It is remarkable how much Lucia Odoom is able to accomplish in such few pages. Cosmos is this author’s moving and memorable debut, originally written in Danish, and translated to English by Hunter Simpson.
In only 121 pages, Cosmos outlines several months of its titular character’s life, a Ghanaian migrant in his early 30s in Copenhagen. As it opens, Cosmos earns his living by collecting bottles in the streets of Copenhagen and returning these to supermarkets for a fee. He does not have a home, though he does have friends he works and sleeps alongside. They approach their work with a degree of seriousness and strict rules, including not to look people in the eye or appear as if they are suffering. They call themselves the ‘Crows,’ as the type of work they do is reminiscent of how crows behave in the city, with one key difference: “crows can cross borders and fly freely.”¹ Our crows are more limited.
The epistolary novel is entirely told in WhatsApp messages, eloquently written and stylised as letters, to Cosmos’ family. The addressees consist of his sister Effie, Aunt Dora and uncle, Pastor Emmanuel. Some of the messages are addressed to all three of them, while others are just to Effie. Cosmos uses these messages to write about the harsher truths of life that he is uncomfortable sharing with the people he shares life with in Copenhagen, and sometimes the small joys he finds.
Although his family members are not physically present in the novel, through Cosmos’ palpable love for them, they are very alive on the page. His connection with Effie is especially heartwarming. Cosmos essentially does everything he is doing with the dream that he will one day be able to give Effie a home. He has a very clear vision of this house, picturing its different rooms and furniture, and the garden with “enough vegetables for you [Effie] to be self-sufficient.”² That’s the driving force behind his life.
Cosmos has experienced a lot of hardship on his journey to Copenhagen, and he continues to struggle. He looks at Danish people and finds stark differences when he compares them to himself. In the colour of their skin, or even their scent. Denmark smells of “salt and sadness,” and Cosmos worries constantly about being marked by his potentially foul smell, with his line of work literally requiring him to put his hands in the city’s trashcans.³
He also admires them for mundane concerns that many of us would find boring. He envies them, as “all sorts of things happen in their life that will never happen in mine.”⁴ While calling doubt his “constant companion,” he tries to find comfort in his community of the Crows, and his purpose of giving Effie a home.⁵ He also falls in love.
Elizabeth is a mesmerising woman, bringing love and joy to Cosmos’ life. She is also an activist and a photojournalist. She finds a tragic beauty, something to photograph, in the lives of migrants who come to Mediterranean shores on boats, after tremendously hard journeys where they put their lives at risk. Cosmos was one of these individuals. For him, there was no beauty to be found in the experience, despite how it may appear in Elizabeth’s skilled photography.
When they first meet, Elizabeth scolds him for putting his “life and fate in unknown hands,” telling him off for the dangers of his journey to Europe.⁶ While they have much in common, there are subtle tensions of privilege, and lack thereof, at play. They view the world differently due to the cards they were dealt.
What Cosmos knows firsthand, Elizabeth can only see from the outside. The lives Cosmos admires, people shopping for new clothes, having their own apartments, that’s the life Elizabeth is living. There are invisible lines drawn between the two of them, keeping them from being able to completely understand each other.
Despite these complexities, however, one thing is true, and it’s that Elizabeth’s presence makes life easier for Cosmos. Easier literally, giving him access to some opportunities that were out of reach to him, but also emotionally easier; lighter, romantic. I can’t help but be drawn to the way the novel underlines the power of community. Community, love, that’s what keeps us going as humans. Odoom seems to show that suffering can be tolerable when 1: It’s to support one’s community ,and 2: One is supported by their community.
On top of the inspirational story, the love Cosmos has for his family to endure what he does, he is still written as a very real and imperfect character. He is prone to procrastination, scrolling on TikTok, allowing time to pass when he knows he should be working. He also navigates his relationships, romantic and platonic, in a flawed manner.
Another memorable aspect of the novel are the points raised about beauty, how attractiveness affects the way others perceive and respond to us despite our circumstances. Cosmos is known to be handsome, and this opens doors for him that won’t open for his friends.
Odoom writes with an expertise that seamlessly blends the modern (references to memes, gifs, TikTok, even writing in the form of WhatsApp messages) with a poetic originality. Cosmos’ voice is incredibly distinctive. He is able to share his life story in a manner that is detached and objective even when it is personal and emotional. There are so many brilliant metaphors in such a small page count. I couldn’t help but be blown away that this was a debut novel.
There is so much to praise about Cosmos. It’s raw, human, and unforgettable. I cannot wait to see what Odoom does next.