Atta Otigba and Yetide Badaki narrate a sprawling, multifaceted exploration of the entrenched hierarchies within the worlds of art, literature, history and pop culture
At the start of Tremor, Tunde, a Nigerian-American photography professor at a New England university, is on his way to work when he pauses to photograph a hedge. “You can’t do that here,” a voice calls out. “This is private property.” Cole’s third novel goes on to follow Tunde’s movements over several months during which he reflects on how people of colour are treated in supposedly white spaces and the ways colonialism reverberates down the generations.
During a seminar, Tunde struggles to keep his emotions in check when a student shows a short film about Samuel Little, a prolific serial killer who went undetected for decades owing to his victims being Black female sex workers. While shopping for antiques in Maine with his partner, he reflects on the violence wreaked on Native American communities in the area, setting him on a train of thought that takes him from Bach’s solo works to the John Wayne movie The Searchers to the Salem witch trials. But the book’s centrepiece is a series of first-person snapshots that show the struggles of assorted Lagos residents, among them a drug addict, a chauffeur, a DJ and a headteacher.
