Shelf Interest: Aiwanose Odafen Author Link-Up

Join us to interview Aiwanose Odafen about "We Were Girls Once" - Shelf Interest book club's focus for the month of July.

From 2pm-3pm Aiwanose Odafen will be live with us on zoom answering our questions on this highly anticipated novel, with the opportunity for attendees to ask questions too! This is free for anyone to join!

About the Author

Aiwanose Odafen spent a better part of her life wanting to become an economist, an accountant, then an entrepreneur before she discovered her love for writing. She has contributed to published non-fiction works and participated in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Purple Hibiscus Trust Writing Workshop. She was longlisted for the 2020 Commonwealth Writers Short Story Prize and holds a postgraduate degree from the University of Oxford. When she's not writing, she's cheering for Manchester United or watching dramas.

About the Book

Ego, Zina and Eriife were always destined to be best friends, ever since their grandmothers sat next to each other on a dusty bus to Lagos in the late 1940s, forging a bond that would last generations. But over half a century later, Nigeria is a new and modern country. As the three young women navigate the incessant strikes and political turmoil that surrounds them, their connection is shattered by a terrible assault. In the aftermath, nothing will remain the same as life takes them down separate paths. For Ego, now a high-powered London lawyer, success can’t mask her loneliness and feelings of being an outsider. Desperate to feel connected to Nigeria, she escapes into a secret life online. Zina’s ambition is to be anyone but herself; acting proves the ultimate catharsis, but it comes at the cost of her family. And Eriife surprises everyone by morphing from a practising doctor to a ruthless politician’s perfect wife. When Ego returns home, the three women’s lives become entwined once more, as Nigeria’s political landscape fractures. Their shared past will always connect them, but can they – and their country – overcome it?

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