Nigerian-American author O.O. Sangoyomi is an undergraduate student at Princeton University set to publish her debut novel Masquerade in 2024. The novel will be published by Forge Books in the UK and Macmillan Publishers in the U.S.

Aptly titled Masquerade, Sangoyomi’s novel is about a young Yoruba woman who “rises from social pariah to power in a reimagining of patriarchal, precolonial West Africa.” The novel explores the death and rebirth of an entire culture and is said to mirror the Greek myth of Hades and Persephone.

Sangoyomi seems very excited about her upcoming debut novel based on her Twitter feed, giving us a couple of extra details about what the book might include:

Sangoyomi describes the book as her “love letter to West African and Yoruba history,” but also how she mourns the erasure of many of those histories. In another tweet, Sangoyomi says re-reading her book as a feeling of coming home, which is the most wholesome tweet we have read in a while.

We are so proud of Sangoyomi for highlighting Yoruba histories in her novel! Featuring themes of political intrigue, mythology, love, and betrayal, the novel is bound to be an instant bestseller.

O.O. Sangoyomi is a senior undergraduate student at Princeton University, with a major in English and minors in African American Studies and Creative Writing. Although Sangoyomi may be a young writer, she appears to be very talented. The rights to the novel were sold in a very nice two-book deal, for publication in spring/summer 2024.

Congrats to Sangoyomi on her debut novel!