Reading Teju Cole's debut novel Open City is really not like reading a novel at all; it is more like reading a journal or a travelogue written for the writer to look back on themselves and use as an aide memoir when wanting to go back over a trip or an experience they have enjoyed. The novel's protagonist, Julius, a Nigerian immigrant to New York City, has recently ended a relationship and is in the process of completing the final year of his psychiatry fellowship.
Julius loves to explore the city and meet as many diverse people as possible. Julius is looking for his grandmother, and this search takes him to Belgium, engaging the locals he meets there in deep conversations about philosophy and the meaning of life. When he returns to New York City he meets a woman who changes him profoundly and inspires him to look at himself in a different way. The novel has no plot but instead uses Julius' recountings of his daily explorations to create one.
Like his protagonist, the novel's author also has Nigerian heritage, being the first generation Nigerian American son of Nigerian immigrant parents, but to all intents and purposes he grew up in Nigeria, only returning to America to attend college. Open Country was extremely well received, earning Cole the 2011 Time magazine award for Best Book of the Year, as well as the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. He was also awarded the 2013 International Literature Award after the novel was translated into German.
