The Life and Times of Ota Benga

In 1904, Ota Benga, a young Congolese 'pygmy' - a person of petite stature - arrived from central Africa and was featured in an anthropology exhibit at the St. Louis World's Fair. Two years later, the New York Zoological Gardens displayed him in its Monkey House, caging the slight 103-pound, 4-foot 11-inch tall man with an orangutan. The attraction became an international sensation, drawing thousands of New Yorkers and commanding headlines from across the world.
In the novel, we follow our protagonist from the very beginning of his story in the DRC, through his journey to the US, Ota Benga's captivity, the international controversy it inspired, and his efforts to adjust to American life.
Written in Bola's beautiful, thoughtful prose, this is a novel of both unimaginable pain and hope.

JJ Bola is an established writer, poet and UNHCR Ambassador. His three poetry collections - Elevate (2012), Daughter of the Sun (2014), and WORD (2015) - were published in one collection, Refuge (2018), which was read out in the House of Commons during Refugee week in 2018.
He was one of Spread the Word's Flight Associates 2017 and a Kit de Waal Scholar for the Birkbeck University MA in Creative Writing.As a former refugee, JJ Bola was invited to the Davos Economic Forum 2018 and held a discussion with Cate Blanchett.
His debut novel, No Place to Call Home, was published in the UK in 2017, and in 2018 in North America. His non-fiction book Mask Off: Masculinity Redefined, which exposes masculinity as a socially conditioned performance, was published in the UK in 2019.
JJ speaks and performs both internationally and in the UK.