Random Things Tours: This Motherless Land by Nikki May

Based on my intensive reader experience, a reader with an extraordinary debut novel rarely disappointed at his or her second one. From the first novel one can easily recognize the strengths of the writing as well as the relevance of the topic approached. 

Two years ago, Wahala by Nikki May was one of my favorite books of the year. A story of female friendship and betrayal, it also finely explored questions of identity and belonging. Her newest novel, This Motherless Land is another level of both writing and ideas, with an empathic take on race, forgivness and expectations of second chances to repair old injustices.

Funke is mixed-raced in Nigeria where she grew up and mixed-raced in England, where she arrives to stay with her mother´s family after a tragic car accident that took away her beloved brother and Lizzie, her mother. Motherless, she is not only trying to cope with her own personal tragedies, but it´s challenged to reconsider and rethink her identity, over and over again. But friendship, particularly with her cousine Liv, may not only help her cope with the challenges, but also offer a glimpse into a different world, that she is about to enter into it for the first time.

I particularly appreciated the fully empathic way in which the author approaches topics that sometimes - in politics as in literature - do bring emotions and heated passions. Through the story, she is not trying to explain and justify anything, but to open up the ways towards a different take on human relationships. It is a story of trying to get out of colonialism, giving a chance to correcting unjustice.

With humour, May is exploring the meaning of home and identity, in a world changing itself - the book starts at the end of the 1970s. This Motherless Land is hopefully a book that will be more talked about, particularly beyond the libraries, as it raises important questions about colonialism and identity, read in a mostly women key.

Rating: 5 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own