There is a particular kind of terror that comes from living in someone else’s shadow, especially when that someone is dead. In Cursed Daughters, Oyinkan Braithwaite delivers a mesmerizing exploration of what it means to inherit not just genetic material but also destiny itself, wrapped in the humid, mystical atmosphere of Lagos. This is a novel about women who love fiercely and suffer deeply, who wrestle with the ghosts of their ancestors while trying desperately to carve out futures of their own.
Braithwaite’s sophomore effort arrives seven years after her electrifying debut, My Sister, the Serial Killer, which earned her a Booker Prize longlisting and established her as a distinctive voice in contemporary African literature. Where her first novel was lean, sharp, and propelled by murderous urgency, Cursed Daughters takes a more expansive approach, sprawling across three generations of the Falodun family and asking thornier questions about agency, identity, and whether we are ever truly free from the women who came before us.
The Bones of the Story
The premise itself is deliciously gothic. When Ebun gives birth to her daughter Eniiyi on the very day they bury her cousin Monife, the resemblance between the infant and the deceased woman is startling enough to launch a lifetime of speculation. The Falodun family, already haunted by a generations-old curse that promises no man will ever call their house home, latches onto this coincidence with an almost religious fervor. Eniiyi, they decide, is Monife reborn.
Growing up in a house shared by her mother, grandmother, and great-aunt, Eniiyi navigates the peculiar burden of being treated as both herself and someone else entirely. The curse looms over everything, a family heirloom as real as the creaky floorboards and flickering lights of the ancestral home. The story unfolds through alternating perspectives, shifting between Monife in the 1990s, Ebun during the early years of single motherhood, and Eniiyi as she comes of age in contemporary Lagos.
The Weight of Names and Faces
Braithwaite excels at capturing the suffocating intimacy of family secrets. The Falodun women live stacked together like Russian dolls, each containing multitudes of grief and hope. Ebun emerges as perhaps the most complex figure, a woman who has armored herself against love and joy in equal measure, believing that emotional restraint might protect her daughter from the curse’s reach. Her relationship with Eniiyi crackles with tension, love expressed through control rather than warmth.
Eniiyi herself is a compelling protagonist, stubborn and searching, equal parts frustrated daughter and determined individual. When she saves a drowning man named Zubby from the ocean and falls headlong into love, the novel shifts into territory that feels both inevitable and genuinely tense. The romance brings forward questions the family has spent decades avoiding. Is Eniiyi following her own heart, or is she merely completing a story that Monife began and could not finish?
Strengths That Illuminate the Narrative
The novel’s most potent offerings include:
- The atmospheric rendering of Lagos, where modernity and tradition collide in every household, where spiritual herbalists operate alongside iPhones, and where the past is never truly past
- Braithwaite’s signature dark humor, which surfaces at unexpected moments and prevents the narrative from becoming too heavy
- The structural ambition of weaving three timelines together, allowing readers to see how secrets metastasize across generations
- The unflinching exploration of how Nigerian families navigate marriage, masculinity, and the persistent curse of male abandonment
Where the Narrative Falters
For all its atmospheric richness, Cursed Daughters occasionally stumbles under the weight of its own ambitions. The pacing in the middle sections drags noticeably, with certain revelations taking longer to arrive than feels necessary. Some readers may find themselves wanting Braithwaite to cut more aggressively, to trust them with less exposition and more implication.
The supernatural elements walk an uncertain line. The curse itself is presented ambiguously, never quite confirmed as genuine magic or elaborate self-fulfilling prophecy. While this ambiguity serves the literary fiction genre well, readers hoping for the propulsive certainty of magical realism may find themselves somewhat adrift. Similarly, Monife’s sections, while beautifully written, sometimes feel like interruptions to the contemporary storyline rather than essential illuminations.
Areas That Could Be Stronger
- The resolution feels rushed compared to the careful buildup, with certain emotional beats landing with less impact than they deserve
- Some secondary characters, particularly the grandmothers, blur together despite their distinct personalities being established early
- The romance between Eniiyi and Zubby, while central to the plot, occasionally veers into familiar territory
Writing That Breathes and Bleeds
Braithwaite’s prose remains her greatest asset. She writes with an economy that belies the emotional depth she achieves, capable of devastating readers with a single observation. Her dialogue crackles with authenticity, seamlessly blending Yoruba phrases with English in a way that feels organic rather than performative. The domestic scenes pulse with lived-in detail, from the scent of omi ẹran in the kitchen to the particular way Nigerian mothers express love through criticism.
There is a specificity to her Lagos that transports readers wholesale, making them feel the humidity, taste the pepper, and hear the generators humming in the background of every scene. She writes about Nigerian womanhood with the authority of someone who has lived it, capturing both its limitations and its fierce resiliences.
Themes That Linger Long After the Final Page
At its heart, Cursed Daughters interrogates the nature of inheritance. What do we owe to those who came before us? How much of our destiny is truly ours to write? Braithwaite refuses easy answers, presenting characters who struggle genuinely against forces they may or may not be imagining. The result is a novel that feels honest about the messiness of liberation, acknowledging that breaking generational patterns requires more than simply wanting to be free.
Similar Books for Readers Who Want More
If Cursed Daughters resonates with you, consider exploring these thematically aligned works:
- Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi, for its exploration of identity, spirituality, and Nigerian culture
- Stay with Me by Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀, for its examination of marriage and family curses in Nigeria
- The Book of Night Women by Marlon James, for its multigenerational saga of women fighting against predetermined fates
- A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, for its exploration of how family legacies shape successive generations
- Everything Inside by Edwidge Danticat, for its short story collection examining Caribbean and diaspora women’s lives
The Verdict
Cursed Daughters confirms Oyinkan Braithwaite as a writer of considerable range and depth. While it lacks the bullet-train momentum of her debut, it offers something equally valuable: a meditation on identity, legacy, and the possibility of liberation that never pretends these questions have simple answers. The novel rewards patient readers with its slow-burn revelations and characters who feel genuinely alive.
This is not a perfect book, but it is an important one, a testament to what contemporary African fiction can achieve when it refuses to flatten complexity in favor of accessibility. Braithwaite has written a ghost story where the most terrifying specter is the self we fear we might become. That she manages to do so with wit, grace, and genuine emotional resonance makes Cursed Daughters essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of tradition and modernity, love and loss, destiny and choice.