Carole Enahoro
novelist, artist, academic, creative tutoring
Novels
Doing Dangerously Well
Finalist Commonwealth Writers' Prize
Sometime in the near future, Kainji Dam, the engineering marvel that is the pride of Nigeria, collapses, killing thousands of villagers. The Minister of Natural Resources can hardly believe his luck - now he can make a bid for the presidency. On the other side of the world, the grimly ambitious executive of a water company also sniffs an opportunity but her activist sister joins forces with a charasmatic Nigerian leader whose family were swept away in the disaster. The result is a wickedly satirical romp along a road to Hell paved with good and bad intentions.
- Random House, 2010
The Biodegradable Tourist
This is the story of a tourism land grab, home to the nomads of the Sahara. While Aghbalu dreams of the glory days when the Bouku ruled the desert and kidnapped any stray tourists that happened to venture there, his only child, Izza, is entranced by these strange white creatures with skin that changes from the colour of milk to that of hot pepper in only a few hours. After illegal eviction, the Bouku are forced to abandon their way of life by those who destroy the very culture they flock to see. However, the developers in their vegan sandals have no clue that their adversaries daily brag about the speed with which, even with the rustiest of daggers, they can hack through the most unyielding skull. Little knowing of the separate influence of women over his only daughter—schooled in the deadlier, more inhumane arts of passive aggression perfected over generations—Aghbalu is slow to discover that they have encouraged her to draw a map of their land for their own diabolical schemes. Izza's archive uses inks with magical properties derived from desert rocks and it is this luminescent map that poses the greatest threat to the survival of tourism on Bouku land.
Forthcoming, Random House
Forthcoming:
Triple Bottom Line
A satire critiquing covert operations within a transnational corporation selling mobile phones, set in the UK, Congo, and China. Desperate to hide some of the genocide-lite atrocities lurking in their supply chain, EyeHear’s UK Corporate Social Responsibility arm swings into action to fur-wash its activities. Apart from a primary focus on the armed protection of gorillas, EyeHear also supplies latrines to militia-controlled miners to improve health and safety, and sends a business guru to victims of sexual assault to teach them how to thrive rather than just survive within a context of carnage. Great Wall, their manufacturing partner in China, offers to implement the projects, despite not quite understanding the request after multiple mistranslations across territories.