Virtually Yours #04
Natasha Omokhodion
A series of online discussions - Virtual Gatherings - with the award-winning author Zukiswa Wanner, exploring contemporary African Literature with authors.
A homecoming tale of a family brought together by migration and torn apart by tragedy and secrets. In a search for identity, love and acceptance – two ordinary girls travel from London to Lusaka to Lagos in order to save their family and discover their destiny. Meet the Ayomides and the Kombes – Zambian-Nigerian- Jamaican powerhouse families brought together during thepost-colonial migration of the 1960’s to the UK – and later separated by death, divorce and betrayal. Scattered between London, Lusaka, and Lagos, only the new generation can save this family. Maggie Ayomide and Bupe Kombe are cousins on either side of the world who couldn’t be more different. Zambian-Nigerian and Zambian-Jamaican, both yearn for their disbanded family to reunite. When Bupe leaves Brixton to go to secondary school in Zambia, she brings light and disorder to Maggie’s world. However, the girls are hindered by dark family secrets such as the mysterious death of their late grandmother, and Maggie’s missing Nigerian father.
is a Zambian who lives in Lusaka. She is also of Nigerian and Jamaican heritage. Her short stories have been featured in various pan-African publications, including ‘Short Story Day Africa 2018’ for Door of No Return, which has been translated into Portuguese for Brazilian Journal Periferias. Her first book No Be From Hia was selected as a Graywolf Africa Press finalist in 2019. It was acquired by South African publisher Black Bird Books after initial success in Zambia. In 2020, she participated in the inaugural online festival Afro Lit Sans Frontieres in which she interviewed amazing women authors such as Leila Aboulela, Ayobami Adebayo and Tsitsi Dangarembga. She is an alumni of Curtis Brown Creative’s inaugural Breakthrough Course for Black Writers.
If you missed the session, you can watch the record here> Virtually Yours #04.