Perfect Little Angels
In this stunning debut story collection set largely in Nigeria, questions abound: What happens when we fall short of society's — and our own — expectations? When our personal desires conflict with the duties we are bound with? The characters in Perfect Little Angels confront these dilemmas and more in these brilliantly imagined tales.
In a boarding school, tensions brew between students and vengeful staff. An addict seeks a fresh start in pottery class. A man returns home from university abroad with confessions that unravel his mother's world. Amid winter storms, a ghost delights a grief-stricken partner. And atop a hill surrounded by rot and garbage, two lovers dare to embark on a secret, dangerous romance. Human desires — for connection, salvation, and understanding — imbue these deeply Nigerian stories with universal resonance.
In Vincent Anioke’s tenderly written stories, characters seek love in different permutations from teachers, parents, dead partners, and even God. Perfect Little Angels is a nuanced exploration of masculinity, religion, marginalisation, suppressed queerness, and self-expression through the lens of (un)conditional love.
Vincent Anioke is a writer and software engineer born and raised in Nigeria. His short stories have appeared in SmokeLong Quarterly, The Rumpus, The Masters Review, and Passages North, among others. He won the 2021 Austin Clarke Fiction Prize and was a finalist for the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Perfect Little Angels is his first book. He lives in Waterloo, Canada.
