The Whispering Trees, award-winning writer Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s debut collection of short stories, employs nuance, subtle drama and deadpan humour to capture colourful Nigerian lives. There’s Kyakkyawa, who sparks forbidden thoughts in her father and seems to have angels and witches within her; there’s the mysterious butterfly girl who just might be an incarnation of Ohikwo’s long-dead mother; there’s a flummoxed white woman caught between two Nigerian brothers and an unfolding scandal, and, of course, the two medicine men of Mazade who battle against their egos, an epidemic, and an enigmatic witch.