Butter Honey Pig Bread, Francesca Ekwuyasi
Butter Honey Pig Bread, Francesca Ekwuyasi
List: $20.99 | Sale: $14.70
Club: $10.49

Butter Honey Pig Bread

Author: Francesca Ekwuyasi

Narrator: Amaka Umeh

Unabridged: 12 hr 10 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: ECW Press

Published: 02/05/2021


Synopsis

2021 CANADA READS FINALIST Longlisted for the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize An intergenerational saga about three Nigerian women: a novel about food, family, and forgiveness. Butter Honey Pig Bread is a story of choices and their consequences, of motherhood, of the malleable line between the spirit and the mind, of finding new homes and mending old ones, of voracious appetites, of queer love, of friendship, faith, and above all, family. Francesca Ekwuyasi’s debut novel tells the interwoven stories of twin sisters, Kehinde and Taiye, and their mother, Kambirinachi. Kambirinachi feels she was born an Ogbanje, a spirit that plagues families with misfortune by dying in childhood to cause its mother misery. She believes that she has made the unnatural choice of staying alive to love her human family and now lives in fear of the consequences of that decision. Some of Kambirinachi’s worst fears come true when her daughter, Kehinde, experiences a devasting childhood trauma that causes the family to fracture in seemingly irreversible ways. As soon as she’s of age, Kehinde moves away and cuts contact with her twin sister and mother. Alone in Montreal, she struggles to find ways to heal while building a life of her own. Meanwhile, Taiye, plagued by guilt for what happened to her sister, flees to London and attempts to numb the loss of the relationship with her twin through reckless hedonism. Now, after more than a decade of living apart, Taiye and Kehinde have returned home to Lagos to visit their mother. It is here that the three women must face each other and address the wounds of the past if they are to reconcile and move forward. Bespeak Audio Editions brings Canadian voices to the world with audiobook editions of some of the country’s greatest works of literature, performed by Canadian actors.

Reviews

Goodreads review by David on November 16, 2020

What a drop-dead gorgeous debut! This is a sensual love letter to our time before Covid. Where you could cook dinner for a stranger with the promise of something more. Where people could still traverse the globe, hopping from Lagos to Halifax and France. Quaint cafes invited close conversation over t......more

Goodreads review by emma on November 30, 2021

Here is a description of one of the best kinds of books, which is also among the best reading experiences: When you wake up on a weekend morning during which you don't have to really do anything, so you get your cup of coffee and get back in bed with your book, intending to read for only a little whi......more

Goodreads review by BookOfCinz on September 30, 2021

Brilliant does not begin to cover this gorgeously written debut novel… WOW! Life is an ambivalent lover. One moment, you are everything and life wants to consume entirely. The next moment, you are an insignificant speck of nothing. Meaningless. Butter, Honey Pig Bread is told from the perspecti......more

Goodreads review by Bill on May 17, 2023

Reread A joyful reexperience, the first time through audio but the second time lived up through print. My appreciation for this narrative sunk deeper and opened up a new light on the weight of loneliness and the importance of revisiting, and reexamining past trauma in order to move forward. The cha......more

Goodreads review by luce (cry bebè's back from hiatus) on August 28, 2021

| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | | “Hold it gently, this hungry beast that is your heart.” Butter Honey Pig Bread explores the complex relationship two sisters who were once close but have become estranged as adults. Their mother, Kambirinachi, believes that she is an Ogbanje, a malevolent spirit who h......more