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Books

Fairytales of racism

A review of Boy, Snow, Bird, by Helen Oyeyemi. This Granta Best of Young British Novelist deserves better editing

1 March 2014

9:00 AM

1 March 2014

9:00 AM

Boy, Snow, Bird Helen Oyeyemi

Picador, pp.308, £12.99, ISBN: 9781447237136

A preview of Helen Oyeyemi’s Boy, Snow, Bird appeared in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists issue in April last year, the decennial list identifying 20 writers under 40 as the names to watch. The previous four novels of the Nigerian-born Oyeyemi (who was first published at the age of 18) revolve around deeply psychological retellings of folk tales, laced with questions of race, gender and, above all, youth.

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