Black Esther: Tales of Iya Olobi, My Grandmother
Kayode Samuel

About the Book

Black Estheris a book of nostalgia that has great resonance for the present. It is the story of an enterprising but tradition-bound African grandmother caught up in the changing times, as exemplified in the multicultural marriage of her first son. The story is told in episodes of recall through the eyes of her grandson, who grew up under her watch.

At turns hilarious and enlivening, Black Esther explores the theme of growing up in the early post-colonial era in Africa and narrates, in simple but lively prose, the stories of some of the upheavals that shook and shaped Nigeria's history. It recalls a time when ethnicity and religion had not become the challenges that they are in present-day Nigeria.

Black Esther is an easy-to-read educative collection and a source book of anecdotes from the rich repertoire of an energetic and idiosyncratic old lady whose unadvertised feminism predated the modern variant and whose terrestrial sojourn spanned nearly nine decades.

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