A Bit of Difference

Reviews

Everything about this novel is real and tangible; it’s a truthful and deeply thoughtful portrait of the contemporary African diaspora – corruption, crime, bigotry, Aids and malaria versus cultural disassociation and ingrained, but ignored, racism. 

—Lucy Scholes, The National

Atta...delivers on the promise of her well-received early work with this breakout which is at once an American successor to classic Nigerian literature and a commentary on how the English-speaking world reads Africa...Wholly believable, especially in its nuanced approach to racial identity, the story feels extremely modern while excelling at the novelist’s traditional task: finding the common reality between strangers and rendering alien circumstances familiar.

—Publishers Weekly

This book is an example of the rewards of small moments and understated expression...Sefi Atta deserves attention, both for what she says and for how she says it.

—David Maine, Pop Matters

We see too little writing from Africa, particularly from women. Prize-winning author Sefi Atta shows here how a small difference can go a long way. Deola is Nigerian, fortysomething and bored with her job at a London aid agency. She is also caught between African and Western expectations. She takes a trip back to Africa and gets pregnant - with the fear of AIDS. This novel is about the clash of cultures, but also the hybrid self that results. Strong stuff, and well told.

—Lucy Sussex, The Sydney Morning Herald

It is intelligent and enlightening. It offers an honest and complex view of Nigeria and international race relations, and refuses any comforting resolution of political or personal problems.

—Robyn Cadwallader, Verity La

Sefi Atta was born in Nigeria, as was her protagonist, Deola, an accountant who finds herself working for a charity in London ... Atta's quiet, sometimes wry style may owe something to J.M. Coetzee, the writer admired by Deola's novelist friend, Bandele, and dismissed by his Afrocentric rival - she uses it to deal nimbly in political ideas without being too heavily didactic ... At the centre of this book, though, is tough, sensitive Deola, a salutary corrective to the idea that in literature, niceness - or accountancy - is uninteresting. 

—Owen Richardson, The Age

Sefi Atta's prose is as clear as water and just as vital. This novel of complex psychologies speaks at close range in a near whisper. Writers of casually accomplished novels rarely need to shout.

—Colin Channer, author of Waiting In Vain and The Girl With the Golden Shoes

Pitched between humor and despair, with stripped-down, evocative prose, A Bit of Difference bristles with penknife-sharp dialogue... A Bit of Difference explores —with a hint of mischief—the problem of how to look like you have no problems when you have abundant problems—the universal problem of the socially- motivated classes.

—Nii Parkes, author of Tail of the Blue Bird

Atta's splendid writing sizzles with wit and compassion. This is an immensely absorbing book.

—Chika Unigwe, author of On Black Sisters Street

With Sefi Atta's characteristic boldness and vision, A Bit of Difference limns the complexities of our contemporary world. This is a novel not to be missed.

—USA Africa Dialogue Series

Character is one of Atta's strongest points as a writer – each character, even the most fleeting, has a story, a mannerism that stays with the reader...This is a refreshing book from an author with a lot to say.

—Helon Habila, The Guardian

Everything about this novel is real and tangible; it’s a truthful and deeply thoughtful portrait of the contemporary African diaspora – corruption, crime, bigotry, Aids and malaria versus cultural disassociation and ingrained, but ignored, racism.

—Lucy Scholes, The National

I am going to miss the characters in this book. And I am impatient even now to read more of Sefi Atta’s work, but I am sure also that this is a book that I will return to in the future. It is too rich to read only once.

—Book Lugambo

What is most interesting in the novel is its multiple, intertwining themes: the often lonely life of the middle-class expat, race relations in England, African identity and politics, and the way even the enlightened or educated people in both cultures don’t always meet eye-to-eye

—Whispering Gums, blog

I recommend A Bit of Difference to readers interested in how we relate across ethnic and geographical boundaries and in a present-day depiction of Nigeria’s urbanized and westernized upper middle-class. For all its critical messages, A Bit of Difference is an enjoyable book, with bits of humor and grace.

—Me, you, and books

The result is a shrewd, quietly fearless and often witty novel that triumphantly succeeds in being both politically thought-provoking and emotionally engaging.

—Mail Online

Table of Contents

Reorientation
Actually
Foreign Capitals
The Business of Humanitarianism
Sidestep
For Good