Popular Nigerian author Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi makes her American debut with this dazzling novel which explores her homeland’s past, present, and possible future through the interconnected stories of four fearless globe-trotting women.
“I couldn’t put this book down and I loved spending time in the lives of Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape. Truly this book will grab hold of your heart and mind and everything in between.” —Roxane Gay, author of Hunger and Bad Feminist
Moving between several continents, Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is a window into and the world of four Nigerian friends, illuminating the challenges they face and the risks they take to control their destinies.
Students at an all-girls boarding school, Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape forge an unbreakable sisterhood that is tempered during a school rebellion, an uprising with repercussions that will forever reverberate through their lives. The children of well-to-do families, these young women have been raised with a thirst for independence, believing a university education is their right—a legacy of ambition and hope inherited from their foremothers.
Leaving school and adolescence behind, the women grapple with the unexpected possibilities—and limitations—of adulthood and the uncertainties of the world within and outside of Nigeria. A trip to Ghana opens Nonso’s eyes to the lasting impact of the transatlantic slave trade, she falls in love with an African American, and makes a new home in the United States. Remi meets Segun, a dynamic Black man from Yonkers whose own traumatic struggles and support gives her the strength to confront painful family wounds. Aisha’s overwhelming sense of guilt haunts her, influencing career and relationship decisions until she sees a chance to save her son’s life and, through her sacrifice, redefine her own.
Revolving around loss, belonging, family, friendship, alienation, and silence, Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is a moving, multifaceted portrait of lives shaped by hope and sorrow—of women caught between tradition and modernity who must contend with the ever-present and unsettling notion that moving forward in time isn’t necessarily progress.
BIO
Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. A finalist for the 2009 PEN/Studzinski Literary Award, her stories and poetry have appeared in New Writing from Africa 2009, Ploughshares, The Massachusetts Review, the Indiana Review, Wasafiri, Dance the Guns to Silence: 100 Poems for Ken Saro-Wiwa, and The American Poetry Review. 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 Univer- sity 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 Los Angeles with her husband.
REVIEWS
"I have rarely been as blindsided — in the best possible way — by the final moments of a book as I was while reading Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions: A Novel in Interlocking Stories. The final chapter will shock you. You will likely pause, flip back a few pages, certain that you missed something. Then you will realize that you did not, in fact, miss anything. You might scream, close the book, go for a walk and return to it, still shocked." --New York Times Book Review
"For admiring readers, the radiance of Ogunyemi's debut hopefully signals more dazzling fiction to come." --Shelf Awareness
"Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions celebrates friendship, the power of community and home, and the joy of being a woman able to take control of her destiny… Ogunyemi’s writing has the power to reverberate through generations." --Booklist (starred review)
"These beautifully rendered stories form an impressive whole that will please multiple literary tastes, combining Nigerian history with a touch of mysticism, and contemporary familial angst with a dire futuristic vision." --Library Journal
“Dynamic… These richly developed stories are resonant and rewarding.” --Publishers Weekly
[H] Amistad Press / September 13, 2022
1.0" H x 8.3" L x 5.6" W (0.7 lbs) 256 pages