Ayobami Adebayo, author of Stay With Me, winner of the 9Mobile Prize of Literature, has launched her new novel A Spell of Good Things at the Ouida Book, Lagos, Nigeria.
Set in an unnamed community in Osun State, and during an election season, A Spell of Good Things is a 430-page novel about family secrets and bonds, thwarted hope and the brutal realities of life in a society rife with inequality. Adebayo with this book pens a dazzling story of modern Nigeria.
In addition to its deliberate tackling issues of mental health which the protagonist’s father suffers, the author said other issues such as the retrenchment of workers in Osun State in the early 2000s were ones she had wanted to explore its impact.
“There is a specific policy decision that resulted in the retrenchment of teachers in Osun State in the early 2000s. I’d always wanted to think through some of the ripple effects of that.
“I started working on A Spell of Good Things in the last quarter of 2013, then set it aside to finish writing Stay With Me (her first novel). By the time my debut novel was published I already had the first draft of this one (the new book). That helped me. I think it would have been more difficult if I started working on it from scratch after all the attention Stay With Me received.”
Meantime, Adebayo who is inspired by great African writers as Seffi Atta, Helon Habila, T.M Aluko, professor Wole Soyinka and other non-African writers urged both young and upcoming writers to hone their craft, remain focused and persevere in their profession, but more importantly surround themselves with the right support system.
