The Amazing Absorbing Boy

Seventeen-year-old Samuel, na ve and inexperienced, leaves his home in Trinidad for Canada following the death of his mother. He hasn't seen his father since he was six years old and now, thrust into a new life together, Samuel soon realizes that he is considered a burden. Undaunted, though still wide-eyed, and propelled by a comic book sensibility, Samuel begins to explore the vast foreign landscape that is Toronto. There he encounters molemen, super-villains, chimeras, trolls and a host of sidekicks. With his fourth novel, Rabindranath Maharaj gives us his best work yet, a powerful and funny story of a naive young immigrant who is wise in the culture of comic books, and a portrait of big-city Canada we have never seen before.

Rabindranath Maharaj is the author of three previous novels: A Perfect Pledge, nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and for the Regional Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book; The Lagahoo’s Apprentice, a Globe and Mail and Toronto Star Notable Book of the Year; and Homer in Flight, nominated for the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Robin Maharaj lives in Ajax, Ontario.