Plaza of Illusion

Osam is young, educated, ambitious-and determined to escape a life that seems to offer him too little.

When the struggling Ghanaian graduate finally makes his way to Europe in search of a better future, Britain appears to be everything he has dreamed of. But the reality is far less welcoming. Far from home and struggling to navigate unfamiliar customs, prejudice and the daily pressures of immigrant life, Osam discovers that reaching Europe was only the beginning.

Through persistence and hard work, he gradually transforms his fortunes, moving from cleaning offices to working behind an office desk. Yet success brings another struggle. The more Osam embraces his new life, the more complicated his relationship with the culture-and the people-he left behind becomes.

When he eventually returns to Ghana, the man who comes home is no longer quite the man who left. Old relationships, family expectations and two life-changing choices force Osam to confront a question he has spent years avoiding:

Where does he truly belong?

The Plaza of Illusion is a compelling story of migration, ambition, identity and belonging-and of the distance between the life we imagine and the life we actually find.

Book One of The Osam Mensah Series.