Seven wonders

This gloriously absurd tale, in which a woman is split into multiple selves, is a wild ride

- By Yagnishsing Dawoor

How many selves do we house? Thousands, thought Virginia Woolf. Are they one and the same? Not according to the Portuguese author Fernando Pessoa, whose alter egos - writers just like him - came with their own distinct names, biographies, mindsets and hot takes on the world.

Born of him yet operating independently, he called them “heteronyms”. Are our selves on the same team? You wish, Helen Oyeyemi might say, holding up her new novel, which features a protagonist split seven ways, one self for each day of the week, and no two ever in full agreement.