How We Became Heroes (Pre-Order)

Available from November 15!!!

“Progressively imbued with the language of satire, sacrifice, and scarification, Nwádiké’s poetry is a direct commentary on the tribulations of a lost land; his is a temperament laced with love and nostalgia. An uncompromisingly political voice in a line of younger Nigerian poets, Nwádiké’s second book of poems, How We Became Heroes, is a revolutionary song to the possibility of hope amidst the splintered dreams of a people.” ___Chimezie Chika, Culture Journalist & Author of The Incident of the Dog

“Nwàdiké, like all iconoclastic poets, refuses, even in this collection, as he was in his very first, to pare down the mordant rage with which he flattens the heights of the old order and builds in its place a poetry of reason. Here, he erects the rage in such a significant way that lessens the tension as it moves from one vicious rung to a more familiar ground where love and family deconstruct a shared fate. There is the myth of hope in one, the light of the world in the other, and the “call to gather the stars in our minds”; to make both bright. This is a work that blesses the hands and the heart that will read it through and through.” ____Tares Oburumu, Author of The Origin of the Syma Species, Winner of the Sillerman Prize for African Poets.

“Nwàdiké’s collection performs an aesthetic of brilliance and poetic grace, conjuring worlds that burn with the colours of a bard’s rage and an intensity of feeling to which we can all respond.” ___James Yékú, Professor of English & Author of Where the Baedeker Leads

“How We Became Heroes is a brilliant, captivating collection that seethes with palpable class fury, while also being gentle in places where it needs to be, when the poet speaks of love, friendship, sacrifice, culture and children. Nwàdiké’s verse invokes the creative spirit of Okigbo as an illustration of the liberating power of poetry in a failing postcolonial state, and evokes revolutionary reminiscences of the fiery poetry of the civil rights movement, in the tone of its gore and grimness.” ___Olubunmi Familoni, Author of The Road Does Not End, Winner of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, 2024.

“The poems in How We Became Heroes are throbs of drum beats that tug at the heart; the lines are songs that demand rhythms. Intense!” ___Unoma Azuah, Professor of English & Author of Embracing my Shadow

“How We Became Heroes is a critical testament to the evolution of the poet’s craft as his pen protests against injustice while redefining citizenship. Nwàdiké’s poetic excellence lies in his clarity of language and an eye for the quotidian. In this collection, the poet emerges from the literary streams of Okigbo and Irobi with a voice we can call his own.” ___Echezonachukwu Nduka, Poet, Pianist & Author of Chrysanthemums for Wide-eyed Ghosts

“This collection traces the track of tradition. Not only does the poet resurrect the intrepid activism and social consciousness of the alter-native poets of the 1980s and 1990s, he also ponders the complexity and tenderness of human connection, incarnated in friendship and comradeship, made tenuous within the context of postcolonial antimonies. It is a fine balance, and Nwàdiké adroitly weaves the threads together with a purposive intent, both thoughtful and frisky in equal measure.” ____Peter Akinlabi, Author of Iconography

“… raw as ever, ceaselessly tugging at the heart.” ___Ngiga Review