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Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria's Romance Scammers
by Carlos Barragán
A closely observed work of narrative nonfiction about four young romance scammers in Lagos, Nigeria, as they struggle to get by in one of the world's most unequal cities.
Ikotun, one of Lagos's poorest neighborhoods, lies ten miles and a world away from the towers and beaches at the heart of Nigeria's megacity. By day, the market vibrates with the sound of traders hawking their wares. By night, thousands of workers of another kind begin their shifts in bars and crumbling apartments: these are the Yahoo Boys.
Mostly men in their teens and twenties, many turning to drugs to stay awake as they chat with "clients" overseas, the Yahoo Boys are online romance scammers. Whether impersonating male celebrities or anonymous young women, each year they catfish millions of dollars from victims. Some have attained the status of folk heroes, while thousands more "cash out" only to lose it all.
Inspired by his mother's own brush with a scammer, the journalist Carlos Barragán takes us on a journey to understand the lives of the Yahoo Boys of Ikotun. We meet Biggy and Chibuike, each struggling with the temptations of fast money; Azeez, a tailor's apprentice caught between the lure of crime and Nigeria's economic crisis; and Richie, who is convinced that he's responsible for the death of a woman in Kentucky he manipulated online for years.
Written with sensitivity and nuance, and posing difficult questions about reparations and the Western loneliness epidemic, The Yahoo Boys is this generation's Behind the Beautiful Forevers―the work of a blazing new journalistic talent.
"[An] outstanding debut...most noteworthy for its affecting humanization of both the Yahoo Boys...It's a remarkably empathetic view of both sides of the con." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"There's much description but little prescription here—no solution to any of the broad-ranging social problems that feed into the romance-scam syndrome. All the same, it's an interesting inquiry. A provocative view of the grift from inside the grifters' unenviable world." —Kirkus Reviews
"Barragán's immersive narrative is riveting, evoking empathy for victims as well as perpetrators...The Yahoo Boys is a comprehensive account of a little-understood, pervasive and psychologically complex crime, as well as a testament to Barragán's journalistic chops and sensitivity." —BookPage
"The Yahoo Boys is a fascinating and important exploration, one that is full of warmth and empathy. Carlos Barragán has constructed something that is both intimately personal and globally relevant." ―Dipo Faloyin, author of Africa Is Not a Country
"Carlos Barragán traveled to Lagos, Nigeria in search of the con artist who had romanced his divorced mother and found himself submerged in the sleepless, hard-partying world of the Yahoo Boys―a subculture fueled by music, booze, and drugs, as well as poverty and ambition and even love. Barragán writes with impeccable empathy about both the scammers and their lonely heart victims to produce a compellingly readable exploration of the psychology of the romance scam." ―Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy and Daughters of the Bamboo Grove
This information about The Yahoo Boys was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Carlos Barragán is a journalist based in London. Raised in Madrid, he was a reporter at El Confidencial before receiving his MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University. The Yahoo Boys is his first book.
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