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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 I grew up reading and writing fiction but didn’t think becoming a novelist was remotely practical, so for a long time the desire to write fiction was one I didn’t admit to myself. I think reading fiction and nonfiction can be equally compelling but writing fiction is so much more rewarding than writing nonfiction. It’s just so freeing. You get to live in your imagination and you have complete autonomy; you’re not beholden to facts or quotes or someone’s else story the way you are when you’re reporting. I also don’t plan or outline when I write fiction and that freedom is blissful (though quite stressful when editing!)
Obaro writes beautifully about the complicated labor of friendship and parentage. Dele Weds Destinyexplores caregiving as a kind of deferment, but also as discovery, of desire, of fury, of home.” –Raven Leilani, author of Luster Dami was Tomi’s first reader, but didn’t help shape Dele Weds Destiny—other than confirming it was worth reading. “We’re very honest with each other,” Tomi says. She shelved her first attempt at a novel—keeping only the title, Dele Weds Destiny—after Dami’s less-than-enthusiastic response. This enchanting debut is an affectionate portrait of a 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 Most (if not all) of your writing currently on the internet is nonfiction– did you always want to write a novel? What do you think fiction can do that nonfiction can’t? 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.Dele Weds Destiny. Three women brought together again after many years at the celebration of this wedding.
You’ve mentioned that the novel is loosely based on the relationship your mother had with her two college friends. Could you tell us a bit more about that? Was there a particular story from her that helped give life to the women–the mothers and daughters– you are writing about here? I think the relationships between Funmi and Destiny and Enitan and Remi are fraught in different ways. The mothers love their daughters but don’t always understand them. But I’m more curious to hear what readers think about those relationship dynamics! The book is split into two timelines–one set in 2015 Lagos and the other throughout the 1980s while the three women are in college in Northern Nigeria. Why was it important for you to show what Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab were like growing up?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
There’s some modest tension of the “will-she-or-won’t-she” kind over Destiny’s indifference to her forthcoming nuptials. But we’re denied the more interesting question of whether the friendship between the three women can survive because right at the beginning we’re assured that they will remain “steadfastly in each other’s lives.” Without that element of drama, I couldn’t see there was much of a purpose to the story. The idea for the book was sound, it was the execution that let it down for me. Dele Weds Destiny by Tomi Obaro: Footnotes It did end a bit abruptly in my opinion because I would have thoroughly enjoyed the commotion that would have been a result of Destiny's decision but that is just me and my thirst for drama.
Tomi Obaro
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 Yes, my mother’s two best friends are women she met in college and they have kept in touch ever since, though none of them live in Nigeria now. I must stress that my mother and her friends are quite different from the characters in the book; the only big parallel is that one of my aunts did elope! But that’s her story to tell. Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab first meet at university in Nigeria and become friends for life despite their differences. Funmi is beautiful, brash, and determined; Enitan is homely and eager, seeking escape from her single mother’s smothering and needylove; Zainab is elegant and reserved, raised by her father’s first two wives after her mother’s death in childbirth. Unfortunately while Tomi Obaro writes convincingly abouther setting, this wasn’t enough to mitigate a rather uninspiring story line about three friends who are reunited for the first time in thirty years. Obaro delivered a breath-taking novel centred around three old friends, Enitan, Funmi and Zainab. The story flits between present day and the past, chronicling how the three met and their journey through adolescence at university, to who they became in the future.
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