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Spanning three continents, Butter Honey Pig Bread tells the interconnected stories of three Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Kehinde and Taiye. Kambirinachi believes that she is an Ogbanje, or an Abiku, a non-human spirit that plagues a family with misfortune by being born and then dying in childhood to cause a human mother misery. She has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family but lives in fear of the consequences of her decision.
Kambirinachi and her two daughters become estranged from one another because of a trauma that Kehinde experiences in childhood, which leads her to move away and cut off all contact. She ultimately finds her path as an artist and seeks to raise a family of her own, despite her fear that she won't be a good mother. Meanwhile, Taiye is plagued by guilt for what her sister suffered and also runs away, attempting to fill the void of that lost relationship with casual flings with women. She eventually discovers a way out of her stifling loneliness through a passion for food and cooking.
But now, after more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward.
For readers of African diasporic authors such as Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story of choices and their consequences, of motherhood, of the malleable line between the spirit and the mind, of finding new homes and mending old ones, of voracious appetites, of queer love, of friendship, faith, and above all, family.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
November 3, 2020 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
- ISBN: 9781551528243
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781551528243
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781551528243
- File size: 2756 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
Starred review from September 21, 2020
Ekwuyasi’s magical debut delves into the reverberating effects of a Nigerian mother’s choices on her twin daughters’ lives. The stories of Kambirinachi and her daughters, Taiye and Kehinde, unfold in lyrical, emotionally affecting parallel narratives. As a girl, Kambirinachi knows herself to be an Ogbanje, a spirit child in Igbo tradition who curses one’s family by repeatedly dying and being born again. After moving through the cycle multiple times, Kambirinachi chooses to stay alive. As a grown woman, she leaves her home in Abeokuta to study art in Lagos and, throughout her life, must make a constant effort not to listen to the voices of her Kin calling her back toward death and warning her that “she will soon learn.” Starved of her own mother’s love—a woman who had three miscarriages and so saves all her affection for her husband—Kambirinachi loves deeply, first her father, then her husband, and finally her twins. At 18, Kehinde leaves for Montreal, determined to leave behind the source of a trauma that gradually comes to light, while Taiye settles in London. Both are caught up in the consequences of Kambirinachi’s choice to resist her fate, and work to heal old wounds on a return visit to Lagos. Written in sizzling prose, Ekwuyasi’s assured, inspired debut will impress fans of Akwaeke Emezi. -
Booklist
Starred review from October 1, 2020
Nigerian-born writer and filmmaker Ekwuyasi's debut delves into the complex relationship between twin sisters Kehinde and Taiye and their mother, Kambirinachi, as they confront unspoken wounds in contemporary Lagos. Kambirinachi fears that her past choices will cause pain to her twin daughters. A traumatic event in their early teens ruptures the twins' relationship, and when they are 18, Kehinde flees the family to attend university in Montreal. Taiye struggles to cope without her, and finds distraction in parties, drugs, and women in London. The story follows the twins' return to Lagos to visit their mother after years away, while tracing their separate routes to adulthood. Each chapter adopts one of the three women's points of view, allowing Kambirinachi's life story to unfold alongside her daughters'. The descriptions throughout the novel, from Taiye's cooking to the feel of Lagos to the urgency of new love, invite readers to fully savor Ekwuyasi's language. Her writing is at times playful, such as when she dictates recipes to make when seeing one's sister for the first time in years. Mixing emotional depth with supernatural elements, this is a masterful debut.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)
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Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
subjects
Languages
- English
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