A stunning debut novel—its power and prose evocative of such diverse writers as Faulkner, Ondaatje, Nabokov, and Coetzee–about a young African’s international odyssey of self-discovery. Kwasi Edward Michael Dankwa—Eddie Signwriter to his clients—is a twenty-year-old painter of murals and billboards in the city of Accra, Ghana, who is buffeted by forces beyond his control and understanding as he is swept up by the passions and machinations of others. Struggling with a forbidden relationship, banished from school, held responsible for the death of a notable woman in the community, Eddie flees overland to Senegal and then, illegally, to France, determined to find a new life for himself among the immigrant communities of Paris. Following him across magnificently rendered African lands into the precincts of Paris, Eddie Signwriter gives us a spellbinding tale of rootlessness and desire, of disgrace and redemption, of politics both personal and global, of art and love. Empathic, wise, deeply humane, and luminously written, it heralds Adam Schwartzman as a writer of great promise.

这是一部令人惊叹的处女作，其力量和散文让人想起福克纳、翁达杰、纳博科夫和科兹等不同的作家，讲述了一个年轻非洲人的自我发现的国际之旅。夸西-爱德华-迈克尔-丹克瓦（Kwasi Edward Michael Dankwa）是加纳阿克拉市一名20岁的壁画和广告牌画家，当他被他人的激情和阴谋所淹没时，他受到了超出他控制和理解的力量的冲击。埃迪在一段被禁止的关系中挣扎，被学校开除，对社区中一位著名女性的死亡负有责任，他从陆路逃到塞内加尔，然后非法逃到法国，决心在巴黎的移民社区中为自己找到新的生活。埃迪-辛格瑞尔跟随他穿越了壮观的非洲土地，来到巴黎，为我们讲述了一个关于无根与欲望、耻辱与救赎、个人与全球政治、艺术与爱情的迷人故事。这部作品富有同情心和智慧，深具人性，文笔优美，预示着亚当-施瓦茨曼将成为一名具有巨大潜力的作家。