Is Starlings a collection of short stories, a writer’s drawer of odds and ends, or something else entirely?

Expertly translated into English by Sheryl Curtis, Vestiges hasn't yet been picked up by an English-language publisher. This review is by way of voicing my own interest in this book, and the series in general, in the hope that, together, we might convince editors here in the US to bring it over from across the Atlantic.

“In 2013, I saw a lot of conversations going on social media about Nigeria’s challenges, problems, how terrible the government is and all that. Every day, every minute, there was just bashing going on and on and it. I know it is true, but every opinion I read sounded so lacking in hope, so frustrated, so bitter, and so angry. “I felt what we really need is to hold onto hope that things will be better.”

Abuja was built to be a city of the future. It is Afrofuturism solidified as roads, an international airport, planned parks, and ministerial buildings.

“When you work with a writer who has the craft to take their work to the next level, there’s nothing more beautiful I feel than being able to say, ‘OK these are signposts. See if you can follow it there and you’re going to have yourself an excellent version.’ Some writers are able to do that, some aren’t. When it all does come together, it’s like music.”

“For instance, it’s still difficult for a poor man to send his children to school. It’s difficult for a poor man to get a power supply because all of the rich people use power generators. Fela sang about a society without light, a society without water. You think ‘Oh we are in the twenty-first century things should be better’, but they are getting worse.”

The world is dark and difficult enough; these comics tell stories in which the monsters come out right and the truly monstrous, the evildoers who fear and oppress them, get what they deserve.

Lee relentlessly reminds us that war is a self-sustaining state, and that the suffering it produces is its intended product.

This gives the comic a loose, effortless tone but at the same time each page is meticulously laid out, perfectly balanced even when Taylor throws in charts, diagrams, or blocks of text.

I’d suggest in fact that Garland’s film is less an adaptation, but something more organic, echoing some of the novel’s central themes, complementing it, an extension of that continuous dream.