Little Rot

FROM THE INTERNATIONALLY BESTSELLING AUTHOR 'A masterwork of the form . . . mesmerizing.' New York Times 'A fun, sexy, dangerous, dark thriller about corruption.' Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah 'A dazzling literary talent.' Esquire Akwaeke Emezi's exhilarating new novel follows five people over the course of a weekend which will brutally upend all of their lives. As Kalu drops Aima at the airport, it marks the end of their four-year relationship. Shattered and broken open, he thinks that's the last he will see of his ex-girlfriend. But, reeling from the breakup, both Aima and Kalu find themselves drawn back to Lagos: to separate nights of decadence. When Kalu visits an exclusive sex party hosted by his best friend, Ahmed, he makes a decision that will plunge them all into chaos. On the other side of town, Ola and Souraya, fresh off their first-class flight from Kuala Lumpur, are getting ready for their own nights of pleasure, unaware that everything is about to go awry. Pulled into a whirlwind descent through the city's corrupt and glittering underworld, they're all looking for a way out, fueled by a desperate need to escape the threat that looms over them.

Akwaeke Emezi (they/them) is the author of the memoir Dear Senthuran; New York Times bestseller The Death of Vivek Oji, which was longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize; Pet, a finalist for the National Book Award for Young People's Literature; and Freshwater, which was named a New York Times Notable Book, longlisted for both the Wellcome Book Prize and the Women's Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the PEN/Hemingway Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award, the Lambda Literary Award, and the Center for Fiction's First Novel Prize. Selected as a 5 Under 35 honoree by the National Book Foundation, they are based in liminal spaces.