Summer Reads 2010 - About Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Author Biography
Born in England in 1974 and raised in Ghana, Nii Ayikwei Parkes lives in Manchester. He has performed poetry in the UK, Europe, Ghana and the US and was a 2005 Associate artist-in-residence with BBC Radio 3. In 2007 he was writer-in-residence at California State University and in 2009 was the Booktrust online Writer-in-residence. He is also one of the youngest living writers to be featured in the Poems on the Underground programme in London for his poem Tin Roof. Tail of the Blue Bird is his first novel.
Tail of the Blue Bird synopsis
A gripping novel about the clash between old and new worlds in Africa
Sonokrom, a village in the Ghanaian hinterland, has not changed for thousands of years. Here, the men and women speak the language of the forest, drink aphrodisiacs with their palm wine and walk alongside the spirits of their ancestors. The discovery of sinister remains – possibly human, definitely 'evil' – and the disappearance of a local man brings the intrusion of the city in the form of Kayo; a young forensic pathologist convinced that scientific logic can shatter even the most inexplicable of mysteries.
As events in the village become more and more incomprehensible, Kayo and his sidekick, Constable Garba, find that Western logic and political bureaucracy are no longer equal to the task in hand. Strange boys wandering in the forest, ghostly music in the night and a flock of birds that come from far away to fill a desolate hut with discarded feathers take the newcomers into a world where, in the unknown, they discover a higher truth that leaves scientific explanations far behind.
Tail of the Blue Bird is a story of the clash and clasp between old and new worlds. Lyrically beautiful, at once uncanny and heart-warmingly human, this is a story that tells us that at the heart of modern man there remains the capacity to know the unknowable.
Selected Quotes:
"An African whodunit that alludes to the troublesome relationship that lies between the modernity and custom … Parkes has managed to write fabulously poetic and fresh prose that is both vernacular and contemporary."
Hisham Matar
"In this tale of crime, punishment, and forgiveness Parkes’ landscapes are filled with magic, his characters speak with the wisdom of the ancients; he has used his poet's sensibility to recreate for us the oral tales, fables and wonders of a world before time, a world overtaken by time."
Helon Habila
"There is a delightful book that combines the basic tug of the whodunnit with the more elegant pleasures of the literary novel. Like the best detective stories, it is has a questing hero, and a vivid sense of locale…Nii Ayikwei Parkes surely knows the effect the Ghanaian dialogue will have; he doesn’t translate or explain, and this additional layer of mystery (for the average British reader) only adds to the strength of its lyricism and insight."
Jonathan Gibbs, Independent
"A beautifully written fable." 
Adrian Turpin, Financial Times
Other books by Nii Ayikwei Parkes:
• Eyes of a Boy, Lips of a Man
• The Makings of You
• M is for Madrigal
• Ballast: A Remix
Nii's website:
http://www.niiparkes.com/