Overview

For fans of Yaa Gyasi and Min Jin Lee, a compelling contemporary family saga exploring migration, identity, and resilience. In a search for identity, love and acceptance - two ordinary girls travel from London to Lusaka to Lagos in order to save their family and discover their destiny. Meet the Ayomides and the Kombes - Zambian-Nigerian-Jamaican powerhouse families brought together during the post-colonial migration of the 1960's to the UK - and later separated by death, divorce and betrayal. Scattered between London, Lusaka, and Lagos, only the new generation can save this family. Maggie Ayomide and Bupe Kombe are cousins on either side of the world who couldn't be more different. Zambian-Nigerian and Zambian-Jamaican, both yearn for their disbanded family to reunite. When Bupe leaves Brixton to go to secondary school in Zambia, she brings light and disorder to Maggie's world. However, the girls are hindered by dark family secrets such as the mysterious death of their late grandmother, and Maggie's missing Nigerian father. From the blazing streets of Brixton riots to multi-party elections in Zambia to glitzy Independence Day celebration and adventurous nightclubs in Lagos, this heartwarming story breathes life into the modern-day result of postcolonial Africa and 20th Century migration as it follows two ordinary girls trying to find their identity and reunite their family. Finalist in the 2019 Graywolf Africa Prize.

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9781998076444

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Natasha Omokhodion-Kalulu Banda's short stories have featured in various pan-African publications, including 'Short Story Day Africa 2018' for Door of No Return, which has been translated into Portuguese for Brazilian Journal Periferias, and Mozambique's Involção e Outros Contos Para um Mundo em Crise. Her book No Be From Hia was selected as a Graywolf Africa Press finalist in 2019. It was acquired by South African publisher Black Bird Books after initial success in Zambia. In 2020, she participated in the inaugural online festival Afro Lit Sans Frontieres in which she interviewed women authors such as Leila Aboulela, Ayobami Adebayo and Tsitsi Dangarembga. She is an alumni of Curtis Brown Creative's inaugural Breakthrough Course for Black Writers, and a Creative Writing Master of Arts candidate at Kingston University London. She was a judge for the Afritondo Short Story Prize 2022.

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