God's Children Are Little Broken Things: Stories

In this stunning debut from one of Nigeria's most exciting young writers, the stakes of love meet a society in flux. These nine stories of queer male intimacy brim with simmering secrecy, ecstasy, loneliness, and love in their depictions of what it means to be gay in contemporary Nigeria. A man revisits the university campus where he lost his first love, aware now of what he couldn't understand then. A daughter returns home to Lagos after the death of her father, where she must face her past—and future—relationship with his longtime partner. A young musician rises to fame at the price of pieces of himself, and the man who loves him.

The audiobook edition of God's Children Are Little Broken Things includes an exclusive introduction voiced by the author.

'Surprisingly hopeful…[Arinze's Ifeakandu's] understated style encourages close reading and elicits a strong sense of what it is like for the characters to endure the perils of being gay in Nigeria. The author leaves readers with a painful and powerful group portrait.'
—Publishers Weekly

Contemporary love stories with moments of real surprise and revelation.
—Brandon Taylor, author of Filthy Animals


Generations collide, families break and are remade, languages and cultures intertwine, and lovers find their ways to futures. From childhood through adulthood, on university campuses, city centers, and neighborhoods where church bells mingle with the morning call to prayer, love is consistent even in the presence of loss. God's Children Are Little Broken Things from Caine Prize finalist Arinze Ifeakandu is a debut of emotional charge, with the touch of grace and the compassionate signature of an important new voice.


'The nine stories are best enjoyed at a slow and savored pace as they are often presented like scenes from a play with little to no context at the beginning. Nevertheless, the vague beginnings and endings of each story enhance the overall haunting and evocative effect of the lush writing. ' - Booklist

In these gorgeous stories, Ifeakandu takes on big, untidy emotions—love, loneliness, yearning, grief—and writes about them with extraordinary deftness and grace. This is a hugely impressive collection, full of subtlety, wisdom and heart.
—Sarah Waters, author of The Paying Guests