Jumoke Verissimo is the author of A Small Silence which won the Aidoo-Snyder Book Prize and was a finalist for the RSL Ondaatje prize shortlist and the Edinburgh Festival First Book Award. Her first poetry collection, i am memory which was published in 2008 to wide acclaim, won the Carlos Idzia Ahmad Prize, second prize for the Anthony Agbo Prize for Poetry and was a finalist for the Association of Nigeria Authors Prize. Her second collection, The Birth of Illusion was a finalist for the Association of Nigerian Authors’ Poetry Prize, and it was nominated for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature. She has also written a children’s book, Grandma and the Moon’s Hidden Secret, which was nominated for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature. She co-edited, Sòròsókè: An #Endsars Anthology on police brutality in Nigeria.
Verissimo teaches Creative Writing at the Toronto Metropolitan University. She is on the board of the CORA Art and Cultural Foundation in Nigeria and the editorial board of Newest Press in Canada.
She currently shares her time between Nigeria and Canada.
A Small Silence
2019
A Small Silence is an intimate and evocative debut charges us to look again at the alienating effects of trauma and the power of solitude and darkness to ignite the imagination.
Prof is an ex-prisoner, activist and retired academic, who resolves to live a life of darkness after his release from prison. He holes up in his apartment, pushing away friends and family, and embraces his status as an urban legend in the neighbourhood until a knock at the door shakes his existence.
His visitor is Desire, an orphan and final year student, who has grown up idolising Prof, following a fateful encounter in her hometown of Maroko, Nigeria as a child. Tentatively, the two begin to form a bond, as she returns every night at 9pm to see him. However, the darkness of the room becomes a steady torment, that threatens to drive Desire away for good.
Praise
“An intriguing…intimate debut” – Leila Aboulela
“A compelling and compulsive story” – Helon Habila
“A Small Silence feels like an act of literary disruption. Hypnotic, expertly crafted and full of subtle power, it challenges cultural norms around silence, darkness and solitude, leaving the reader changed in ways that are hard to define.” – Irenosen Okojie, Guardian
“The atmosphere of this book was the first thing that drew me in. A feeling of disquiet and tension, even in the quotidian. It manages beauty and lyricism and at the same time as restraint, an impressive line to walk. It left me feeling like I had witnessed a spell of some kind.” – Evie Wyld (Judge, Ondaatje Prize 2020)
In The Press
Punch Newspaper
"One of those who will change the face of literature in Nigeria."
The Guardian
"Hypnotic, expertly crafted and full of subtle power"
Africainwords
"Verissimo clinically dissects conversations and issues, making her characters easier to connect to and the story more familiar."
BrittlePaper
"A mixture of beautiful writing and off-the-wall characters"