Everything Good Will Come

Now a classic of world literature, this beautifully written, funny and piercingly honest story of a contemporary Yoruba woman's coming-of-age in Lagos is a heartfelt drama of family, friendship, community and divided loyalties. 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.

Sefi Atta is the author of novels including Everything Good Will Come and The Bead Collector. She 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.