Jollof Rice And Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi

 

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions by Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi.

Published 19th January 2023 by Trapeze.

From the cover of the book:

Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape forge an unbreakable bond at a Nigerian boarding school, where we meet them for the first time in the middle of a riot. The uprising triggers a chain of unforeseen events, forever altering their lives.

Through a set of interlocking stories - traversing seamlessly through different voices between Nigeria and the US - Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions provides a window into the past, present, and future for a generation of Nigerian women.

We meet Solape's mother, whose life was irrevocably altered by the fallout of the school riot years before. We see Nonso grapple with the world outside Nigeria when she moves to America having fallen in love with an African-American man. We meet Remi's future husband, Segun, in the Bronx as he becomes entangled with the police. Meanwhile, Aisha's overwhelming sense of guilt about what happened the night of the riot haunts her, until she sees a chance to save her son's life and, through her sacrifice, redefine her own.

***********

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is an amazing collection of inter-connected stories revolving around a group of four Nigerian school friends - Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape - whose lives are shaped by tragedy. 

Intriguingly, the collection actually begins with a story that takes place between 1897 and 1931, well before the birth of our central characters, giving fascinating insight into what is to come, through the history of a remarkable woman called Adaoma. The four friends are then introduced to you during their school days, in a deliciously entitled story that gives its name to the collection.  

The following eight stories, all with very clever titles, take you through the passage of time with vignettes on the lives and families of the four friends, sandwiched between the aforementioned historical tale, and a really thought-provoking speculative near-future piece. They are all different in style, content, and sometimes location, but they fit elegantly together, linked through the stunning use of echoing themes that flay you to the emotional bone. There are way too many themes to mention in a review, but some of my favourites cover different facets of parenthood, inter-generational conflict, marriage, identity, guilt, sacrifice, and duality. My favourite story is Goody Goody, which made me sob, but each and every one is superb in its own way.

Ogunyemi clearly draws from her own experience as a woman with a foot in two cultures in writing this book, as someone born and raised in Nigeria, but living and working in America. This comes through strongly in many of the stories, especially those about identity, and the constant push and pull of expectation from two different traditions. This brings a striking intimacy to many of the thoughts and feelings of the characters.

Ogunyemi's writing is simply beautiful, her prose is mesmerising, and the image she conjures of these women taking control of their destinies is glorious. I absorbed this gem of a collection in one delicious bite!

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is available to buy now in hardcover, ebook and audio formats.

Thank you to Orion for sending me a proof of this book in return for an honest review, and for inviting me to be part of this blog tour.

About the author:

Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. A finalist for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Award, her stories have been published in New Writing from Africa 2009 (a collection of PEN/Studzinski Award finalists’ stories), Ploughshares, and mentioned in The Best American Short Stories 2018. Her poetry has appeared in the Massachusetts Review, the Indiana Review and Wasafiri. She graduated from Barnard and UPenn with bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in computer science. Omolola is a Professor of Preventive and Social Medicine at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in South Los Angeles, where she teaches and conducts research on using biomedical informatics to reduce health disparities. She lives in California with her husband.

Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is her first book. It was selected as a New York Times Editors Choice (October 20, 2022), made The New Yorker's list of "Best Books of 2022 So Far," was a Los Angeles Public Library pick for "Best of 2022: Fiction," and was the October 2022 selection for Roxane Gay's Audacious Book Club with Literati.