Greetings! 👋🏽
I hope you are doing well and taking good care of yourself.
Welcome to another edition of The Reader’s Perspective newsletter.
Better Never Than Late weaves the stories of the lives of a group of Nigerian immigrants as they make their way in Belgium. It features ten intertwined stories that focus on a couple—Agu and Prosperous—and their friends who come together in their apartment every weekend.
Published in 2020, it is the author’s fourth book. In it, she exquisitely captures the feeling of being an outsider in a foreign land, torn between trying to fit in and retaining your identity. It’s a nice short read.
From unmet expectations and unfulfilled dreams to navigating their marriages and the pain of homesickness, these Nigerians have to build their lives in this unfamiliar place. Having recently relocated to another country, I can relate to some of the themes in this collection of stories.
Leaving your home country to live somewhere else for whatever reason is hardly ever an easy decision to make and even when it is, the process is often rigorous. Agu and Prosperous left Nigeria after Agu’s shop was burnt down during a riot. Prosperous worked at a top bank at the time but Agu could barely keep it together after he lost everything so they left.
The prospect of moving to another country, one that works, is often alluring. Many times, though, there is nothing pretty about building a new life in an unfamiliar place and more times than not, the workings of this new place can be the reason for many struggles. It comes together nicely for many people though so I guess it’s safe to say all is well that ends well.
A strong theme in this book is the pursuit of dreams, which is a major reason for migration. People generally have a sense that things are better on the other side and they have to do all they can to get there so they can achieve their dreams. The part that most times, goes unsaid is how hard it can be to find your feet at first.
Agu works at a bakery while Prosperous works as a cleaner and with what little they have after paying for basic needs, they can scarcely afford to raise the family they had both dreamed about. Dreams often get lost in the spin of the many threads of survival and sometimes, people hardly ever find their way back; they lose themselves as the weeks become months and the months become years.
Over time, “this won’t be forever” gradually becomes “it’s not so bad, you know?” as they nurse the niggling awareness of how their lives came to be as it is. They begin to wonder if they would ever go back home like they originally planned to, but they know the answer to the question like the way to their jobs with their eyes closed.
The author touches lightly on the unspoken pressure immigrants feel to keep up appearances both within themselves and with people back home. We also see the familiar trope of marriages of convenience; the lengths people would go to in search of this “better life.” While I do not subscribe to using people, I can’t judge them for their decisions and actions. People would argue that there are many ways to reach a goal/destination so to each his own.
There are a good number of characters who only got a brief moment on the centre stage. They could have been developed further but who knows what the author has in store for us. For one, I want to know what happened to the woman whose friend convinced her that her maid was behind her difficulty in finding a husband.
Have you read this book? What did you think about it? Leave a comment, maybe? 😉
If you read this book after reading this review, do come back and share 😊