After reading this wonderful, tender memoir of childhood — so close to my own yet so vastly different — I finally understood how it feels to suffer from anemoia, a longing for a past I never actually knew. Is there a separate thing for when you wish this was your past, that this could have been your past if only circumstances were different, if the world were a better place? I’m not one to indulge in pointless nostalgia but this book made me truly wistful for a childhood not my own.
I’ll See You In Ijebu is author Bunmi Emenanjo’s recollection of her own childhood in Nigeria. While she lived with her Catholic family in Lagos, they often went to Ijebu, several hours’ drive away, to visit her mother’s Muslim family, especially for celebrations like Eid. This book describes the time when she was finally eight, old enough to start helping to prepare food for the Eid al-Adha feast, something young Olubunmi had been looking forward to for years. From the hustle of traffic leaving the capital, to the food both at home and in Ijebu, to Olubunmi’s thoughts on spending time with her extended family, this is a tale told with copious amounts of both care and love.
It’s a simple enough story, but the richness of detail really grounds the narrative, contributing to that (my) feeling of anemoia. The narrative prose is interspersed with paragraphs of blank verse that often incorporate Yoruba (and sometimes Hausa?) words to more faithfully portray the rhythms of Nigerian life. Diana Ejaita’s exquisite block-print-inspired art is the perfect complement to the words, capturing the bustle and color of the tale. Honestly, this is one of the best combinations of prose and art I’ve seen in a while: I was so impressed by how beautifully everything worked together!