The Old Lagos

A Dad's Bedtime Stories That Shaped My Thoughts on Money

von Benjamin Rolake

154 Seiten, Taschenbuch

Kurzbeschreibung des Verlags

He wrote a name under every face. He left one blank.

The Old Lagos is a novel about a father, a son, and sixty years of a city that kept changing its mind about money.

Tayo was thirteen when they buried his father. Four days later, on the floor of a flat in Surulere, he found the album: hundreds of faces, each one named in Banji Rolake's careful biro. All but one. A tall man holding a glass, one hand on Banji's shoulder. Nobody would tell Tayo who he was.

For eight years his father had sat on the edge of his bed and told him about old Lagos. The night the flag came down at the Race Course. The ships that waited off Apapa for months. The festival of 1977. Tayo yawned through every one. Once, in the rain, he asked, Daddy, is this a long one? His father said no, and made it short.

Now every story is a locked door. A front man for a foreign company. A ship that never arrived. A savings book with the name of an English school inside the cover, worth less every month, though nobody touched it. A friend who took everything and came to the funeral in a good car.

Everything Banji taught his son about money, he taught by losing it. And one thing he never told anyone was the bravest thing he ever did.

Set against real Lagos history, from the clearances of 1956 to the bank collapses of 1998, The Old Lagos is for anyone who ever half-listened to a parent's stories and wished they could ask one more question.

• Reihe: Independently published
• ISBN: 9798176074673
• Sprache: Englisch
• Erscheinungsdatum: 21.09.2026
• Größe: 229 x 152 mm
• Verlag: Independently published