Furo Wariboko awoke this morning to find that dreams can lose their way and turn up on the wrong side of sleep.The story is a spin on The Metamorphosis except instead of waking up as an insect, the main character Furo wakes up as a white man. Except his ass, which turns out is still black. He has a job interview scheduled in Lagos and instead of stopping to consider what this super strange transformation means or how it could happen, he is super concerned with making it to his interview. So he sneaks out of the house and begins is journey into the city.
He gets strange looks on the street, a white man being uncommon, especially one with a Nigerian name and accent. But his whiteness allows him access into a world that he otherwise would be locked out of. Though that doesn't mean everything is going perfectly for him.
No one asks to be born, to be black or white or any colour in between, and yet the identity a person is born into becomes the hardest to explain in the world.In general I liked the story, especially the parts about life in Lagos, although the story doesn't really go anywhere. Though there are some some odd detours. There's a subplot with this person Furo meets immediately after his change that keeps popping back up to narrate chapters. The become obsessed with Furo's story (which sort of makes sense cos that story is nuts) but doesn't really have much connection with Furo. They do track down his family, who are understandably worried about their missing son.
Gif rating:
Title quote from page 261
Barrett, A. Igoni. Blackass. Graywolf Press, 2016. Kindle
