What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: Stories

Lesley Nneka Arimah

Apr 2017 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

A PBS NewsHour/New York Times Book Club Pick

A NATIONAL BOOK FOUNDATION "5 UNDER 35" HONOREE

WINNER OF THE 2017 KIRKUS PRIZE

WINNER OF THE NYPL'S YOUNG LIONS FICTION AWARD

FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE LEONARD PRIZE

SHORTLISTED FOR THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE

A dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home. 

In “Who Will Greet You at Home,” a National Magazine Award finalist for The New Yorker, A woman desperate for a child weaves one out of hair, with unsettling results. In “Wild,” a disastrous night out shifts a teenager and her Nigerian cousin onto uneasy common ground. In "The Future Looks Good," three generations of women are haunted by the ghosts of war, while in "Light," a father struggles to protect and empower the daughter he loves. And in the title story, in a world ravaged by flood and riven by class, experts have discovered how to "fix the equation of a person" - with rippling, unforeseen repercussions. 

Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human, What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.

Ratings and reviews

Both enchanting and grim, a brilliant look inside revealing darkness and light, grief, joy, soul.

Wrong in ever idea

About the author

Lesley Nneka Arimah was born in the UK and grew up in Nigeria and the United States. Her work has received grants and awards from Commonwealth Writers, the Elizabeth George Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, Breadloaf and others. She was selected for the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 and is the recipient of an O'Henry Award. Her debut collection, What it Means When a Man Falls from the Sky, won the Kirkus Prize and the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and was a finalist for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Leonard Prize. She currently lives in Minneapolis.