Indigo Streets
Obi Nwakanma

About the Book

Indigo Streets is a myth-infused poetic epic that reimagines Hermes not as the familiar Greek messenger but as a restless African exile traversing the fractured lines of history, memory, and migration. Suspended between Africa and America, myth and modernity, homeland and diaspora, Hermes becomes the emblem of the displaced soul of our age: wanderer, trickster, witness, and survivor.

Through a richly layered sequence of poems, the collection traces the long arc of the Black Atlantic, exploring how identity is shaped by movement, loss, and reinvention. 

The collection blends African cosmology, classical mythology, and modern geopolitics with a singular poetic voice that is both intimate and epic in scale.

 

"Hermes as African, Egyptian, actually, Igbo, by the name Agwu -- indeed, as "black as God is black." It is a bold act of revision or restoration, depending on your stand either side of the Atlantic; at any rate, significant, in the light of "the sad twilight of Africa," as his Muse, Iris, laments in this gripping tale. Nwakanma vivifies every moment with myth and mirth, marking what matters most: our common history across languages, lores and location."

        Ogaga Ifowodo - Lawyer and Poet

 

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