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The Black Issue 2022 Author Interview: Tomi Obaro
My father said, quite matter of fact, that the problem was my first name and that I should switch to my middle name, Paul
Hodder is backing Tomi Obaro’s novel, which covers three decades and an opulent Nigerian wedding, to make a splash
Grace Shutti @graceshutti 26 20th May 2022
S
poiler alert: Dele Weds Destiny is not a romance novel. “The title characters are more minor in the book, which I also thought was funny but nobody else does,” chuckles Tomi Obaro via Zoom from her Brooklyn apartment. Nothing brings people together—or tears them apart—like a wedding, especially in Nigeria, where dollar bills fly and guests peacock over their proximit to the celebrants. “It’s just very ridiculous,” she says of the spectacular (sometimes absurd) ceremonies. “I’ve always thought that that was an interesting source of drama and have been surprised at how litle fiction has engaged with what is the pageantry of a certain kind of very opulent Nigerian wedding.” This is a love story, but of a different kind. The lifelong bond between Funmi, Enitan and Zainab formed at univer- sit in Zaria, northern Nigeria, in the 1980s. They reunite for the wedding of Funmi’s daughter Destiny. “The crux of the book is about this friendship between these women and how it changes and endures over decades,” Obaro explains. Funmi, the former brusque babe on campus, is now a rich and bored housewife, single-handedly planning her daughter’s nuptials. Enitan returns to Nigeria having
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