Ukamaka Olisakwe - Ogadinma - @MsOlisakwe
Image from @MsOlisakwe on Twitter.

The Nigerian writer Ukamaka Olisakwe is set to release a new novel. Titled Ogadinma, or Everything Will Be All Right, the book, already being praised as “a feminist classic,” will be published by The Indigo Press on 18 June 2020. Olisakwe joins the growing list of authors signed to the Ellah Wakatama Allfrey-founded publishing house. They include the Zimbabwean-South African Panashe Chigumadzi and the Eritrean-Ethiopian Sulaiman Addonia.

Here’s an official description of the book by its publishers:

A modern feminist classic in the making from a rising star of the Nigerian literature scene

Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right tells the story of the naïve and trusting teenager Ogadinma as she battles against Nigeria’s societal expectations in the 1980s.

After a rape and unwanted pregnancy leave her exiled from her family in Kano, thwarting her plans to go to university, she is sent to her aunt’s in Lagos and pressured into a marriage with an older man. When their whirlwind romance descends into abuse and indignity, Ogadinma is forced to channel her independence and resourcefulness to escape a fate that appears all but inevitable.

Ogadinma, the UK debut by Ukamaka Olisakwe, introduces a heroine for whom it is impossible not to root, and announces the author as a gifted chronicler of the patriarchal experience.

Ukamaka Olisakwe by Bianca Vinas
Ukamaka Olisakwe by Bianca Vinas.

The book comes with a blurb by Tin House co-founder Rob Spillman:

A stirring, unflinching novel that further cements Olisakwe as an important feminist voice.

There is another by Chinelo Okparanta:

Olisakwe’s affecting novel begins with a gut punch and ends in an epiphany. Written in vivid, engaging prose, this is the story of one woman’s journey to independence. I rooted for Ogadinma all the way till the end!

Ukamaka Olisakwe grew up in Kano, Nigeria, and now lives in Vermont, USA. In 2014, she was named one of the continent’s most promising writers under the age of 40 by the UNESCO World Book Capital for the Africa39 project. In 2016, she was awarded an honorary fellowship in Writing from the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. In 2018, she won the Vermont College of Fine Arts’ Emerging Writer Scholarship. A finalist for the Miles Morland Writing Scholarship, her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Long Reads, The Rumpus, Catapult, Rattle, Waxwing, Jalada, Brittle Paper, Hunger Moutain, and Sampsonia Way. Her non-fiction piece, “After Three Children, Reclaiming My Body and My Mind,” was a finalist for The 2019 Brittle Paper Award for Creative Nonfiction.

Pre-order Ogadinma Or, Everything Will Be All Right HERE