Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions audiobook

I appreciate everyone who has read or is considering reading Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions. Of course I love this book; it’s my baby. This couldn’t possibly be an unbiased review.I grew up in a middle class family headed by a single mom in Ibadan, Nigeria at a time when the Naira was one-to-one with the US dollar, and my family traveled a lot within and outside Africa for vacations. I also attended boarding school in Nigeria (I begged my mother to let me attend - she didn’t want me to) and loved the independence and lifelong friendships but hated being hazed. When my mom got a job as a college professor in the US, moving to Massachusetts in the middle of winter as a teenager was a huge shock, but life in the States has been an amazing adventure.My maternal and paternal grandmothers were brilliant women who spoke no English and had limited exposure to a Western education. They were both widowed early and proto-feminists each in her own way. I’ve often wondered what they would think of their descendants’ lives if they were still around. That was one of the biggest motivations for writing this book. I wanted it to reflect some of the changes in Nigerian women’s lives across the generations as well as grapple with what it means to be an immigrant in the US at this point in time.I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Nuanced, cohesive and emotionally gutting. Loved it.

Jollof rice is the stuff my dreams are made of. The whiff of tomato, chili, white-, and black pepper, piquant and nose-tickling, the aroma of ginger and garlic and onion. Jollof is West African, but the recipe and desire for it is universal. In my case my dreaming mind classifies jollof rice as nasi goreng, Malaysian style with Maggi's cili sos, a sweet and spicy ketchup. Chunks of browned chicken thighs, that crust of flesh and crispy skin, dotted with red grains of rice. Coming from a rice-eating culture I like to think of myself as a specialist in the business of rice-eating and rice dishes. As a historian and reader of postcolonial literature and archival text, I like to think myself an expert in those domains too. But, I remain amazed by what I do not know; there is always a new rice dish, a new recipe, a new flavor to make my tongue and memories alight. There is always a new perspective, a newly discovered history, another layer of human experience to see, enjoy, and revel in. Ogunyemi's Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is that new rice dish, that new revelation. You see, the stories in Ogunyemi's novel are like jollof rice, grains tossed together, held together in harmony by a dry sauce. Sweet and salty and spicy, a mouthful of emotions that are sometimes in conflict, sometimes piquant, but always in balance. The novel is familiar and comforting in its focus on men and women of color, their lives indelibly part of the muss and tumble of Nigerian marketplaces, cities, and villages, so similar to those in Southeast Asia, where chickens are still sold live, butchered and feathered at the time of purchase. A place where fish and seafood lie on slabs of ice that are slowly sweating like the people haggling with each other over their prices. There is the aroma of overly sweet fruit in the air: jack fruit, bananas, some kind of incense. There is smoke and pungent exhaust from a motorbike put-put-putting away. A glot of languages rumbles in the background, ever-present as there is no reprieve for the ears in places like these: dialects, pidgins, mix-n-matches of accents and lilts. On occasion there is a puncture of British English (always British it seems), and a few heads turn to see the foreigner. (It is usually me.) Like a Nigerian market place, Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is dominated by women and their stories; men are present, they form part of the fabric of the novel, but it is the women and their experiences who thread the pattern and the connections between motifs in its cloth. Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions is a collection of Nigerian and transnational Nigerian, historical and contemporary experiences, spanning from a time under the British and under British influence (for Britishness and Western-centrism continued even after decolonization) to the present -- and here is where it gets really interesting -- the future. Ogunyemi's novel recalls to mind another like it, Yaa Gyasi's Home Going (2016), but it differs on this particular point: Ogunyemi reaches into the future and lets the reader dwell on our current states through poignant examinations of the present. Jollof Rice ranges across multiple generations, includes the lives of members of different and intertwined families. The reader is given a glimpse into the past when precolonial gender relations were more fluid. The reader accompanies characters in their education under the British, travels with them as they become transnational cosmopolitans, and will find themselves in the uncomfortably familiar place of racialized, racist America. The reader will find themselves in a near future moment, built on the present and past as we know it.Sometimes, alongside the odor of modernity and vehicle exhaust, there is a faint scent of history and the supernatural, that which exists beyond the usual plane of our understanding. This is like biting down on a pepper seed in your rice, getting that jolt of zing on the tongue. You can't be sure if it was a seed or a pepper or a tiny grit of sand. You hope it was the former and not the latter, but then the moment is gone, the thing is swallowed and you continue on with your meal, with your life. The next story is waiting on your spoon. I deeply appreciated how Ogunyemi wove these elements into the novel; what the West deems supernatural is not so in many parts of the "formerly" colonized world. Spirits, ghosts, and memory were part of our cultures before and remain so. Ogunyemi's characters and their experiences are what give the novel its unique quality. The characters connect to each other through their shared experiences in schools, in migration, in marriage and love, in childhood and navigating adulthood, in how they reconcile their colonial pasts with their "post"colonial presents and futures. Ogunyemi brings the Nigeria of the past into the present and future through their transnational and transcultural journeys. The characters are related by bonds which are sometimes considered casual; in Jollof Rice unbreakable relationships are broken, death is a cause for life, and disappointment is a gateway to revival. In this way, Ogunyemi delivers to the reader the nuances of human love and its endurance across time and space, makes a case for their eternal universality. Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions makes me want to grab a friend and say, "You must try this! It's new!" And how special must it be, that it has taken the old topic of history and identity and made an original spin on it?

This was unlike anything I've read yet. I need to read more Nigerian writers. As a member of the diaspora/descendent, the question of the return was fascinating; hearing about American history and society from the perspective of someone from the other side of the Atlantic was at times mind-blowing for me. The whole book is dripping with family, community, grief, hope, and love.

This is my absolute favorite genre and Ogunyemi made me love it even more. Couldn’t put it down. 4.9 stars because the last short story really threw me off but otherwise such a gem of a book

4.5 stars. I really enjoyed this little read. I requested this book to review because of it's description of interconnected stories rather than short stories, which don't usually appeal to me. I wasn't disappointed. I loved reading the connections between these characters throughout generations, including a glimpse into the future. These women carry around their experiences and history as a part of their growth into adulthood. It is interesting to see all the similar and different ways they are all shaped by it. I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for more diverse reads with a focus on women and sisterhood.

The way these stories come together create a warm, moving, and deeply intelligent novel about a group of women whose bonds from childhood are absolutely unbreakable across the whole of their lives. In these stories, we see who they become as they grow older and the world changes but we also see how they remain connected, how they remain loyal to one another, how they never forget the one among them they lost far too soon. I couldn't put this book down and I loved spending time in the lives of each of Nonso, Remi, Aisha, and Solape. Truly, this book will grab hold of your heart and mind and everything in between.

TITLE: JOLLOF RICE AND OTHER REVOLUTIONSAUTHOR: Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi PUB DATE: 09.13.2022 Now AvailableNigerian author Omolola Ijeoma Ogunyemi makes her American debut with this dazzling novel which explores her homeland’s past, present, and possible future through the interconnected stories of four fearless globe-trotting women.MY THOUGHTS:I loved how this short story collection linked characters and stories, which made it so hard to put down. It’s a story that incorporates themes important to me like friendships and families, as well as, belonging and loss. The story is a sweeping narrative that takes place in different parts of the world, and as lives are explored, these intricate, beautiful, poignant and unique stories will find your heart and never let go. Read this slow and let it immerse you. I loved it!

This whole novel is very poignant, but the first and last chapters really pack an emotional punch. I appreciated the reading experience, learning more about Nigerian culture, and also the way the author showed how trauma can echo throughout a person's life, and the through-lines from one moment of upheaval to another. The discussion of identity was incisive, particularly between Black Americans and Black Africans, as well as how each are seen by others and in majority-white countries. The final chapter is definitely the strongest point, made more so by the fact that it feels all too plausible given the batshit state of the GOP.I did wish that there was a bit more connective tissue between the riot at the girls' school and the other events in their later lives. Also, I kind of expected that riot to be a bit more dramatic, and while there is one very tragic aspect of it, it was otherwise a bit less momentous than I expected from the synopsis. But I did very much like this and look forward to more from this author.

Three young girls bond during their time at school. As they grow up and move on, their lives move in their own directions. While this is more a compilation of short stories, it tells the lives of the women they have become and how their lives interconnect and weave through the years. I have recommended this book to everyone I know that is a reader and I still can’t sing it’s praises enough. You MUST read this one!

Wow. I loved all the stories. They took me on a journey I will not forget. I listened to this on audio and would highly recommend that but now I feel like I need to go get the actual book so I can relive and trace the specific journeys again. Thank you for a beautiful gift of a story.

A collection of short stories that weave through, past, and within one another with many strong, resonant voices that echo through to the end.