An Unusual Grief

An Unusual Grief by Yewande Omotoso

How do you get to know your daughter when she is no longer here to answer your questions?

When Mojisola’s estranged daughter, Yinka, dies, she is left with sorrow, regret and a painful awareness of everything that remained unsaid between them. Unable to accept how little she knew about the woman her daughter had become, Mojisola leaves her familiar life in Cape Town and moves into Yinka’s apartment in Johannesburg.

There, surrounded by her daughter’s clothes, possessions and private memories, she begins searching for answers. What she discovers is not a simple explanation, but a hidden life filled with relationships, desires and struggles that Yinka had kept away from her family.

An Unusual Grief by Yewande Omotoso is an intimate and fearless novel about bereavement, motherhood and the distance that can exist between people who love each other.

A Mother’s Search for the Daughter She Lost

Mojisola wants to understand what happened to Yinka, but her search soon becomes about much more than her daughter’s death. As she examines the pieces of Yinka’s life, she is forced to revisit their difficult relationship and confront her own mistakes as a mother.

She remembers Yinka as a child and considers the moments when affection became misunderstanding. She begins to recognise the difference between loving someone and truly seeing them.

This mother and daughter relationship novel does not offer easy explanations or reduce grief to a single emotion. Mojisola’s mourning is confused, physical, angry and unpredictable. At times, her actions may be surprising, but they reveal a woman desperately trying to make sense of a loss that has disrupted everything she believed about herself.

When Grief Becomes a Journey of Self Discovery

Before Yinka’s death, Mojisola’s identity had been shaped largely by the roles she performed for other people. She was a wife and a mother, but she had lost touch with the woman beneath those responsibilities.

Living in her daughter’s apartment gives her permission to step outside those familiar roles. As she follows the traces Yinka left behind, she also begins to examine her own desires, disappointments and silences.

Her journey becomes unconventional and sometimes uncomfortable. Yet it also opens the possibility of change. The loss that threatens to destroy Mojisola gradually forces her to pay attention to her own life.

This gives An Unusual Grief a quiet sense of hope. The novel never suggests that sorrow disappears. Instead, it asks whether a person can carry grief while still becoming more honest, more alive and more fully herself.

A Powerful Exploration of Motherhood and Identity

Yewande Omotoso writes about motherhood without romanticising it. Mojisola loves her daughter, but that love does not automatically create understanding. The novel explores parental expectations, generational differences and the private worlds children sometimes build beyond their families.

It also examines the way women can disappear their inside the demands of marriage and motherhood. As Mojisola searches for Yinka, she begins to rediscover parts of herself that had been neglected for years.

The result is a layered African novel about grief that looks beyond death. It considers identity, ageing, marriage, sexuality, mental health and the complicated process of learning to live with unanswered questions.

From Cape Town to Johannesburg

The movement between Cape Town and Johannesburg reflects Mojisola’s emotional transformation. Cape Town represents the structured life she has known with her husband, Titus. Johannesburg offers something more uncertain.

Inside Yinka’s apartment, Mojisola enters an unfamiliar environment filled with evidence of a life that continued without her. The city gives her room to take risks, make mistakes and test the boundaries of the person she thought she was supposed to be.

The South African setting also brings questions of home and belonging into the story. Mojisola’s Nigerian heritage and her life in South Africa add another dimension to this thoughtful work of contemporary African women’s fiction.

Why You Should Read An Unusual Grief

• It offers an honest and emotionally complex portrayal of grief.
• It explores the joys, failures and misunderstandings within motherhood.
• It presents a memorable older woman reclaiming her identity.
• It examines mental health within an African family and social setting.
• It is moving without becoming sentimental or predictable.
• It combines emotional depth with moments of humour, desire and discovery.
• It was longlisted for the 2025 Nigeria Prize for Literature.

Who Will Enjoy This Novel?

An Unusual Grief is ideal for readers interested in books about grief and loss, complex mother and daughter relationships, African literary fiction and women rebuilding their lives after a personal crisis.

It will also appeal to readers who enjoy character driven novels in which emotional discovery is more important than easy answers. If you appreciate intimate stories about motherhood, family, ageing, identity and healing, Mojisola’s journey will remain with you long after the final page.

Readers interested in similarly thoughtful African fiction can also explore A Small Silence, a compelling novel about trauma, mental health and human connection.

You may also enjoy Season of Crimson Blossoms, another fearless story about an older African woman confronting desire, social expectations and the possibility of personal freedom.

About Yewande Omotoso

Yewande Omotoso is a novelist and architect who was born in Barbados, grew up in Nigeria and later moved to South Africa. Her previous novels include Bom Boy and The Woman Next Door.

In an interview with The Johannesburg Review of Books, Omotoso discusses the questions that inspired the novel and her interest in writing about death, memory and the traces people leave behind.

A Tender Story About Living After Loss

An Unusual Grief is not simply a story about a mother losing her daughter. It is a compassionate exploration of how loss can expose old wounds, challenge familiar identities and awaken a person to the life still available to her.

Bold, intimate and emotionally honest, Yewande Omotoso’s novel invites readers to consider how well we truly know the people we love and whether healing is possible when some questions can never be answered.

Order your copy today and discover this unforgettable story of motherhood, loss and unexpected renewal.