Search Sweet Country

Jan 21, 2026 9:03 AM

Author:Kojo Laing

Accra, Ghana, the 1970s. In the streets, marketplaces and crowded houses of this sprawling city, an unforgettable cast of characters live, love and try to get by: an idealistic professor, a beautiful young witch, a wide-eyed student, a corrupt politician, a healer and a man intent on founding his own village. Through their stories, and those of the living, breathing city itself, Kojo Laing's dazzling novel creates a portrait of a place caught between colonialism and freedom, eternity and the present.

'The finest novel written in English ever to come out of the African continent' Binyavanga Wainaina

Reviews

Surreal and satirical ... Laing has found an original voice that is all the stronger for making few concessions to the Western reader: wild, sophisticated, sorrowful

—— New York Times

Gleefully energetic ... there is an extravagant hopefulness in Kojo Laing

—— London Review of Books

Laing pushed the English language to its limits and beyond, by fusing Oxbridge English with West African Pidgin, elements from African languages and his own coinings, aiming at creating one gigantic, living and truly cosmopolitan language ... A treasure trove of imagery and refelctions which are just as amusing, relevant and thought-provoking as when they were written

—— The Voice

Kojo Laing is one of the unsung heroes of African fiction. His prose is poetic, densely packed with strange juxtapositions and more ideas on one page than most writers use for several books. Search Sweet Country is an amazing achievement

—— Johannesburg Review of Books

Reading Search Sweet Country is like reading a dream ... Each page delivers an intense blast of vivid imagery, a world in which landscapes come to life when inanimate objects receive human characterization ... Laing is a master stylist, and Search Sweet Country delivers an absorbing, if demanding, world for both its characters and the reader

—— Uzodinma Iweala , Slate Magazine

An intricate, beautifully rambling novel ... a compelling and rewarding read

—— Publishers Weekly

Search Sweet Country can be read over and over, continually surprising with a fresh turn of phrase or nuance in character, always engaging, always beautiful. The search is worthwhile

—— Pittsburgh Gazette

Exuberantly reels with language and imagery reminiscent of the early Joyce

—— Library Journal

A figurative, comic treat, filled with wild characters and dizzy, wink-filled prose

—— FlavorWire

African literature's greatest linguistic innovator

—— Brittle Paper Magazine

A very real, raw and relatable story about the beauty of female friendship. Ali writes with great humour and with an obvious, infectious appreciation of what matters in life. It's genuinely a delight to read

—— KATE LEAVER , bestselling author of The Friendship Cure

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