Set in Nigeria from the 1990s onwards, Black Sunday, the debut novel by Tola Rotimi Abraham is a succession of short installments from the life of siblings struggling to survive in Lagos. Born in a poor family, with their parents suddenly disappearing and showing up years after, for all the wrong reasons, the siblings do go on with their lives growing up and trying to overcome their social and financial limitations.
Each of the siblings are given a voice thus each story is written from an individual point of view, but the twin girls are given a larger space. Somehow, their stories do rarely interwin, until following separate pathways, with the boys´ perspectives being brief and more self-centered than in the case of the girls.
The tone is usually neutral, almost the same for all siblings, which is a shortcoming, as I was expecting an individual voice at least for each of them. The dialogues and parts related to social realities though do compensate for this shortcoming, which may be normal for a debut novel.
In fact, each of the siblings´ perspectives may qualify for an individual portrait and I personally see the potential of this book for a film, short film including.
I did enjoy reading the book and the author has a real talent, especially for portraying social contexts and dialogues. Nigeria has such a great and unique pool of authors, especially women, therefore I was delighted to add Tola Rotimi Abraham to my list of Nigerian authors to watch.
Rating: 3 stars
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