The Waiting

<p>A largely allegorical exploration of the loneliness of an existence based on an alien world-view Martin Egblewogbe's The Waiting is a collection rooted in metropolitan Ghana but its primary territory is the human mind. Juxtaposing his training as a physicist against his curiosity about local myth he creates a universe that's both entertaining and erudite. In A Photograph of K & S Smiling a completely self-obsessed man returned home after his father's death attempts to explain away his unremarkable life based on one perceived slight from his youth; in The Gonjon Pin (title story for the 2014 Caine Prize anthology) a genius working on a program to predict lottery numbers is stumped by the appearance of an intruder's disembodied genitals on the wall of his computer engine room; The Making Rain and Back to the Halls explore futility in different ways while Atta explores life after death - a theme that reoccurs in a much bleaker guise in The Crwoling Caterpillar. Often Kafkaesque in its isolation of characters and a pervading sense of powerlessness The Waiting nevertheless maintains a constant hum of humour nowhere more so than in The Going Down of Pastor Mintumi - in which a pastor who has discovered the pleasures of the flesh late in life overindulges with hilarious consequences. The title story The Waiting is judgement day in a twisted mind filled with the kinds of questions that haunt a life on earth which ultimately is the quest of all art.</p>