The Fishermen

When four brothers return from sneaking off to fish the off limits Omi-Ala river they encounter the village madman Abulu. Rumored to have the power of prophecy he points to the eldest boy Ikenna and tells him he will die at the hands of a fisherman. Unable to shake the words of the madman he spirals into paranoia, certain that the fisherman in question refers to one of his brothers. It's a tiny spark that sets his family ablaze and it's consequences span the length of the book. It's unrelenting, unsparing, dark and an incredibly dense story for the 20-something author.