Born on a Tuesday Born on a Tuesday by Elnathan John

WINNER BETTY TRASK AWARD 2017
SHORTLISTED – NLNG PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2016
SHORTLISTED – REPUBLIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS PRIZE 2016
LONGLISTED – ETISALAT PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2016

Synopsis
This novel explores life, love, friendship, loss and the effects of extremist politics and religion on
everyday life in Northern Nigeria.
Dantala lives in Bayan Layi, Nigeria and studies in a Sufi Quranic school. By chance he meets
gang leader Banda, a nominal Muslim. Dantala is thrust into a world with fluid rules and casual
violence. In the aftermath of presidential elections he runs away and ends up living in a Salafi
mosque. Slowly and through the hurdles of adolescence, he embraces Salafism as preached by his
new benefactor, Sheikh Jamal. Dantala falls in love with Sheikh’s daughter, Aisha, and tries to
court her within the acceptable limits of a conservative setting. All the while, Sheikh struggles to
deal with growing jihadist extremism within his own ranks.
About the author
Elnathan John is a lawyer, novelist, and satirist. His short stories have been shortlisted twice for
the Caine Prize for African Writing, in 2013 and 2015. His novel, Born on a Tuesday won a
Betty Trask Award and was shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature. It has been translated
into German and French and won the 2019 Le Prix Littéraire Les Afriques. His book — a satire
collection Be(com)ing Nigerian, A Guide was published by Cassava Republic Press in 2019 and
his graphic novel, On Ajayi Crowther Street, in November 2019. Elnathan lives in Berlin and is a
2019 recipient of the Berlin Senate grant for non-German literature.

Blurbs
“[John] has produced a thoughtful, nuanced first novel, employing a style that is as unadorned as
it is unflinching . . . His restraint in handling difficult material is just one of his many gifts .
Born on a Tuesday brings home the reality of what is happening in northern Nigeria with a power
the news reports of Boko Haram’s atrocities can’t adequately project. Elnathan John is a writer
to watch.” -Fiammetta Rocco, New York Times Book Review “
A nuanced first novel illuminates the rise of radical Islam in northern Nigeria.” -New York Times
Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“[An] impressive debut . . . I was carried along by the endearing voice of the young, sensitive
narrator, his instinctive goodness and intelligence in making sense and finding beauty in the
brutality, poverty, and oppression surrounding him. The novel manages to pull off two aims at
the same time―giving the reader a sophisticated understanding of contemporary Nigerian
politics and the pleasure of a tender and classy coming of age story.”―Leila Aboulela, Millions, A
Year in Reading
“Elnathan John’s first novel is an ambitious book that tackles modern Nigeria’s extremely
complex religious landscape with great insight, passion, and humor by taking us deep into the
mental and emotional space of the country’s most neglected.” -Uzodinma Iweala, author
of Beasts of No Nation
“[An] insightful debut novel about religious extremism in Nigeria . . . John writes with an
understated elegance and we discover humour and wisdom in the most unexpected of places.”
Guardian (UK)