Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions

By: Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi

Narrated by: Korey Jackson, Liz Femi

Length: 6 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

©2022 Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi (P)2022 Trapeze

Enjoyed

I enjoyed this book and want to commend the narrators for beautifully narrating the storied .

This book is amazing!

This book is a collection of wonder!

I read this book in one sitting and keep returning to parts of it because the writing and the storytelling is masterful. I thought that I would savour the book but I greedily and hurriedly devoured it because it was unputdownable.

The title story truly pulled at my heart strings. That’s where I met the girls, now women that will stay with me for a long time.

The interconnected stories heavenly captured the story of Nigerian women, the beauty of friendship and love.

The stories spanned of history and the future shows that while things may change, some things remain the same.

Area boy rescue is probably my favourite story in the collection. There is just something about this story! For me, it reminds of Nigerian women who aren’t afraid to stand up for themselves, but it also looks at the behaviour of men and how society has not held them accountable. It feels quintessential Nigerian.

I read and listened to the audio book at the same time, and the audio book is incredible. It give the stories such life. The narrators were excellent. The audio of Area boy rescue will have you laughing and grasping.

The book is tenderly written, covers difficult topics around questions of grief, abandonment, notions of home, the idea of first loves, and difficult relations, and truly so much more! It’s packed with a world of goody goody!

The opening story, Fodo’s Better Half’ reminds us of female husbands and how pre-colonial Africa had this and what it meant in practice. It is not queerness in the way that queerness is understood but it feels queer in ways of imagining family relationships and perhaps lasting connections.

LISTEN I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!