"Chris Abani's poems remind us of what happens when moral boundaries are obliterated and the sacredness of life becomes a kind of cynical joke. But these poems also remind us of the human capacity for compassion and love in the face of unspeakable cruelty and fiendish conditions. Chris Abani and his poems matter to all."

--Ronald Gottesman, Professor Emeritus, University of Southern California and Editor of the Norton Anthology of American Literature.

"Between 1985 and 1991, as a result of his anti-government writings, Nigerian author and poet Chris Abani was repeatedly thrown into prison and tortured by his country's military dictatorship. During one such spell, Abani, who was eighteen the first time he was sentenced, found himself imprisoned alongside musician Fela Kuti, whose own artistic output set him in almost constant conflict with Nigeria's ruling elite. On hearing how his fellow inmate had wound up there, Kuti offered an ironic warning: "Truth, my friend, is a risky business."--Daniel Trilling, The Observer

". . . the most naked . . . expression of prison life and political torture imaginable."--Harold Pinter, on Kalakuta Republic