Teju Cole

Author profile

gender

male

website

http://www.TejuCole.com

genre

Literature & Fiction, Arts & Photography

About this author

edit data

I was born to Nigerian parents and grew up in Lagos. My mother taught French. My father was a business executive who exported chocolate. The first book I read (I was six) was an abridgment of Tom Sawyer. At fifteen I published cartoons regularly in Prime People, Nigeria’s version of Vanity Fair. Two years later I moved to the United States.

Since then, I’ve spent most of my time studying art history, except for an unhappy year in medical school. I currently live in Brooklyn.

14 posts
Teju Cole's Blog

Teju Cole isn't a Goodreads Author (yet), but he does have a blog, so here are some recent posts imported from his feed.

illustrirte

"Because of an early spelling mistake, the masthead of the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung was printed with a spelling error all through the fifty years of its existence."

István Deák, Weimar Germany's Left-Wing Intellectuals: A Political History of the Weltbühne and Its Circle, 1968, p.40

op. cit., p. 153

combine editions
Teju Cole's Books

Average rating: 3.53 · 3,838 ratings · 720 reviews · 4 distinct works · Similar authors

	Open City 3.52 of 5 stars 3.52 avg rating — 3,800 ratings — published 2011 — 16 editions	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Every Day is for the Thief 4.22 of 5 stars 4.22 avg rating — 36 ratings — published 2007	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cidade Aberta 0.0 of 5 stars 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings — published 2013	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Brilliant Coroners by Rachel Barenblat (Editor), Maria Benet (Contributor), Dave Bonta (Goodreads Author) (Contributor) 5.0 of 5 stars 5.00 avg rating — 2 ratings — published 2007	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

Upcoming Events

No scheduled events. Add an event.

Interviews

January 2011, Teju Cole
"A young Nigerian-German doctor restlessly wanders the streets of Manhattan in the introspective novel Open City. Cole shares some evocative photographs of the big apple." ...More

more interviews »

Quotes by Teju Cole

“To be alive, it seemed to me, as I stood there in all kinds of sorrow, was to be both original and reflection, and to be dead was to be split off, to be reflection alone.”
― Teju Cole, Open City

tags: answer, death, life, life-and-death, life-lessons, sorrow, spiritual

10 people liked it

“Each neighborhood of the city appeared to be made of a different substance, each seemed to have a different air pressure, a different psychic weight: the bright lights and shuttered shops, the housing projects and luxury hotels, the fire escapes and city parks.”
― Teju Cole, Open City

tags: city, new-york-city, urban

6 people liked it

“I can't pretend it isn't about my life, she said to me once, it is m life. It's a difficult thing to live in a country that has erased your past. She fell silent, and the sensation created by her words -- I remember experiencing it as a subtle shift in the air pressure of the room -- deepened in the silence, so that all we could hear was the going and coming outside my office door. She had closed her eyes for a moment, as though she had fallen asleep. But then she continued, her shut eyelids now trembling. There are almost no Native Americans in New York City, and very few in all of the Northeast. It isn't right that people are not terrified by this because this is a terrifying thing that happened to a vast population. And it's not in the past, it is still with us today:; at least, it's still with me.”
― Teju Cole

5 people liked it

See all Teju Cole's quotes »

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Literary Fiction ...: Teju Cole Finalist For National Book Critics Circle Award	1	14	Jan 21, 2012 08:53pm
The Filipino Group: [Open Forum] Eugenides versus Hollinghurst in the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Awards	24	22	Jan 31, 2012 06:28pm
Around the World ...: Tara - Frequent Flier	4	29	Feb 19, 2012 07:04am
Great African Reads: Seeking Nigerian recommendations	25	58	Oct 05, 2012 03:16pm
You'll love this ...: Philly Beth's Rainbow Reads	27	59	Oct 28, 2012 08:22am
Book Buying Addic...: Best Buys of 2012	4	25	Dec 24, 2012 02:02pm

More…

Is this you? Let us know. If not, help out and invite Teju to Goodreads.

Teju's Fans (73)