A woman spots a stunning blue-headed bird at the edge of a Ghanaian village and follows it. Sonokrom is a place that has not changed for hundreds of years; the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and commune with the spirits of their ancestors. However, the woman’s intrusion and ensuing events lead to an invasion from Accra, the capital city, spearheaded by Kayo; a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries. But as events in the village become more and more incomprehensible, Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba are drawn into a world where storytelling is more powerful than any scientific explanation. Tail of the Blue Bird is a poetic fable, at once unsettling and heart-warmingly funny, that exemplifies the futility of trying to categorise Africa, reminding us that the boundaries of truth have never been clear cut.
About the Author
Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a writer, editor and publisher, who has won acclaim as a children’s author, poet, broadcaster and novelist. He is the author of the poetry chapbooks: eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999), his début; M is for Madrigal (2004), a selection of seven jazz poems; and Ballast (2009), an imagination of the slave trade by balloon. His poem, ‘Tin Roof’, was selected for the Poems on the Underground initiative in 2007, followed by the poem ‘Barter,’ chosen from his first full collection The Makings of You, published by Peepal Tree in 2010. His novel, Tail of the Blue Bird (Jonathan Cape, 2009), hailed by the Financial Times as ‘a beautifully written fable… simple in form, but grappling with urgent issues,’ was lauded internationally, becoming a bestseller in Germany and notably winning France’s two major prizes for translated fiction – Prix Baudelaire and Prix Laure Bataillon – in 2014. He is also the author of two books for children – The Parade and Tales from Africa – under the name K.P. Kojo. Nii Ayikwei is the Senior Editor and publisher at flipped eye publishing, serves on the boards of World Literature Today and the AKO Caine Prize and has served as a judge for several literature prizes including the Commonwealth Prize, the NSK Neustadt Prize and the Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize. In 2014 he was named one of Africa’s 39 most promising authors of the new generation by the World Book Capital Africa 39 Project. His latest books are The Geez, which was longlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize and was a Poetry Book Society 2020 Recommendation, and a Ga language book, The Ga Picture Alphabet; which was longlisted for the 2021 Jhalak Children’s & YA Prize.
Other Books by the Author
The Geez
The Makings of You
Eyes of a boy, lips of a man
Tales from Africa
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