In the early-sixties, a young Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. In this city of dreaming spires, he finds a whole generation high on visions of a new and better world. And it really does seem as if the whole world is ablaze with freedom movements. The post-colonial fires are burning brightly back home in West Africa, fuelled by the politics of Pan Africanism and financed by a fortuitous economic boom. On the other side of the Atlantic, the US Congress is about to pass the Civil Rights Act and Che Guevara is busy trying to export the Cuban Revolution. Meanwhile, across the West, the first tremors of the countercultural and sexual revolutions are about to be felt.
It is in this heady atmosphere that Tayo meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of an ex-colonial officer. Their story, which spans three continents and four turbulent decades, is that of a brave but bittersweet love affair. It is the story of individuals struggling to find their place within uncertain political times. Its a story of passion and idealism, courage and betrayal, and the universal desire to fall madly, deeply, in love.
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani - I Do Not Come to You By Chance
Kingsley is a young man eager to help his family and change the world. But when his once-proud family descends into poverty after his father falls ill, he is forced to turn to his mother's infamous brother, Cash Daddy, who runs a successful empire of email scams relieving gullible Westerners of their hard earned money. Unconditional family support is the Nigerian way, but the hand Cash Daddy extends in charity has consequences. As Kingsley is drawn into Cash Daddy's outlandish world, he soon learns that nothing in Nigeria comes for free.
Publication date: November 2009.
Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani introduces and reads an excerpt from her novel:
Sade Adeniran - Imagine This
A compelling story about the human spirit and resilience against the odds. Imagine This is the journal of Lola Ogunwole which she starts at the age of nine; it charts her survival from childhood to adulthood. Born in London to Nigerian parents, Lola and her brother Adebola grow up in a temporary foster home after their mother abandons them. They are briefly reunited with their father when, in danger of losing them for good, he packs up and moves them back to Nigeria to live.
For Lola, the trauma of leaving London and settling in Lagos is soon overshadowed by separation from her father and the only constant in her life, her brother Adebola. They are both sent to live with different relatives and Lola ends up with her aunt, in a small village called Idogun where her struggle for survival begins.
Lola Shoneyin - The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives
For a polygamist like Baba Segi, his collection of wives and a gaggle of children are the symbol of prosperity, success and validation of his manhood. Everything runs reasonably smoothly in the patriarchal home, until wife number four intrudes on this family romance.
Bolanle, a graduate amongst the semi-literate wives, is hated from the start. Baba Segi's glee at bagging a graduate doesn't help matters. Worse, Bolanle's arrival threatens to do more than simply ruffle feathers. She's unwittingly set to expose a secret that her co-wives intend to protect, at all costs.
Lola Shoneyin's light and ironic touch exposes not only the rotten innards of Baba Segi's polygamous household in this cleverly plotted story; it also shows how women no educated or semi-literate, women in contemporary Nigeria can be as restricted, controlled and damaged by men - be they fathers, husbands, uncles, rapists - as they've never been.
In the early-sixties, a young Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. In this city of dreaming spires, he finds a whole generation high on visions of a new and better world. And it really does seem as if the whole world is ablaze with freedom movements. The post-colonial fires are burning brightly back home in West Africa, fuelled by the politics of Pan Africanism and financed by a fortuitous economic boom. On the other side of the Atlantic, the US Congress is about to pass the Civil Rights Act and Che Guevara is busy trying to export the Cuban Revolution. Meanwhile, across the West, the first tremors of the countercultural and sexual revolutions are about to be felt.
Kingsley is a young man eager to help his family and change the world. But when his once-proud family descends into poverty after his father falls ill, he is forced to turn to his mother's infamous brother, Cash Daddy, who runs a successful empire of email scams relieving gullible Westerners of their hard earned money. Unconditional family support is the Nigerian way, but the hand Cash Daddy extends in charity has consequences. As Kingsley is drawn into Cash Daddy's outlandish world, he soon learns that nothing in Nigeria comes for free.
A compelling story about the human spirit and resilience against the odds. Imagine This is the journal of Lola Ogunwole which she starts at the age of nine; it charts her survival from childhood to adulthood. Born in London to Nigerian parents, Lola and her brother Adebola grow up in a temporary foster home after their mother abandons them. They are briefly reunited with their father when, in danger of losing them for good, he packs up and moves them back to Nigeria to live.
For a polygamist like Baba Segi, his collection of wives and a gaggle of children are the symbol of prosperity, success and validation of his manhood. Everything runs reasonably smoothly in the patriarchal home, until wife number four intrudes on this family romance.
