Her entry begins:
I’ve just finished Good Dirt by Charmaine Wilkerson. One of the best things about being a published author is you get to read books before they come out. So you’ll have to wait until January 2025 to enjoy this multi-generational epic tale that examines how the past informs our present. Charmaine is a master at the stories we inherit and in this one, she explores grief and...[read on]About This Motherless Land, from the publisher:
From the acclaimed author of Wahala, a “vibrant” (Charmaine Wilkerson) decolonial retelling of Mansfield Park, exploring identity, culture, race, and love.Visit Nikki May's website.
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 tragedystrikes, 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.
Coffee with a Canine: Nikki May & Fela and Lola.
The Page 69 Test: This Motherless Land.
Writers Read: Nikki May.
--Marshal Zeringue
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