We have some new details on Eloghosa Osunde’s highly-anticipated debut titled Vagabonds. She recently shared the cover on Instagram, highlighting the “the explosion of color.” The cover was designed by Khari Turner, who she describes as “a treasure and a star.”

The novel is now set for publication on March 15 by Riverhead Books. Nigerian and UK dates are forthcoming. She also notes in the Instagram post that the book is a milestone on her journey as a writer:

I took my time with these stories. I‘m proud of and will stand by them from start to finish. I trust that they know exactly where they’re going and why. I trust what I’ve done – something powerful – and also what I’ve learned: my imagination is mine, and holy.

The novel is set in Lagos and tells the story of a band of outcasts with supernatural powers. Read the synopsis:

In the bustling streets and cloistered homes of Lagos, a cast of vivid characters—some haunted, some defiant—navigate danger, demons, and love in a quest to lead true lives. As in Nigeria, vagabonds are those whose existence is literally outlawed: the queer, the poor, the displaced, the footloose and rogue spirits. They are those who inhabit transient spaces, who make their paths and move invisibly, who embrace apparitions, old vengeances and alternative realities.

Eloghosa Osunde’s brave, fiercely inventive novel traces a wild array of characters for whom life itself is a form of resistance: a driver for a debauched politician with the power to command life and death; a legendary fashion designer who gives birth to a grown daughter; a lesbian couple whose tender relationship sheds unexpected light on their experience with underground sex work; a wife and mother who attends a secret spiritual gathering that shifts her world. As their lives intertwine—in bustling markets and underground clubs, churches and hotel rooms—vagabonds are seized and challenged by spirits who command the city’s dark energy.

Whether running from danger, meeting with secret lovers, finding their identities, or vanquishing their shadowselves, Osunde’s characters confront and support one another, before converging for the once-in-a-lifetime gathering that gives the book its unexpectedly joyous conclusion.

Blending unvarnished realism with myth and fantasy, Vagabonds! is a vital work of imagination that takes us deep inside the hearts, minds, and bodies of a people in duress—and in triumph.

Vagabonds is available for preorder here.