Everything Good Will Come

By Sefi Atta

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.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Myriad Editions
• Release date: Aug 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781912408535

Sefi Atta

Sefi Atta is the author of two previous novels, Swallow and Everything Good Will Come, and a collection of short stories, News from Home. She has been awarded the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa and the NOMA Award for Publishing in Africa. Her novels have been published around the world and translated into numerous languages, and her radio and stage plays have been performed internationally. She was born in Lagos and now lives in the United States.

Reviews for Everything Good Will Come

[dooney-2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Everything Good Will Come is a novel about Enitan, a child of Nigeria, a child of privilege, a child who becomes a young woman, who through the process of fulfilling one dream, the dream of becoming a mother also fulfills another dream, one that had existed, unspoken, but constantly present in her inner unrest, the dream of becoming not just a woman, but a person who decides for herself, not just accepting the decisions others make for her, a citizen. Much of the beginnings of the book are rooted in Enitan's childhood, in her friendship with Sheri, and in the ways she is both sheltered and privileged. In some ways the book seems like two novels, the novel of the young Enitan and Sheri, which occupies the first two sections of the novel, and a second novel about Enitan's road to self-actualization. In truth the first part is just the necessary underlayment for the second, but the reader may be surprised by the shift, and it does in fact take some time for the structure to play out, and the interleaving of thoughts, memories, stories, to coalesce. I personally found the last portion of the novel to be the strongest but I can admit that it took some time and patience for me to grow into the rhythm of the narrative. Enitan is not always likable, but he is human, and thoughtful, and kind. She is also argumentative, and she struggles with her own demons, her thoughts often sabotaging her own happiness.Her father always told her that people have choices. He didn't say that those choices were equal, in his world-view they were not. But Enitan also realizes that choice is a "condition of the mind" and that most of the time "I was as conscious of making choices as I was of breathing." As are most of us.Atta takes care to show us how Enitan's thoughts and actions develop and evolve, often in small steps, often repeating and circling back upon themselves. How she struggles with her own internal dialogue about separating the personal from the political, the way that life is compartmentalized in her milieu, and her gradual realization that she cannot separate the two, that the personal and the political are one and the same. There are flaws in the narrative, spaces where the prose shimmers with light, and other places where this reader stumbles. I can see how readers may become lost in the weeds, but through it all, I do think Sefi Atta achieves something marvelous here, and the book is well worth reading.Favorite passage:"When people speak of turning points in their lives it makes me wonder. I can't think of one moment that me me an advocate for woman prisoners in my country. Before this, I had opportunities to take action, only to end up behaving in ways I was accustomed; courting the same old frustrations because I was sure of what I would feel: wronged, helpless, stuck in a day when I was fourteen years old. Here it is: changes came after I made them, each one small. I walked up a stair. Easy. I took off a head wrap. Very Easy. I packed a suitcase, carried it downstairs, put it in my car. When situations became trickier my tasks became smaller. My husband asked why I was leaving him. "I have to," I replied. three words; I could say them. "What kind of woman are you?" Not a word. "Wouldn't you have tried to stop me too?" he asked. Probably, but he wouldn't have had to leave me to do what he wanted.