literary icons and historical narratives that sideline the suffering of smaller ethnic groups, like the Anaang people.

Through acerbic satire, Akpan exposes the lack of true diversity in publishing, showing how woke corporate culture can still be exclusionary and elitist. The novel offers an unflinching satire of the “white-shoe” publishing world. Ekong’s colleagues at the Toni Morrison Fellowship use all the right buzzwords about diversity but treat him with condescension. He realizes the industry is often more interested in packaging African trauma for Western consumption than in actual systemic change.

The title, New York, My Village is ironic but also literal. The novel portrays the psychic and geographic journey of migration, from the demeaning visa application process to the unbelonging felt in a new country. Ekong's journey begins with a frustrating and demeaning struggle to secure a U.S. visa. He faces seemingly endless red tape, redundant document requests, and interviews where his credentials and worthiness are questioned without clear reasons for rejection, highlighting the immense power imbalance faced by those seeking entry into the West. Once in the U.S., Ekong faces multiple layers of isolation. He lives in a bedbug-infested apartment in Hell's Kitchen, struggles with loneliness in a white-world professional environment, and must navigate everything from the subway system to laundry etiquette. As an immigrant, he is further faced with the shifting nature of identity. Ekong finds that his identity, which was defined by his minority Anaang people ethnic group in Nigeria, is now categorized solely by Blackness in America. He notes the subtle, yet significant, wall of tension between Black Africans and American Blacks, further complicating his sense of belonging. Consequently, Ekong feels like an outsider both in his home country (due to his minority status) and in New York (due to race and his immigrant status), creating a constant state of flux and alienation.

Characters in New York, My Village are haunted by past atrocities, rapes, killings, and humiliations, showing how war trauma is distributed across generations and geographies. But amid the bedbugs and bureaucratic nightmares, hope and survival in the novel are gritty, everyday acts of persistence. For Ekong, survival is tied directly to his work on the anthology. He views the act of preserving minority stories of the Biafran War as a way to ensure those victims did not die in vain. Even when his apartment becomes unlivable and his job becomes a minefield of microaggressions, his commitment to dead ethnic minorities, whose war stories have been sidelined, keeps him inspired. Also, hope often thrives through unexpected human connections that transcend the “villages” of race and class. Survival is made possible by characters who offer small acts of kindness, such as neighbors or fellow immigrants who share tips on how to fight the system (or the bugs). There is also a sense of survival through solidarity among those who have been marginalized. Recognizing someone else's struggle, whether it’s a fellow Nigerian or a New Yorker facing different battles, provides Ekong with the psychological oxygen needed to continue his fellowship. His refusal to be driven out of his apartment or his fellowship by parasites (literal and social) mirrors the tenacity of the Anaang people during the Biafran war. Ultimately, the novel suggests that while the old wars and old bedbugs may never fully go away, there is hope in the refusal to remain silent.

Louise Erdrich, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Night Watchman said: "New York, My Village is a dizzying and fearless tour of New York's street culture, coffee, food, apartment life and publishing world, interleaved with memorials of war crimes and tense depictions of the human cost of trauma. Uwem Akpan has mastered the art of laugh-out-loud satire, but he leaves room for tears."^[5]

For celebrated American novelist, Celeste Ng, The New York Times best-selling author of Little Fires Everywhere: "New York, My Village is that rare thing: a funhouse mirror that reflects back the truth. A searing sendup of publishing, racial biases, and humanity's near-infinite capability to look away from the most troubling parts of ourselves. Akpan's debut novel maps the constantly shifting ground of grappling with prejudice and guilt--and how we might find connections, and compassion, nevertheless."^[5]

In a Yaddo Podcast with President and host, Elaina Richardson, Brad Kessler, the Prize-winning author of the memoir, Goat Song, aptly said of New York, My Village: “In this novel, Akpan tells the Conrad story but in reverse. His protagonist, Ekong is the Black African Marlow coming down the Hudson River to the Heart of Darkness, the Times Square, and seeing how the natives live, which are New Yorkers. It is brilliant!”^[6]

Speaking to the indelible impact of the novel's educational and historical value regarding the Biafran War, Philip Effiong Jr., son of Major-General Philip Effiong, and Professor of Integrative Humanities at Michigan State University said: "Akpan's book addresses an unfamiliar and deeply disturbing aspect of Nigeria's un-civil war. Through his storytelling persona, Ekong Udousoro, Akpan highlights brutal atrocities that non-Igbo residents and citizens of Biafra (former Eastern Region) suffered at the hands of Biafran soldiers."^[7]

Okey Ndibe, Nigerian novelist, political columnist, and celebrated essayist of Igbo ethnicity asserts: "New York, My Village is a magnificent achievement that really instructed me about an important gap in my knowledge of the history of the war."^[8]

Ainehi Edoro of Brittle Paper remarks: "Akpan's work is unique in the way it addresses the experiences of the descendants of those who lived through the war, how they grapple with lingering traumas, as well as deal with the silences and competing narratives around the war. The official narratives tend to stage the war as an epic battle between the newly formed Biafra and Nigeria, which, when viewed through the lens of ethnicity, corresponds to Igbo, on the one hand, Hausa and Yoruba, on the other. For tackling these questions and offering a different facet of the Biafran War, New York, My Village pairs brilliantly with Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun and Chinua Achebe's There Was a Country".^[9]

Regarding racism in publishing, Jo Hamya of The New York Times remarks: "Akpan's examination of the publishing industry serves less to mock and more to chart the ways in which narrative is essential in the forming of cultural groups. New York, My Village succeeds in making the too-rare observation that identity exists not as a fixed, individual thing, but in relation to others, and thus is constantly shifting.^[10]

On the themes of migration and unbelonging, Michel Martin of NPR states: "New York, My Village explores the sense of adventure, excitement and opportunity upon arrival in a new country and as well a longing for a home, along with the sobering realization of the traumas inflicted by the past and the present."^[11]

Other Reviews and Interviews:

• Free Library of Philadelphia^[12]
• The New York Public Library^[13]
• The Lagos Review^[14][15]
• Kirkus Reviews^[16]
• News Central TV (Nigeria)^[17]
• Plus TV Africa^[18]
• The Sun^[19][20]

• Oprah Daily selected New York, My Village as one of The Best 20 Books of 2021.^[21]
• In 2022, VCU Cabell, the legendary library for Virginia Commonwealth University popularly known as the busiest academic library in the state longlisted New York, My Village for its best First Novelist Award. VCU's landmark literary list honors outstanding debut novels and is a tribute to distinguished writers who have navigated their way through the maze of imagination and delivered a great read, taking the reader someplace new.^[22]
• The iconic Strand Bookstore in New York made it its Pick of the Month for November 2021.^[23]
• Greenlight Bookstore, the second largest bookstore in NYC, selected it as Book of the Month for December 2021.^[23]
• Susan Straight, National Book Award finalist, significantly highlighted the novel in Los Angeles Times as one of the Brilliant 1000 books constituting America’s literary map that depicts where to find the real America.^[24]
• Amazon selected Akpan’s debut novel as Editor’s Pick, Best Literature and Fiction Books.^[25]
• The novel was shortlisted for the 2022 ANA Chinua Achebe Prize for Literature^[26] and was longlisted for the 2025 Nigeria Prize for Literature.^[27]

In a public LinkedIn post, Philip Effiong Jr., son of Major-General Philip Effiong, and celebrated author of the memoir, Nigeria’s Un-Civil War: Memories of a Biafran Child, noted that he began to receive vicious phone calls and text messages drawing his attention to the alleged iniquities of Akpan’s novel and to Akpan’s audacity in “misrepresenting” the Biafran cause and experience.^[7]

In an interview with Borders Literature, Akpan himself remarks that he received numerous death threats from several Biafran fundamentalists, citing, among other cases, an Igbo Jesuit priest who threatened him publicly on Facebook, as well as a vicious near physical assault by a Biafran apologist at a Nigerian restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia.^[4]

On Literature Meets Politics with TheCable, Akpan further notes that he was shocked that Chinua Achebe did not highlight the tensions between the Igbo and the minorities of the Niger Delta, choosing instead to portray the Biafran army as purely innocent, while also ignoring the gunrunning activities of Biafrans such as Arthur Nzeribe, who sold weapons to Nigeria but whom Achebe did not describe as a “saboteur,” the common slur used by the Igbo for Niger Delta minorities during and after the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970).^[3]

Other scholars have paired New York, My Village in contradistinction to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun and Chigozie Obioma’s The Road to the Country, which depict minorities as passive saboteurs, particularly in the character of Dr. Inyang, while other critics note that Obioma’s war novel attempts to co-opt the minority narrative through the character of Ekpenyong, who sides with Biafra and is allegedly crafted to sustain a singular Igbo narrative of victimhood and savior complex.^[28]

Reacting to the vicious calls he received aimed at maligning Akpan’s groundbreaking intervention and inclusive politics on the Biafran War, Philip Effiong Jr. notes:

“Akpan's novel challenges and upsets this skewed image, which is very reassuring for those who recognize the presence and massive relevance of diverse ethnic groups in former Biafra. But it also threatens, even infuriates the self-seeker (posing as intellectual or activist) who is more fulfilled by ethnic attention than a balanced appreciation of the truth, and whose closed-mindedness constantly provokes a selective acceptance and dissemination of key facts.”^[7]

When asked how Chinua Achebe might have reacted to his debut novel, New York, My Village, Akpan says:

“I believe with all my heart that he would’ve reached out to our minorities especially now that my novel has shown clearly why the rest of Nigeria felt let down by There Was a Country. He was a humble man and would’ve appreciated the everlasting love between the Ogoni and Igbo families in my novel.”^[3]