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“... If Taiye Selasi’s debut novel was as fascinating as its acknowledgments pages the book would be a triumph. Acknowledgments in books have gone the way of Oscar acceptance speeches in recent years, with ever more exhaustive tributes – though in the case of a book no prize has yet been awarded. Selasi’s list contains more than 150 names, and begins: ‘I am so very grateful to God, and (in alphabetical order, from the bottom of my heart) Andrew Wylie ...’ It’s an unusual version of alphabetical order that gives Andrew ‘the Jackal’ Wylie pride of place and the proper proximity to God ...”

“... work; McGuinness’s Other People’s Countries; the half-Nigerian, half-Ghanaian novelist Taiye Selasi; Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland, which makes acute distinctions between the privileged economic migration of the Dutch banker who narrates the novel, and the much less privileged immigration of the Trinidadian trickster who is the book’s ...”