Book Review|From Nigeria to the United States, and into the future
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/13/books/review/jollof-rice-and-other-omolola-ijeoma-ogunyemi-revolutions.html
Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi’s novel of short stories unfolds across centuries, continents, political parties, and a tight-knit group of friends.
As a subscriber, you have 10 gift items to give away each month. Anyone can read what you share.
When you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.
JOLLOF RICE AND OTHER REVOLUTIONS: A Novel in Intertwined Stories, by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi
In the nearly 20 years since I first learned of Aristotle’s belief that the best endings to stories are “surprising, but inevitable,” I have rarely been so surprised (at best) by the final moments of a book like when I read it. “Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel of Intertwined Stories” by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi.
The final chapter will surprise you. You are likely to pause, turn back a few pages, sure you missed something. Then you will realize that, in fact, you did not miss anything. You can scream, close the book, take a walk, and come back to it, still in shock.
The brilliance of Ogunyemi’s writing is that after that walk, you’ll realize that from the book’s opening pages (which are set in 1897) to its final pages (set in 2050), she lays out exactly what is to come. . While the narrative is personal and focuses on the friendship of Aisha, Nonso, Remi, and Solape, women who met as girls in the 1980s at a boarding school in Nigeria and whose lives were forever changed by a rebellion in which they participated. in school, the background also matters. Politics and revolution are never far from women’s stories.
The girls, fiercely independent and empowered, choose to leave Nigeria for university in the United States, where their stories do not adhere to the themes of immigration and diaspora life that have become popular in fiction about Africans in the United States. the last decade. One of the delights of “Jollof Rice” is the way Ogunyemi refuses to explain Africanness or blackness to readers. Pidgin isn’t translated, the interracial dating doesn’t justify multiple pages of analysis, and there’s no need to explain the horrible story of Elmina Castle.
Ogunyemi transports his characters not only between Nigeria and the United States, but also to other African countries and to Europe for several decades. The visit to Elmina Castle shapes Nonso’s career options. A trip to Poland gives insight into the racism there, but also gives Aisha clarity about an important relationship in her life.
The women face challenges while living abroad as adults, but struggle is not their constant state or that of the other Africans they encounter. There is joy in community, in friendship, in romance, and of course, in food. “After my father left Nigeria for the US, I spent countless Ibadan nights dreaming of New York,” recalls a character from the Bronx. “The skyscrapers, the cars zooming by, the pedestrians running down the sidewalks and the streets without fear. My dreams never included food. When we finally joined him, I realized too late how flawed those dreams were.”
A chapter told from the perspective of a grieving mother is one of the most evocative; another, told from the perspective of Nonso’s housekeeper years later, brings the streets of Lagos to life. Ogunyemi wittily depicts the strength of a sisterhood formed in childhood and forged through the ups and downs of love, loss, and distance or separation from a loved one. The political dramas of the United States and Nigeria move from the background to the foreground during the book’s final chapter, which is set in a future where hydrogen planes can travel from Ibadan to New York in just four hours. The final moments of the novel are anchored by Aisha describing what has become of a country that elected a nativist leader and never fully recovered from that election.
Among the smaller details that might appeal to regular readers of immigrant literature is the fact that women choose not only to go to the United States, but also to return home to Nigeria. For them, America is not the end and the end.
Each of the 10 chapters that make up this novel can stand on its own, but together they tell a beautiful story of brotherhood, family, and love.
Tariro Mzezewa, a former national correspondent for The Times, is a reporter who writes about culture and style.
JOLLOF RICE AND OTHER REVOLUTIONS: A novel in intertwined stories, by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi | 256 pages | friendship | $27.99
Produced in France, the five-part series will have you hooked. Set in Nice, France, Gone for Good follows Guillaume Lucchesi, who watched the two people he loved most die: Sonia, his first love, and his brother Fred.
Who writes like Harlan Coben?
If you like Harlan Coben, try: Read also : Sunday Sports: St. Lawrence Central Girls’ Soccer hopes to win C-Class Championship.
- Linwood Barclay.
- Lee Boy.
- Robert Crais.
- Lisa Gardner.
- Don Winslow.
- Stuart Woods.
What kind of stories does Harlan Coben write?
What novel is Gone for Good based on?
Following The Innocent earlier this year, which takes place in Spain, comes Gone for Good, based on Coben’s 2002 novel of the same name, which moves the action this time from New York to Nice. This may interest you : The best video games are about Badass and Child Duos.
Is Gone for Good a horror story? “GONE FOR GOOD is as good as it gets, a chilling novel with as much heart and humor as horror, of which there is more than an abundance, plus a potpourri of memorably flawed characters and kooky killers.”
What books has Harlan Coben written?
Where is Gone for Good supposed to take place?
Set in Nice, France, Gone for Good follows Guillaume Lucchesi, who watched the two people he loved most die: Sonia, his first love, and his brother Fred. Read also : The United States has reached an agreement with Nigeria to return more than $23 million in assets stolen by former Nigerian dictator General Sani Abacha. Ten years later, the past resurfaces after his girlfriend, Judith, suddenly disappears after her mother’s funeral.
Is the match a sequel?
“The Match” is a sequel, and paves the way for a possible series, as Coben revisits Wilde, singularly named, who was found when he was about 6 or 8 years old, living alone in the woods near Westville, New Jersey. How he got there, who abandoned him, and even his exact age has never been clarified.
Is there a prequel to Harlan Coben’s Match?
Do I need to read THE BOY FROM THE WOODS before the match?
The first was The Boy From the Woods, which is a prelude to The Match. Both are excellent, well written, and hard to put down. And, although The Match could be read on its own, I would recommend that the two books be read in order.
Is the match a sequel to THE BOY FROM THE WOODS?
The Match is a sequel to 2020’s The Boy in the Woods, and there are references to past events sprinkled throughout the book that can be confusing to anyone jumping in without having read the previous book.
