Episode 655-With Tochi Onyebuchi

The Functional Nerds Podcast

This week on the podcast, Patrick and Tracy welcome Tochi Onyebuchi, author of Harmattan Season.

About Harmattan Season: Veteran and private eye Boubacar doesn’t need much?least of all trouble?but trouble always seems to find him. Work has dried up, and he’d rather be left alone to deal with his bills as the Harmattan rolls in to coat the city in dust, but Bouba is a down on his luck deux fois, suspended between two cultures and two worlds.

When a bleeding woman stumbles onto his doorway, only to vanish just as quickly, Bouba reluctantly finds himself enmeshed in the secrets of a city boiling on the brink of violence. The French occupiers are keen to keep the peace at any cost, and the indigenous dugulen have long been shattered into restless factions vying for a chance to reclaim their lost heritage and abilities. As each hard-won clue reveals horrifying new truths, Bouba may have to carve out parts of himself he’s long kept hidden, and decide what he’s willing to offer next.

About Tochi Onyebuchi: Tochi Onyebuchi is the author of Goliath. His previous fiction includes Riot Baby, a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and NAACP Image Awards and winner of the New England Book Award for Fiction, the Ignyte Award for Best Novella, and the World Fantasy Award; the Beasts Made of Night series; and the War Girls series. His short fiction has appeared in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and elsewhere. His non-fiction includes the book (S)kinfolk and has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and the Harvard Journal of African American Public Policy, among other places.

He has earned degrees from Yale University, New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, Columbia Law School, and the Paris Institute of Political Studies.

He currently resides in Connecticut.

This week’s picks:

• Tochi: Sleep Token – Emergence
• Tracy: 7 Wonders (board game)
• Patrick: Everdell (board game)

Links:

• Tochi Onyebuchi on Instagram
• Tracy Townsend on BluSky
• Patrick Hester on Instagram
• The Functional Nerds Patreon Page

© 2025 Patrick Hester

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