''Open City'' is a 2011 novel by Nigerian-American writer
Teju Cole
Teju Cole (born June 27, 1975) is a Nigerian-American writer, photographer, and art historian. He is the author of a novella ''Every Day Is for the Thief'' (2007), a novel ''Open City'' (2011), an essay collection ''Known and Strange Things'' (20 ...
. The novel is primarily set in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
, and concerns a Nigerian immigrant, Julius, who has recently broken up with his girlfriend. The novel received praise for its prose and depiction of New York.
It was included on several end of year lists of the best books published in 2011.
Plot
Julius, a man completing the last year of a psychiatry fellowship, wanders the streets of New York City and meets a variety of people over the course of a year.
Structure
The novel has no substantial plot, and instead relies on Julius' insights and "peregrinations" through New York City and the broader world to drive the book.
The book's structure and composition has been compared to the work of
W.G. Sebald
Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was being cited by literary critics as one of the g ...
, and although ''Open City'' has "nominally separate" chapters, its lack of punctuation gives it the "atmosphere of a text written in a single, unbroken paragraph". The style has been compared to the structure of a diary.
Reception
Critics were mostly positive in their reviews of the novel.
Michiko Kakutani
Michiko Kakutani (born January 9, 1955) is an American writer and retired literary critic, best known for reviewing books for ''The New York Times'' from 1983 to 2017. In that role, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1998.
Early life ...
, writing for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', compared the work to those of W.G. Sebald and said that Cole's failure to "dramatize his alienation ... underscored the... ad hoc nature of the overall narrative.
In ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', James Wood praised Cole's inclusion of critical theory as neither a satirical undermining of the academic field or a " lourishto exhibit the author's credentials".
The novel was a finalist for the