As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits.
They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities.
Eloghosa Osunde's brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world.
As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city's dark energy.
Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde's characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion.
Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph.
My Review of Vagabonds! by Eloghosa Osunde
Trigger warning as seen in the book: There are simple and straightforward and well-behaved people, I'm sure. But this is not a book for them.
That being said, Vagabonds is not a book you should read if you are faint-hearted, or if you don't appreciate bizarre things.
Because you'll see the weirdest of the weirdest things. Things that'll make you second guess your sanity. Things that'd make you think, reflect and scream. Things that will let your imagination loose.
This is not a book that can be confined in a box. No. It's an amalgam of so many things. And it definitely defies every rule that demands a piece of writing to follow a particular structure.
Vagabonds is a magical realist book that highlights the existence, sufferings and marginalization faced by the group of people the society terms 'the Vagabonds.' That is the queer community.
According to the book, the term vagabonds means a person who wanders from place to place, the homeless, unsettled, rootless.
Any male person who dresses in the fashion of a woman in the public place and vice versa.
Set in Lagos Nigeria, Vagabonds exposes us to many characters who tell different tales of marginalization, hypocrisy, political and religious corruption, transphobia and homophobia.
A character who comes to Lagos for a better life chooses to be a dumb driver in exchange of a good good life, one filled with wealth and prosperity.
But the price he has to pay for working under a wealthy politician who trades body parts, is enormous.
A ghost who wanders about, living her best life even in the afterlife, having sex for the fun of it, later develops a strong feeling for a fellow girl and she doesn't know how best to handle it.
A celebrity seamstress and her lover have to hide who they really are from the world.
But when her daughter, Rain comes, she opens her eyes to whom she really is and what she should be doing and not doing, as her life is hers to live.
Spirits known as the fairygodgirls sneak in books for teens in their bags, to read and understand themselves better.
The devil saves a child from an abusive uncle. And some women, victims of abuse develop ways to save themselves, by disappearing into thin air.
A trans housemaid finds favour in the sight of her madam, whom accepts her for who she is and persuades her to be herself just the way it is.
The bill against homosexuality and cross dressing is passed and the book shows how the queer community reacts to it.
The book shows the fear and marginalization the queer group faces just for being themselves and existing in their bodies, and how in the end, they triumph.
The book doesn't follow a particular pattern, and this might trigger confusion.
But it is a collection of different stories told by different characters.
And just when you think a character's part has ended, they appear in the next story, or the one after that.
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