My story “Awure Iferan”, published in Queer Africa 2 – New Stories is an excerpt from my novella about the consequences of love potions gone “wrong”.

Growing up in Nigeria, you hear stories about juju. I don’t recall if the idea for this story came from a story I heard or a Nollywood movie I watched but the plot goes something like this; a woman goes to get a love consultation, she’s told that the first person she sees is the love of her life and this person turns out to be someone she wouldn’t typically go for. Usually, her one true love is poor, or ugly or just not her type.

I was fascinated by this idea and one day while mulling over it I thought, “what if the first person she sees is another woman?” And thus a story was born. The novella follows Noura as she struggles to come to terms with the fact that her love potion doesn’t go the way she planned and the consequences/impact of this on her life and family. “Awure Iferan” is basically the first chapter of the novella.