• A remarkable debut novel by Nigerian Canadian author Francesca Ekwuyasi told in the voices of three women -- a mother, Kambirinachi, and her adult twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye -- and the different paths they take when, as a young girl, Kehinde is sexually assaulted by an uncle. It is a novel about the lives of three strong African women who, after years spent on separate continents, are drawn back together back home in Nigeria in order to address the wounds of the past.
• This novel has many queer elements; Taiye has relationships with women, and Francesca herself identifies as LGBTQ.
• In Francesca's own words: "I was home in Lagos for seven months in 2013. It was a season during which I was coming to terms with my own queerness, and as an avid reader I was hungry to read something that could speak to that aspect of my identity while also exploring other elements of Nigerian storytelling that I'd read and loved in works of other writers."
• Francesca's writing is influenced by such writers as Ben Okri, the Nigerian writer whose novel Famished Road is also about an Ogbanje; Teju Cole, whose Open City has a similar meandering narrative structure that explores jazz, history, trauma, and memory; and Zadie Smith, whose White Teeth also showcases multiple, layered, and intergenerational narrative angles.
• Francesca lived in Albany, NY for five years. She is also a filmmaker; her most recent short documentary Black + Belonging screened at the Halifax Black Film Fest and the Montreal Black Film Fest in 2019. She is currently at work on a short doc about the intersections of queerness and faith.
• Advance blurbs forthcoming from Teju Cole, Chinelo Okparanta, Taiye Salesi and Kai Cheng Thom.
• Publicity by Alyson Sinclair, Nectar Literary.
