A remarkable collection of short stories from one of our most gifted writers, Helen Oyeyemi.
Helen Oyeyemi is the author of The Icarus Girl, The Opposite House, White is for Witching (which won a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award), Mr Fox and Boy, Snow, Bird. In 2013, Helen was included in Granta's Best of Young British Novelists.
Oyeyemi's imagination is impressive and vast . . . Her ability to
conceive her stories on such a grand scale is what makes her work
so magnetic, sucking the reader into any number of netherworlds.
Perhaps it's this ability to consume and be consumed that keeps
Oyeyemi constantly, and prolifically, at work.
*Guardian*
Transcendent . . . the pleasurable awareness of a story being told
courses through the collection like electricity . . . Oyeyemi
expertly melds the everyday, the fantastic and the eternal . . .
with each story I had the delightful and rare experience of being
utterly surprised . . . Oyeyemi has created a universe that dazzles
and wounds
*New York Times*
Alluring . . . the style and peculiar authority of this exceptional
young writer will carry you carefully through the
labyrinth and into a new and exciting literary landscape . . . If
you are seduced by magical realism - particularly the novels of
Allende and Marquez - you will savour Oyeyemi's inventive
tales.
*Daily Mail*
Wild, luscious and startling . . . Oyeyemi glides seamlessly across
time, space and genre . . . Oyeyemi's observations are as sharp as
they are humorous. But she is equally at home in a more lyrical
mode, her writing warm and sensuous . . . these gorgeously baroque
stories are full of humour, tenderness, wisdom and strange
delights
*Financial Times*
Enchanting . . . the breadth of Oyeyemi's imagination is
impressive, teetering, as ever, on the edge of magical realism. Her
use of fairytales, folklore and ghost stories is distinctly
reminiscent of the work ofAngela Carter . . . inviting, luscious
prose.
*Guardian*
Curious, erotic, by turns dark and humorous; like the many secrets
these stories reveal, Helen Oyeyemi's imagination is ripe to be
unlocked, revelled in and treasured.
*Literary Review*
Ethereal beauty and unexpected humour
*Independent on Sunday*
Boasts ambitious stories written masterfully by an adventurous
author, and is another example of Oyeyemi's skill at finding
inspiration in the smallest and most ephemeral details.
*New York Times Live*
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours illustrates the necessity and power
of private, written confessions.
*New Yorker*
This is a truly exceptional work of fiction, by a writer we should
be delirious to have as a contemporary.
*Independent*
Oyeyemi's fireworks illuminate a world in which other people are
always more mysterious and strange than we might think
*Spectator*
[Oyeyemi] has come up with something unique, keeping pace with a
modern mixed-up world
*Daily Telegraph*
Oyeyemi takes the classic folk tale on a sometimes dark, often
erotic, always fantastic, journey. The book itself is a thing of
beauty, too.
*Pool*
Oyeyemi captures the off-kilter fairy-tale magic of her 2014
masterwork, Boy, Snow, Bird . . . [she] writes with mastery,
sometimes keeping her prose sparse and declarative only to unleash
a bounty of description and humor a sentence later.
*Entertainment Weekly*
Beautifully broken tales with wonderfully flawed characters . . . a
fascinating glimpse into a world built on our fears, hopes and
desires . . . articulating such disorder proves Oyeyemi as the
painstakingly masterful writer that she is.
*Stylist*
The best teller of fairy tales we've got . . . [Oyeyemi's] first
collection of short stories is obviously a bit of a treat . . .
allowing for more invention, more sexiness and more beautiful
sentences that lead you round the corner to something surprising .
. . brilliant
*Emerald Street*
Witty and tender . . . simple and beautiful . . . hers is a rare
talent
*Guardian*
These short stories are pure, sensuous enjoyment, packed with
colour and passion
*Times*
A collection of short stories, which will suck the reader into
Oyeyeymi's wild and surreal imagination.
*Red Magazine*
Occasionally gothic, sometimes fantastical, always captivating.
*Radio Times*
Oyeyemi has created a universe that dazzles and wounds.
*Scotland on Sunday*
It is Oyeyemi's boundless inventiveness which drives these stories
. . . stylistically bold, fantastical, disorientating and
ruthlessly defying convention. Oyeyemi, one of the Granta Best of
Young British Novelists 2013, now effortlessly outpaces most of her
peers. In this short fiction we can discern hints of Angela Carter
and hear notes of Aimee Bender but on the whole what rings out is
Oyeyemi's singular, magical voice.
*National*
Her arguments, about identity, about sexuality, are more fluid than
[Angela] Carter's . . . Reading What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is
like settling into a rollercoaster: you must abandon yourself
*New Statesman*
What is Not Yours is Not Yours is like a charmed set of Russian
dolls: spellbound, we are gripped by the seamlessly joined stories
unfolding from-and into-one another, as we wait for Oyeyemi to
reach for her next bit of magic.
*Londonist*
Dizzying, baffling, and beguiling . . . unruly in the best way,
drawing on pre-modern modes of story-telling (fairy tales,
Boccaccio, The Arabian Nights) to show they've lost none of their
power in the present
*Vulture*
Imaginative, playful and entirely unique, this collection of short
stories is magical realism at its finest
*Time Out (US)*
The stories in this collection are poetic and puzzling . . . get
ready to tumble through the doors of this beautifully challenging
and satisfying collection
*NPR*
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