Everything Good Will Come
It is 1971, a year after the Biafran War, and Nigeria is under military rule. The politics of the state matter less to eleven-year-old Enitan than whether her mother, now deeply religious since the death of Enitan's brother, will allow her friendship with the new girl next door, the brash and beautiful Sheri Bakare.
Everything Good Will Come charts the unusual friendship and fate of these two girls — one who is prepared to manipulate the traditional system and one who attempts to defy it.
Enitan's is the story of a fiercely intelligent, strong young woman coming of age in a culture that still insists on feminine submission. She sees the poverty and knows about the brutal military dictatorship but it is not until politics invades her own family that she defies her husband and moves from bystander to activist. She bucks the familial and political systems until she is confronted with the one desire that is too precious to forfeit in the name of personal freedom — her desire for a child.
'An original, witty coming-of-age tale...an iridescent introduction to a fascinating nation.' — Observer Magazine
'There is wit, intelligence and a delicious irreverence in this book.' — Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, author of Americanah and We Should All Be Feminists
Sefi Atta is the author of Swallow, News from Home, A Bit of Difference and Sefi Atta: Selected Plays.
Sefi has received several literary awards, including the 2006 Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the 2009 Noma Award for Publishing in Africa. Her radio plays have been broadcast by the BBC and her stage plays have been performed internationally. She divides her time between the USA, UK and Nigeria.
Sefi Atta’s writing features in New Daughters of Africa, an anthology of women writers of African descent, edited by Margaret Busby.
Everything Good Will Come and The Bead Collector were published in August 2019 and are available to buy now.
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