The Comfort of Distant Stars is the debut novel by IO Echeruo, an author who splits his time between Nigeria and Ghana. The story follows the life of Ezeani, an extraordinary and precocious child raised in Nigeria and who is destined for great things, thanks to his prodigious talent for both mathematics and physics.
The boy is fast-tracked to Cornell University in the United States, leaving behind everything he knows, except that he is accompanied by visions of Anyanwu, the Sun God of Igbo cosmology.
Anyanwu has kept Ezeani company his entire life, but gradually his presence butts against the reality of American life, and Ezeani’s story is thrown into chaos as a result.
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This is an unusual and ambitious coming-of-age story that looks at issues of mental health, with Ezeani’s visions and his narration being called into question in the story.
Echeruo also has a lot of fun juxtaposing the spirituality of his home country with the apparently rational world of modern science. While these worlds might seem disparate at first glance, the book suggests strong connections between the two, examining issues of faith and human connection, and giving the reader a wider perspective by considering all of our places in the grand scheme of things.
