Helen Oyeyemi

From the award-winning author of Boy, Snow, Bird and Mr. Fox comes an enchanting collection of intertwined stories. Playful, ambitious, and exquisitely imagined, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is cleverly built around the idea of keys, literal and metaphorical. The key to a house, the key to a heart, the key to a secret--Oyeyemi's keys not only unlock elements of her characters' lives, they promise further labyrinths on the other side. In "Books and Roses" one special key opens a library, a garden, and clues to at least two lovers' fates. In "Is Your Blood as Red as This?" an unlikely key opens the heart of a student at a puppeteering school. "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" involves a "house of locks," where doors can be closed only with a key--with surprising, unobservable developments. And in "If a Book Is Locked There's Probably a Good Reason for That Don't You Think," a key keeps a mystical diary locked (for good reason). Oyeyemi's creative vision and storytelling are effervescent, wise, and insightful, and her tales span multiple times and landscapes as they tease boundaries between coexisting realities. Is a key a gate, a gift, or an invitation? What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours captivates as it explores the many possible answers.

What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

A modern reimagining of the Snow White fairy tale follows the experiences of a woman who marries a mid-20th-century Massachusetts single father and succumbs to vanity when the birth of her baby reveals her husband to be a light-skinned African American. By the award-winning author of White Is for Witching.

Boy, Snow, Bird

"The prize-winning, bestselling author of Boy, Snow, Bird and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours returns with a bewitching and inventive novel."--

Gingerbread

With distinct originality and grace, and an extraordinary gift for making the fantastic believable, Oyeyemi spins the politics of family and nation into a riveting and unforgettable tale.

White is for Witching

The prize-winning, bestselling author of Gingerbread; Boy, Snow, Bird; and What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours returns with a vivid and inventive new novel about a couple forever changed by an unusual train voyage. When Otto and Xavier Shin declare their love, an aunt gifts them a trip on a sleeper train to mark their new commitment--and to get them out of her house. Setting off with their pet mongoose, Otto and Xavier arrive at their sleepy local train station, but quickly deduce that The Lucky Day is no ordinary locomotive. Their trip on this former tea-smuggling train has been curated beyond their wildest imaginations, complete with mysterious and welcoming touches, like ingredients for their favorite breakfast. They seem to be the only people onboard, until Otto discovers a secretive woman who issues a surprising message. As further clues and questions pile up, and the trip upends everything they thought they knew, Otto and Xavier begin to see connections to their own pasts, connections that now bind them together. A spellbinding tale from a star author, Peaces is about what it means to be seen by another person--whether it's your lover or a stranger on a train--and what happens when things you thought were firmly in the past turn out to be right beside you.

Peaces

Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently.

Mr. Fox

Jessamy "Jess" Harrison, age eight, is the child of an English father and a Nigerian mother. Possessed of an extraordinary imagination, she has a hard time fitting in at school. It is only when she visits Nigeria for the first time that she makes a friend who understands her: a ragged little girl named TillyTilly. But soon TillyTilly's visits become more disturbing, until Jess realizes she doesn't actually know who her friend is at all. Drawing on Nigerian mythology, Helen Oyeyemi presents a striking variation on the classic literary theme of doubles -- both real and spiritual -- in this lyrical and bold debut.

The Icarus girl

Margaret Atwood

Rachel Seiffert

Stella Duffy

Caroline O'Donoghue

Kamila Shamsie

Kirsty Logan

Emma Donoghue

Linda Grant

Ali Smith

Chibundu Onuzo

Eleanor Crewes

Susie Boyt

Claire Kohda

Cn Lester

DRAGON. TIGRESS. SHE-DEVIL.
For centuries past, and all across the world,
HUSSY. SIREN. WENCH.
there are words that have defined and decried us.
HARRIDAN. MUCKRAKER. SPITFIRE.
Words that raise our hackles,
VITUPERATOR. CHURAIL. TERMAGANT.
fire up our blood;
FURY. WARRIOR. VIRAGO.
words that tell a story.

In this blazing cauldron of a book, fifteen bestselling, award-winning writers have taken up their pens and reclaimed these words, creating an entertaining and irresistible collection of feminist tales for our time.

Stories of the wicket, wild and untamed

Furies

Maja, daughter of a black Cuban couple, was only five years old when the family emigrated to London. Growing up, she speaks Spanish and English, but longs for a connection to her African roots. Now in her early twenties, Maja is haunted by the desire to m

The Opposite House

A Novel

The prize-winning, bestselling author of Peaces and Gingerbread returns with a novel about storytelling, competitive friendship, and a triumvirate of women on a reality-bending weekend in Prague. Literature is full of cities that are as unique and richly described as actual characters: Dickens' London, Edith Wharton's New York, and now, Helen Oyeyemi's Prague. Parasol Against the Axe captures the Czech capital as a living thing—one that can let you in or spit you out. When Hero arrives in Prague for her friend Sophie's bachelorette weekend, she has no idea what's in store. This city has a penchant for playing gentle tricks on unsuspecting tourists. A book Hero is reading seems to be warping her mind: the text changes each time she picks it up, revealing startling new stories about the city's history. Figures from Czech lore appear during bachelorette activities and at city landmarks, offering wisdom, humor, and even a taste of treachery. When a third woman from Hero and Sophie's past appears unexpectedly, forcing them to confront their friendship head-on, their sense of reality is further blurred. Who is the duper and who is the duped, and just who—or what—is shaping their story? An adventurous, kaleidoscopic novel like only Helen Oyeyemi can write, Parasol Against the Axe explores the lines between reality and fiction: When different narratives clash, whose version is true? How much can a reader influence a story? And finally, in a battle between friends, is it better to be the parasol or the axe?

Parasol Against the Axe

From the award-winning, bestselling “literary pied piper” (The New York Times Book Review) who brought us Boy, Snow, Bird and Gingerbread comes a charmingly surreal novel about self-sabotage, self-deception, self-love—and the many selves inside us sparring for control. Kinga is a woman who is just trying to make it through the week. There’s a Kinga for every day: on Mondays, you can catch Kinga A deleting food delivery apps. By Friday, Kinga E is happy to spend the days soaking, wine-drunk, in the bath. Kingas A-G, perhaps unsurprisingly, live a varied life—between them is a professional matchmaker, a scent-crazed perfumer and a window cleaner, all with varying degrees of apathy, anger, introversion and bossiness. At least three of them are Team Toxic. It’s an arrangement that’s not without its fair share of admin, grudges, and half-truths. But when Kinga A discovers a man tied up in their apartment, the Kingas have to reckon with the possibility that one of them might be planning to destroy them all. An account of seven particularly busy days in an already hectic inner life from master storyteller Helen Oyeyemi, A New New Me cleverly asks: what if the different sides of your personality had trust issues with each other? How many versions of oneself can one self safely contain?

A New New Me

Juniper's Whitening and Victimese

Winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction One of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists From the prizewinning young writer of What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, Gingerbread, and Peaces comes a brilliant and inventive story of love, lies, and inspiration. Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently. Mary challenges Mr. Fox to join her in stories of their own devising; and in different times and places, the two of them seek each other, find each other, thwart each other, and try to stay together, even when the roles they inhabit seem to forbid it. Their adventures twist the fairy tale into nine variations, exploding and teasing conventions of genre and romance, and each iteration explores the fears that come with accepting a lifelong bond. Meanwhile, Daphne becomes convinced that her husband is having an affair, and finds her way into Mary and Mr. Fox's game. And so Mr. Fox is offered a choice: Will it be a life with the girl of his dreams, or a life with an all-too-real woman who delights him more than he cares to admit? The extraordinarily gifted Helen Oyeyemi has written a love story like no other. Mr. Fox is a magical book, endlessly inventive, as witty and charming as it is profound in its truths about how we learn to be with one another.

If A Book Is Locked There’s Probably A Good Reason For That Don’t You Think

**AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW** 'A writer of sentences so elegant that they gleam.' ALI SMITH 'A terrific mercurial work. Oyeyemi has mastered the art of bold, expansive storytelling.' IRENOSEN OKOJIE 'A writer we should be delirious to have as a contemporary.' INDEPENDENT The new novel from the Goldsmiths Prize-shortlisted author Helen Oyeyemi. Oyeyemi treats you to a kaleidoscopic weekend in Prague, as dazzling as it is effortlessly unique. Get lost in the story like you would an unfamiliar city and let it reward you with moments of philosophical clarity, wheelbarrow rides, raw emotion and raw onions. This novel is a holiday, an adventure, a marvel and a guide. It is a story about the lies behind the lies we tell and a city as a living thing, sustained by the lives of its inhabitants. Suffused with warmth and joy, Parasol Against the Axe is a love letter to Prague, and to the art of storytelling.

Helen Oyeyemi

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