Media
PRESS RELEASE
June 24, 2026
Debut Novel from Nigerian-Born Author Explores Identity, Heritage, and the Cost of Becoming
The Name That Echoes: A Novel of Becoming by Kenneth Chivir Shenge Now Available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
ROCKVILLE, MD — Kenneth Chivir Shenge, a Nigerian-born author of Tiv heritage, announced the release of his debut novel, The Name That Echoes: A Novel of Becoming, now available in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle editions on Amazon and in eBook format on Barnes & Noble. The audiobook edition is forthcoming.
The novel follows Alexander Terver Zever, a boy who is seven years old when the world he was born into vanishes. Raised in Comfortville, a community engineered for order, comfort, and quiet sufficiency, Alexander grows up within carefully maintained boundaries and unquestioned rules. Something in him resists. A name he cannot place. Fragments of memory that do not belong. A persistent sense that the life assigned to him is smaller than the one he was meant to live. What follows is not a story of sudden rebellion or dramatic escape. It is something slower and more costly: the gradual recovery of a self that was displaced before it was fully formed.
At the moral center of the novel stands a Tiv proverb: a person can be led so gradually away from his own path that, in time, he begins to call the wilderness home.
"I am Tiv, from Benue State, Nigeria," said Shenge. "That heritage is the foundation on which this story stands. But I wrote this book for anyone who has ever been led, gradually and almost imperceptibly, away from who they are, and who has had to find their way back. That journey belongs to no single person or people."
The Name That Echoes is literary fiction with a dystopian backbone, written with philosophical depth and emotional restraint. It draws on the oral traditions, moral frameworks, and cultural memory of the Tiv people of central Nigeria, while speaking to universal questions of identity, belonging, memory, and the slow cost of becoming.
The novel is published through Spines and is available through major online retailers. It carries BISAC classifications in Literary Fiction, African American and Black Fiction, and Coming of Age Fiction.
About the Author
Kenneth Chivir Shenge is a Nigerian-born author of Tiv heritage, writing from Rockville, Maryland. He holds a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology and a Master of Public Health, as well as a postgraduate diploma in Theology, and has served in Christian ministry for more than three decades. His scholarly discipline and his pastoral vocation share a common conviction: that how we understand ourselves determines how we live. The Name That Echoes is his debut novel. He is at work on his second. He is married to Mercy, and they have four children.
Book Details
Title:The Name That Echoes: A Novel of Becoming
Author: Kenneth Chivir Shenge
Publisher: Spines
Publication Date: June 24, 2026
Format: Hardcover ($23.99) | Paperback ($15.99) | Kindle ($7.99) | eBook ($7.99) | Audiobook (forthcoming)
ISBN/ASIN: B0H6H532GL
Available: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Major online booksellers
Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H6H532GL
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-name-that-echoes-kenneth-chivir-shenge/1150469319
Media Contact:
Kenneth Chivir Shenge
Email: ken@kennethshenge.com
Review copies available upon request.
THE NAME THAT ECHOES
A Novel of Becoming
Kenneth Chivir Shenge
ABOUT THE BOOK
A Tiv proverb warns that a person can be led so gradually away from his own path that, in time, he begins to call the wilderness home.
He was seven years old when the world he was born into vanished. Raised in Comfortville, a community engineered for order, comfort, and quiet sufficiency, Alexander Terver Zever has grown up within carefully maintained boundaries and unquestioned rules. Life there is stable. Predictable. Good, at least on the surface.
But something in him resists the ease of it. A name he cannot place. Fragments of memory that do not belong. A persistent sense that the life assigned to him is smaller than the one he was meant to live.
What follows is not a story of sudden rebellion or dramatic escape. It is something slower and more costly: the gradual recovery of a self that was displaced before it was fully formed.
GENRE AND AUDIENCE
Literary Fiction with Dystopian Elements
Readers of Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and literary fiction that carries cultural depth, philosophical weight, and narrative restraint.
BISAC: FIC019000 (Literary) | FIC055000 (African American & Black) | FIC043000 (Coming of Age)
BOOK DETAILS
Publisher: Spines Publishing
Publication Date: June 24, 2026
Available: Hardcover | Paperback | Kindle | Audiobook (forthcoming)
Hardcover: $23.99 | Paperback: $15.99 | eBook: $7.99
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-name-that-echoes-kenneth-chivir-shenge/1150469319
Keywords: Identity, Heritage, Belonging, Awakening, Africa, Dystopian, Coming-of-age
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kenneth Chivir Shenge is a Nigerian-born author of Tiv heritage, writing from Rockville, Maryland. Born in Benue State, Nigeria, he carries the oral traditions, moral frameworks, and cultural memory of the Tiv people as the foundational inheritance behind his literary work.
He holds a Ph.D. and a Master of Public Health, as well as a postgraduate diploma in Theology. He has served in Christian ministry for more than three decades. His scholarly discipline and his pastoral vocation share a common conviction: that how we understand ourselves determines how we live.
The Name That Echoes is his debut novel. He is at work on his second. He is married to Mercy, and they have four children.
THEMES FOR DISCUSSION
Identity and the slow erosion of self in engineered environments
Cultural memory as resistance, inheritance as survival
The cost of conformity and the price of becoming
Faith, belonging, and the tension between roots and displacement
Coming of age in communities that define humanity on institutional terms
CONTACT AND BOOKING
For media inquiries, speaking engagements, book club visits, and review copies:
Kenneth Chivir Shenge
Rockville, Maryland
ken@kennethshenge.com
The Name That Echoes: A Novel of Becoming | Kenneth Chivir Shenge | Amazon & Barnes & Noble