The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi
The Lies of the Ajungo (2023), by Moses Ose Utomi, is as close to perfect a modern parable as I’ve read in some time, with prose as sparse as its desert setting and lessons just as unforgiving. I loved pretty much everything about it from its opening line — “There is no water in the City of Lies” — onward.
The novella opens with a brief bit of worldbuilding history: Long ago when the City of Lies suffered greatly from its lack of water,
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