Tolani is a single woman living with a roommate Rose in Lagos, Nigeria. In the beginning of the story, they both work in the Federal Community Bank. Rose is fired and Tolani is made to take her place with Rose's immoral boss, Mr. Salako. Besides the relationship of these two women, Tolani's mother's story seeps intermittently into the story. Rose takes up with a drug dealer, and Tolani loses her boyfriend. What happens to these two women later on in the story, and more so, what happens internally to Tolani is a powerful tale. It addresses women's psychological struggles, their fights to find their rightful place in a corrupt society.

seeing present-day Nigeria through the eyes of a wise yet innocent woman.

the uniquely strong women in the story, strong despite superstition, social prejudice, and difficult everyday life.

read Sefi Atta's other writings.

inadequate because I can do little for other women in countries like Nigeria or in countries worse than Nigeria.

Sefi Atta was born in Lagos, Nigeria in 1964, according to her biography. She was educated there, in England and the United States.

A former chartered accountant and CPA, she is a graduate of the creative writing program at Antioch University, Los Angeles. Her short stories have appeared in journals like Los Angeles Review and Mississipi Review and have won prizes from Zoetrope and Red Hen Press. Her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC. She is the winner of PEN International's 2004/2005 David TK Wong Prize and in 2006, her debut novel Everything Good Will Come was awarded the inaugural Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa.

Her short story collection, Lawless, received the 2009 Noma Award For Publishing in Africa. Lawless is published in the US and UK as News From Home.

She lives in Mississippi with her husband Gboyega Ransome-Kuti, a medical doctor, and their daughter, Temi.

it is a representative of cultural literature, and it deals with women's issues from a female perspective through the depiction of everyday life eloquently and movingly.

This book was an eye-opener for me. I knew little if nothing about Nigeria, its tribal prejudices, civil wars, and corruption in government and society.

What most awes me about this novel is its skillful portrayal of fully developed characters. It is those characters that carry the story through the minute details of everyday life. In the hands of a lesser writer, this story could have been a bore, but Sefi Atta's pen has made it a literary winner.

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Created Jun 26, 2011 at 12:31pm • Submit your own review...