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Chapter 1: What is the central theme of 'Cursed Daughters'?
In the novel Cursed Daughters, the Faladin family women are afflicted by a curse. No men will call your houses home, and if they try, they will not have peace. Essentially, the romantic relationships are doomed to fail, and this causes three generations of women to suffer through heartbreak and to live under one roof.
Cursed Daughters by Oyanko Braithwaite is the story of the youngest generation attempting to, perhaps unwisely, beat the curse, outrun the curse. It's contemporary literary fiction with maybe a touch of fantasy. It's set in Lagos, Nigeria and wicked sharp. And by the way, if you recognize the name Oyanko Braithwaite,
It might be because she also published My Sister, the Serial Killer, which was an internationally critically acclaimed murder mystery back in 2018. And while Cursed Daughters is definitely different than that one, it's already rightfully getting very good reviews. Today, I'm talking to Oyanko Brithwaite. This is Audiobook Cafe. I'm Jacob Szymanski.
Cursed Daughters is available on Sila in synthetic audio. For the time being, you can find the human narrated audio version on Audible.
Chapter 2: How does the curse affect the characters in the story?
It's about nine and a half hours long and narrated by three women, each given one of the three point of view characters. It's narrated by Diana Ikeni, Neiopia Clark, and Rurushi Opia. Here's a sample of that audiobook.
In these waters, the only creature that could flourish was Mamiwata. And Mamiwata was as far from the fabled mermaid as a creature could be. There was no shimmering fin, no haunting singing voice, no glossy skin. Instead, a mouth crowded with dagger teeth, hands that were deformed and decaying, features that were hard to look at but impossible to turn away from.
That was a sample from Cursed Daughters by Oinko Braithwaite. Orenko, thank you so much for making time. Welcome to the show.
Thank you for having me, Jacob. I'm excited.
Now, I only gave a very brief description of Cursed Daughters, but it's so much more than that. So in your own words, what's your new book about?
Gosh, I'd like to start off by sort of talking about Farami, who's a beautiful, confident, dark-skinned young woman. And she sees this man she likes come to her village and she seduces him. Unfortunately, he's already married. And his wife isn't too happy about this turn of events. So she promptly curses Farami.
And the curse is that, you know, she will love in vain, that she will labor for the acknowledgement of men, but fall short of other women, that men will be like water in her palms. And but this curse doesn't just apply to her. It applies to her daughter, her daughter's daughter, her daughter's daughter, daughter on and on through the generations of the Faloduo.
family and as you said earlier it kind of focuses on the three youngest characters in this family Munifer who is dead at the start of the story we know how but not why Ebun who's working very hard to secure a different future for her daughter and Eni who everyone thinks is a reincarnation of Munifer
And there's this idea that the youngest person of the three main characters, Enni, is the reincarnation of Monife, which is the second youngest in the book. Is reincarnation a common belief in Nigeria? And if so, what does it mean? What happens when someone is believed to be a reincarnation? What's the implication?
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Chapter 3: What inspired Oyinkan Braithwaite to write 'Cursed Daughters'?
or something you know or even maybe it might just be some people might just use it now to remember the person that is gone as opposed to a belief that the person has come back but um i think it's those kind of names as well that drew my attention to it okay just the etymology of it at this point um now reincarnation is just one of the ideas of this book but i'm curious like how the ideas around cursed daughters came to you initially
Well, it started with the reincarnation, but I was really struggling. I wanted to create the story, a coming of age story about this young woman, but with the added burden of the legacy and the consequences of the choices made by a whole other individual. Someone you had never met, did not know, but for some reason didn't.
you know were destined to go the way they had gone and what that would be like how that would affect growing up how that would affect the way people treated you and your mental health and that was sort of what I was interested in but I was really struggling with it so I left it as I do there are loads of stories that I start and kind of abandon um and this is one of them but I came back to it in 2023 long story short and all of a sudden I could kind of see a way through
Interesting. Can you tell us more about this, like the first iteration of this book that you ended up scrapping? That's interesting. Like, why did you scrap it?
I don't know. I mean, saying it right now, I was like, hey, that sounds interesting. It sounds like it could have worked. But it wasn't working. It was in first person POV. I wanted to follow, you know, so the focus would have been Eni, even though her name wasn't Eni then. She's had like four name changes and I'm still not sure I'm completely satisfied.
But anyhow, she had a different name then and Um, so it was supposed to follow like this 10 year old all the way to, you know, when she's like 25 and just watch her life. And, you know, I just wasn't, it wasn't giving me what I needed for lack of a better, it wasn't. Um, I got very bogged down in 10 year old her and was struggling to kind of get out of it.
And, um, you know, and then at some point I'm like, is this a young adult? No. Like, what is this? Is this a, you know, cause I got so trapped in, in 10 year old her, I think I sort of was focused on that. And then I thought, okay, maybe I need to have two points of views.
And I started focusing on her mom and, um, who's Ebo and, and that wasn't so bad, but still, because bear in mind at this point, it's outside of the reincarnation aspect, it's actually a very straight story, um, And it just wasn't working for me like that. So it was coming back to it and realizing it was going to be three points of view.
That was going to also have the voice of the reincarnated person trying to work out what her... I was going to have her voice, but it was also going to be all around a more mystical story in a sense. And that sort of worked.
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Chapter 4: What role does reincarnation play in the narrative?
Yeah, they are guidelines. And it keeps you, I think it keeps me loose. It keeps it not so heavy, but it also means you can surprise yourself. You can have happy accidents, which is why some of these questions where people are like, What was your reasoning behind this? And what was your thinking behind that? And I'm like, oh, no, what was my thinking behind it?
Because I was just I was flowing for the most part.
One of the questions I had going through Cursed Daughters, and I suppose it really is up to interpretation. It's part of the fun. But it was whether or not the curse was real. Is the family curse real?
I don't know. I think that's down to the reader. I mean, you said earlier that there's an element of fantasy in this. And I've also thought about that with this book. And I think even that fantasy element is a matter of perspective. I think to the Westerner, it will read more like fantasy. But I think you know, to the African reader, maybe to some Asian readers.
You know, I met a Latin American lady the other day who said there were some themes, some elements of this that were familiar to her and her family. And so I feel like to some parts of the world, this won't read really as fantasy.
And I really think it's where you come into it and what your stance, what your perspective is, what your prejudices are already that determines whether this story is fantasy for you or not.
And so take from it what you will. Oyenko, thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Really appreciate it. That was Oyenko Braithwaite. She's the author of Cursed Daughters and My Sister, the Serial Killer. You can find both on SELA and on Audible. Before we wrap up today's episode, we have time for a book report.
That's the segment where senior producer Andrea Godelanerol comes on and keeps us up to date on the latest news in audiobooks. But today, in anticipation of February, which is Black History Month, we have a couple of recommendations for you. And Rika, the first title you have for us is Any Known Blood by Lawrence Hill.
Yeah, and you might be wondering, wait, I know that name. And yeah, you probably do. He's a very famous author, most famously known for the Book of Negroes. And this specific book, Any Known Blood, it's a bit of a throwback. It's going all the way back to 1987, but it's a highly recommended book. It's actually a historical fiction book.
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