Teju Cole

Teju Cole comes into his own as nocturnal reading.

If you want to sleep you don't want too much story or linguistic brinkishness of any kind, you want consequential memories and observations sombrely presented: the ventilation system in the New York subway, a mugging in Morningside Park, your father's funeral in Lagos when you were fourteen, scratchy in ceremonial robes, a freedom that exhausts itself into sentences.

You want to sleep but need to be led there.