May 07, 2024
Nigerian-American author Tochi Onyebuchi is set to publish a new novel titled Harmattan Season in March 2025. The novel will be published by Tor Books and explores fantasy noir.
Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Goliath, a Locus Award and Dragon Award finalist; YA novel Beasts Made of Night, which won the Ilube Nommo Award for Best Speculative Fiction Novel by an African; its sequels Crown of Thunder and War Girls; novella Riot Baby, a finalist for the Hugo, the Nebula, the Locus, the Ignyte, and the NAACP Image Awards, and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction and an ALA Alex Award; along with a nonfiction book (S)kinfolk. He holds a B.A. from Yale, a M.F.A. in screenwriting from the Tisch School for the Arts, a Master’s degree from the Paris Institute of Political Studies., and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Based on his extremely impressive portfolio, we are definitely looking forward to reading his fantasy noir title. Harmattan Season is centered on veteran and private eye Boubacar, who trouble always seems to find. Work has dried up, and he’d rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust. but Bouba finds himself caught in a mystery, suspended between two cultures.
According to the synopsis, a bleeding woman stumbles onto Bouba’s doorway, only to vanish just as quickly, and Bouba gets enmeshed in the secrets of a city on the brink of violence. The French occupiers are keen to keep the peace at any cost, and the Indigenous people dugulen have long been shattered into restless factions vying for a chance to reclaim their lost heritage and abilities.
As each clue reveals new truths, Bouba may have to “carve out parts of himself he’s long kept hidden, and decide what he’s willing to offer next.”
Here’s what we can tell so far based on the synopsis. First, Onyebuchi’s novel is set somewhere in West Africa due to the Harmattan winds playing a central role in the book. And second, there is definitely a mystery to solve in this stunning fantasy world, hence the genre of fantasy noir. We can’t wait to get our hands on a copy!
