Bonfo by Rotimi Ogunjobi

Ibadan, 1965. Nigeria is young, ambitious and changing fast—and so are its women.

Abeni Adewale has spent years earning respect in a corporate world dominated by men. When she rises to become Managing Director of Oduwa Trading Company, it should be the proudest moment of her life. Instead, success forces her to confront uncomfortable truths about her marriage, respectability, desire and the rules by which she has lived.

Around her, another Ibadan is emerging. Young women embrace the daring short hemlines known as bonfo. Highlife fills the hotels and nightclubs. The Cosmopolitans struggle to keep their music—and themselves—afloat. And Tito and Benjamin stumble between romantic ambition, grand plans, humiliation and stubborn hope as they pursue better versions of their lives.

Set against the excitement and uncertainty of mid-1960s Nigeria, BONFO is a warm, witty and emotionally layered novel about marriage, ambition, friendship, changing morality and a society caught between tradition and modernity.

At its heart is one question: when the world begins changing its clothes, how long can its old rules remain unchanged?