Butter Honey Pig Bread

The Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist

Butter Honey Pig Bread, which takes place over three continents, narrates the interwoven tales of three Nigerian women: Kambirinachi and her twin daughters, Taiye and Kehinde. According to Kambirinachi's belief, she is an Ogbanje, also known as an Abiku, a non-human spirit that brings misfortune to a family by being born, dying as a child, and then causing suffering to a human mother. She lives in fear of the repercussions of her decision to stay alive, despite having taken the abnormal choice to do so out of love for her human family.

A childhood trauma that Kehinde endures causes her to move away and break off all communication, causing Kambirinachi and her two kids to grow distant from one another. Despite her concern that she won't make a good mother, she eventually discovers her calling as an artist and decides to start a family of her own. In the meantime, Taiye flees, trying to fill the vacuum left by the breakup of her sister with casual encounters with other women, while tormented by guilt over what her sister went through. Eventually, through her love of food and cooking, she finds a means to escape her oppressive loneliness.

However, Taiye and Kehinde have finally moved back to Lagos after more than ten years apart. If the three ladies are to make amends and move on, they need to confront each other and deal with the scars from the past.

Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story about choices and their consequences, motherhood, the elusive boundary between the spirit and the mind, finding new homes and mending old ones, voracious appetites, queer love, friendship, faith, and most importantly, family for readers who enjoy the works of African diasporic authors like Teju Cole and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.