Bookstagrammer Kobby Ben Ben Announces Debut Novel, No One Dies Yet

December 22, 2020

Ghanaian writer and bookstagrammer Kobby Ben Ben announced on social media that his debut novel, No One Dies Yet, will be published by Europa Editions in August 2021.

No One Dies Yet is set in 2019, otherwise known as the Year of Return in Ghana. The Year of Return marks 400 years since the first enslaved Africans arrived in the Americas. In 2019, Ghana waved visa requirements for tourists and granted citizenship to 126 African American and Afro-Caribbean individuals seeking reconnection to their ancestral continent.

Ben Ben’s novel follows three African-American men on their Year of Return journey to Accra and their surprising discoveries about Ghana’s history and queer scene. These men, according to a summary of the book,

are thrust into the hands of two guides, Kobby and Nana, whose intentions aren’t clear, yet they are the narrators we have to trust. Kobby, a modern deviant according to Nana’s traditional and religious principles, offers a more upscale and privileged tour of Ghana and also becomes the friends’ link to Accra’s secret gay culture. Nana’s adherence to his pastor’s teachings against sin makes him hate Kobby enough to want to kill. “No one dies yet,” Kobby begins, setting the tone of what will become an unsettling tale of murder in a country whose dead slaves are shackled with stories that must be heard.

Ben Ben shared on Twitter that he wrote the drafts of No One Dies Yet while recovering from COVID.

5/5: Writing 3rd draft as I went through 2nd covid and now finally submitting to publisher to begin the editing process. I really just want to sleep now. Chase your dreams and binge-watch lots of reality TV, friends 💖

— Kobby (@bookworm_mann) December 1, 2020

In addition to being a writer, Kobby Ben Ben is curator of one of the most visually stunning bookstagrams. A voracious reader, Ben Ben began posting photos of books with his reviews in 2015. At first he posted photos of the books with meals he had cooked, but then in 2017 he began to pose with the books, perhaps starting the #BooksAsOutfits phenomenon long before it started trending on Twitter.

Check out some of Kobby Ben Ben’s fabulous #BooksAsOutfits below, and follow his Bookstagram, bookworm_man, for regular updates!