Black Sunday
Tola Rotimi Abraham
Available as Paperback, eBook, Downloadable audio
A fierce and fresh debut novel, set over the course of two decades in Nigeria, about sisterhood, fate and female resistance
A fierce and fresh debut novel, set over the course of two decades in Nigeria, about sisterhood, fate and female resistance
Twin sisters Bibike and Ariyike are enjoying a relatively comfortable life in Lagos in 1996. Then their mother loses her job due to political strife and their father gambles away their home, and the siblings are thrust into the reluctant care of their traditional Yoruba grandmother. Inseparable while they had their parents to care for them, the twins’ paths diverge once the household shatters: one embracing modernity as the years pass, the other consumed by religion.
Written with astonishing intimacy and wry attention to the fickleness of fate, Black Sunday delves into the chaotic heart of family life. In the process, it tells a tale of grace in the midst of daily oppression, and of how two women carve their own distinct paths of resistance.
“Simultaneously unique and universal … Black Sunday is a literary wound that bleeds pain for a while, but you should stay the course, because that’s followed by lots of love, beauty and hope”
npr
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“A beautiful, deeply affecting debut. Smart and incisive. Abraham’s robust tale of twins forging separate paths is a must read”
Irenosen Okojie
“A searing debut novel about Nigerian twin sisters whose childhood bond is shattered by the political and social strife that impoverishes their family. As the decades pass, with all four of the family’s children hurtling down painful, divergent paths, Abraham explores deeply felt themes of violence, kinship, and self-reliance”
esquire
“Rich and immersive. It’s a striking debut, bold and stylish, but also subtle and tender”
Anjali Joseph
“Tola Rotimi Abraham’s sharp, captivating debut thrums with the energy of life itself. The story of a family and a city reeling from wounds both private and political, Black Sunday delivers unforgettable characters as they adapt to often cruel circumstances and fight to author their own futures. Abraham writes with such irresistible confidence and startling precision, I can’t wait to see what she does next”
Mia Alvar
author Of In The Country
Tola Rotimi Abraham
Tola Rotimi Abraham is a writer from Lagos, Nigeria. She lives in Iowa City and is currently pursuing a graduate degree in journalism. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has taught writing at the University of Iowa. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in Catapult, the Des Moines Register, the Nigerian Literary Magazine and other places.
@thatTola