Dele Weds Destiny

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What to expect

DELE WEDS DESTINY is the heartfelt, vivid and unflinching debut novel by editor and writer Tomi Obaro.

Zainab, Funmi and Enitan first meet at University in northern Nigeria, all learning how to become themselves. It's an experience that binds the three very different women together. When Enitan moves to New York to elope with a white man, Zainab and Funmi are left behind, with drastically different fortunes.

Over the course of thirty years, their lives and friendships diverge and change. Funmi is separating from her husband, trying to understand her daughter Remi. Zainab finds herself the sole breadwinner for her husband and their four sons. And Funmi is living a life of confined luxury, as the wife of a successful, shady businessman.

But theirs is a friendship that can endure decades of distance. And in 2015, they are reunited for the first time for the wedding of Funmi's daughter, Destiny.

Here they will reflect on their pasts, the things they loved and lost - but the present brings unexpected surprises too, because their daughters, Remi and Destiny, might just be as rebellious and open-hearted as they once were.

A story of three women, over three decades, we witness the shared histories, betrayals and triumphs play out, and their unforgettable, enduring friendship.

(P) 2022 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Fast-paced, glamorous, and bursting with emotion, Dele Weds Destiny is a thrilling debut. The bonds between women — as friends, and across the generations — are the jewels that make this story shine!

Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage

Exploring the complexity of female friendships and mother-daughter relationships, this is a story rendered with so much heart

Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Malibu Rising

Tomi Obaro’s deftly paced novel is an ode to the enduring truth of friendship. Obaro’s compelling narrative provides a beautifully flawed, full-bodied picture of the possibilities of African womanhood. It is optimistic, fresh and quickly draws you in

Jendella Benson, author of Hope and Glory

A beautifully written tale of love in all its forms, I was instantly hooked from the first page and utterly bereft at the last page. It had me laughing one minute and crying the next. It’s safe to say Tomi Obaro is my new favourite author

Sukh Ojla, author of Sunny

Obaro writes beautifully about the complicated labor of friendship and parentage. Dele Weds Destiny explores caregiving as a kind of deferment, but also as discovery, of desire, of fury, of home

Raven Leilani, author of Luster

This enchanting debut is an affectionate portrait of three women at middle age, cannily exploring the ways the self is forged in youth. With an admirably light touch, Tomi Obaro documents how class, race, faith, and power define the lives of women in Nigeria and America, past and present

Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind

A generous and patient consideration of life, and of lives . . . I am so thankful for the world of this book, and so excited for everyone who gets to sit in it

Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in America

A wonderful novel full of richly-drawn, complicated, nuanced characters all trying to love and connect with each other. An ode to the bonds of friendship across decades, Dele Weds Destiny is a marvelous debut’

Jami Attenberg, author of All This Could Be Yours

Tomi Obaro has a true gift for honoring the details that illuminate our most human tensions . . . Dele Weds Destiny is a black diamond of a debut

Saeed Jones, author of How We Fight for Our Lives

An engrossing read with strong characters and a clear portrait of Nigeria then and now . . . Obaro’s debut is a portrait of female friendship that will feel familiar to women everywhere, but it is also infused with Nigerian cultural specificity: food, clothing, religion, music, and ambient threat

Kirkus Reviews

The intricacies of female friendships and the complex nature of mother/daughter relationships are at the heart of this absorbing novel from BuzzFeed culture editor Obaro, a sharp new voice on the literary scene

Library Journal

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