Download Every Day Is for the Thief Audiobook

“Every Day Is for the Thief is a testament to [Nigeria’s] power to inspire.”

“Rich imagery and sharp prose…widely praised as one of the best fictional depictions of Africa in recent memory.”

“[Teju Cole] casts a spell that’s hard to classify…Open City earned its author comparisons to the German writer W. G. Sebald, whose work wanders and ruminates in a similar way.”

“Every Day Is for the Thief is unapologetically a novel of ideas: a diagnosis of the systemic corruption in Cole’s native Lagos and of corruption’s psychological effects. But, remarkably, the book avoids any the chunkiness that usually accompanies such work. Emotional and intellectual life are woven too tightly together. The ideas make the character and vice versa.”

“Excellently crafted.”

“A wonderful meditation on modern African life that will help cement Cole’s reputation as a prose stylist. More than that, it is a book that never fails to find a thoughtful and essential thing to say, with each of its finely crafted sentences and paragraphs offering a vision of justice and order to a people beset by so many woes.”

“Remarkable…A luminous rumination on storytelling and place, exile and return…This is an extraordinary novel, a radiant meditation on the nature of happiness and faith, corruption, misfortune, and belonging.”

“A vivid, lyrical, and critical novel in which a man returns to his native Nigeria after years away and learns new truths about himself…Cole’s prose is as intoxicating as before, his narrator’s curiosity infectious, and his depiction of Lagos, a city where ‘life hangs out,’ stunning.”

“Bracingly cool and introspective—and gorgeously written…Cole has a way of superimposing emotional landscapes over his portraits of physical places that is transcendent. Every Day Is for the Thief is as much as an epic journey into the heart of the traveler as the place traveled.”

“[Cole] revels in ambiguity, taking inspiration from authors who have toyed with what a novel can be, like W. G. Sebald, J. M. Coetzee and V. S. Naipaul…There is a touch of Alfred Kazin and Joseph Mitchell—two of the most observant walkers in [New York City’s] history—in his books’ open-eyed flaneurs.”

“In this arresting audiobook, which carries the authority of memoir while providing the insights and satisfactions of fiction, a young Nigerian doctor returns to Lagos after an absence of fifteen years…The ambiguity of the book’s genre leaves narrator Peter Jay Fernandez with subtle choices. Is he creating drama or delivering reportage? He hits it exactly right, presenting each sentence with careful attention, as if each one is illuminating his experience of the world, as it is for the protagonist. And so also for the reader. A fascinating listen.”