Everything Good Will Come

I’ve written before about a number of Nigerian authors: Chris Abani, Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Cyprian Ekwensi, Buchi Emecheta, D.O. Fagunwa, Helon Habila, Uzodinma Iweala, Flora Nwapa, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, Helen Oyeyemi, Wole Soyinka, and Amos Tutuola. But I’ve been slow to discover the work of Sefi Atta.

Everything Good Will Come, winner of the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa, is a bildungsroman that traces the life of a young woman born in 1960—the year of Nigerian independence—from her rebellious teenage years to the age of 35. The book conveys some powerful messages about political and feminist empowerment, but does so through the experiences of its characters, mostly avoiding the soapbox.

It would be going too far to call it also a love letter to Lagos, but it presents a more nuanced picture of the city than one usually sees, and helps us to understand how those who grow up there may have a grudging affection for the place.

Saturday morning I drove into Lagos Island via the mainland bridge ... A few freighters were docked along the harbor of the marina. Descending the bridge, I caught a partial view of the commercial center I had come to know by driving. A mishmash of skyscrapers crowded the skylines, scattered between them were dull concrete one-story buildings with corrugated roofs. They were mostly trading stores. Each bore a sign in need of painting. A web of electricity and telephone lines criss-crossed above them.

The Atlantic weaved its way around Lagos. Sometimes dull and muddy, other times strident and salty, bearing different names: Kuramo waters, Five Cowry Creek, Lagos Marina, Lagos Lagoon. It was the same water. Asphalt bridges connected the islands to the mainland and the sky always looked as sad as a person whose lover had lost interest. People rarely noticed it, even its amber sunsets. If the sun were going down, it meant there would be no light soon and Lagosians needed to see the way. Street lights here did not always function.

The photo of the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos is from Word Travels.