This Motherless Land

A Novel

Shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature

READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY • NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

"A vibrant coming-of-age story." — Charmaine Wilkerson

"I was completely immersed.” — Nita Prose

From the acclaimed author of Wahala, a stunning reimagining of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park: Split between England and Nigeria, two extraordinary cousins are set on vastly different paths as they come to terms with their shared family history—a masterful exploration of race, identity, and love.

Quiet Funke is happy in Nigeria. She loves her art teacher mother, her professor father, and even her annoying little brother (most of the time). But when tragedy strikes, she’s sent to England, a place she knows only from her mother’s stories. To her dismay, she finds the much-lauded estate dilapidated, the food tasteless, the weather grey. Worse still, her mother’s family are cold and distant. With one exception: her cousin Liv.

Free-spirited Liv has always wanted to break free of her joyless family. She becomes fiercely protective of her little cousin, and her warmth and kindness give Funke a place to heal. The two girls grow into adulthood the closest of friends.

But the choices their mothers made haunt Funke and Liv and when a second tragedy occurs their friendship is torn apart. Against the long shadow of their shared family history, each woman will struggle to chart a path forward, separated by country, misunderstanding, and ambition.

Moving between Somerset and Lagos over the course of two decades, This Motherless Land is a sweeping examination of identity, culture, race, and love that asks how we find belonging and whether a family’s generational wrongs can be righted.

CAPTIVATING!

Telling from both girls’ points of view was brilliant. Moving story and wonderful twists and turns!

A perfect story well told

More people should be talking about this book! I loved everything about it. Excited to listen to this author’s other work now.

The performance of accents was sublime! Audiobook ftw.

The performance of west African accents can ruin a book or it can absolutely make the audiobook a superior experience. This work is beautiful example of the latter. The writing and story are only highlighted by this transcendent reading. Oh, and if it helps to persuade you to get this audiobook, I’m Ghanaian :) Not Nigerian but close enough ;)

Excellent read.

It was a great book that I couldn’t stop listening to. I highly recommend it. A fantastic and gripping story line with good character development. Perfect blend of drama, cross-cultural representation and dynamics, romance. Extremely talented and skilful narration of different accents and personas.

Best Ever

It’s impossible to list everything I loved because I loved it all! My only problem was understanding the strong accents by the “lessor” characters. However, that did not take away from the experience.