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"Policemen routinely stop drivers of commercial vehicles at this spot to demand bribe"
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Teju ColeAnd again, the empty space that was, I now saw and admitted, the obvio — Teju Cole
"And again, the empty space that was, I now saw and admitted, the obvious: the ruins of the World Trade Center. The place had become a metonym of its disaster."
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Teju Cole
Teju Cole
author
Teju Cole 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 (2016); a photobook, Punto d'Ombra (2016); and a second novel, Tremor (2023). Critics have praised his work as having "opened a new path in African literature."
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"thousands of cars over the course of a day would pay toll at the informal rate, lining the pockets of the collectors and their superiors"
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Teju ColeQuote
"the moment there is a power cut"
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Teju ColeQuote
"Precisely because everyone takes a shortcut, nothing works and, for this reason, the only way to get anything done is to take another shortcut.”"
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Teju ColeQuote
"Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city, rises out of the Sahel like a modernist apparition. The avenues are clean and broad and the government buildings are imposing, with that soulless, vaguely fascistic air common to all capitals cities of the world…"
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Teju ColeQuote
"Help us fight corruption. If any employee of the consulate asks for a bribe or tip, please, have a discreet word with the Consul General"
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Teju Cole