Open City

Teju Cole’s first full-length novel, Open City was published in 2011 to widespread acclaim, winning the PEN/Hemingway Award, The New York City Book Award, and the Rosenthal Foundation Award. Open City made many lists of the best books of the year, including at the New York Times Book Review, the Los Angeles Times, and NPR. Cole was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan to Nigerian parents and spent most of his childhood in Lagos, Nigeria before returning to Michigan at seventeen to attend college, first at Western Michigan University and then at Kalamazoo College. He draws upon his multinational experience in creating the character of Julius, the narrator of Open City.

Open City is a work of literary fiction set in both New York City and Brussels. The narrator, as he walks around the streets of these cities, recalls events from his past in Nigeria, as well as the time he has spent living in America. The walks are a break from his last year of residency as a psychiatrist in 2007. The novel explores Physical and Mental Wandering; Race, Ethnicity, and Difference; and New York City as a Palimpsest.