A wonderful novel full of richly-drawn, complicated, nuanced characters all trying to love and connect with each other. An ode to the bonds of friendship across decades, Dele Weds Destiny is a marvelous debut‘ Jami Attenberg, author of All This Could Be Yours Over the course of thirty years, their lives and friendships diverge and change. Funmi is separating from her husband, trying to understand her daughter Remi. Zainab finds herself the sole breadwinner for her husband and their four sons. And Funmi is living a life of confined luxury, as the wife of a successful, shady businessman.

The intricacies of female friendships and the complex nature of mother/daughter relationships are at the heart of this absorbing novel from BuzzFeed culture editor Obaro, a sharp new voice on the literary scene.” — Library JournalFast-paced, glamorous, and bursting with emotion, Dele Weds Destiny is a thrilling debut. The bonds between women - as friends, and across the generations - are the jewels that make this story shine!' - Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Three woman who join together to rent a large space along the beach in Los Angeles for their stores—a gift shop, a bakery, and a bookstore—become fast friends as they each experience the highs, and lows, of love. Zainab, Funmi and Enitan first meet at University in northern Nigeria, all learning how to become themselves. It’s an experience that binds the three very different women together. When Enitan moves to New York to elope with a white man, Zainab and Funmi are left behind, with drastically different fortunes.

Obaro writes beautifully about the complicated labor of friendship and parentage. Dele Weds Destiny explores caregiving as a kind of deferment, but also as discovery, of desire, of fury, of home' - Raven Leilani, author of Luster The novel, which inspired an auction among 13 interested publishers, centers on Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab, three friends who met at college in Nigeria. They are reunited after 30 years for Funmi’s daughter’s wedding in Lagos. The inspiration for the novel came from observing her mother’s close relationships with her best friends from college, Obaro says: “They all ended up in radically different places, but have been able to maintain deep, meaningful friendships.” Funmi, Enitan and Zainab first meet at university in Nigeria and become friends for life despite their differences. Funmi is beautiful, brash and determined; Enitan is homely and eager, seeking escape from her single mother's smothering and needy love; Zainab is elegant and reserved, raised by her father's first two wives after her mother's death in childbirth.Obaro set the present-day period in 2015 for two reasons: “I just didn’t really want to have to write about Trump,” she says wearily. The other? “I remember very specifically going to Nigeria during that time, even just in terms of musical references.” [Toni Morrison] famously has said, ‘Write about what you don’t know and the things that scare you’ or whatever A book begging to be read on the beach, with the sun warming the sand and salt in the air: pure escapism. Yes, my mother’s two best friends are women she met in college and they have kept in touch ever since, though none of them live in Nigeria now. I must stress that my mother and her friends are quite different from the characters in the book; the only big parallel is that one of my aunts did elope! But that’s her story to tell. I am also wary of books about mothers and daughters, and that element isn't quite as strong here. The mother/daughter elements are not explored in nearly as much depth, they're more of the plot dressing, really. Obaro delivered a breath-taking novel centred around three old friends, Enitan, Funmi and Zainab. The story flits between present day and the past, chronicling how the three met and their journey through adolescence at university, to who they became in the future.

Obaro writes beautifully about the complicated labour of friendship and parentage. Dele Weds Destiny explores caregiving as a kind of deferment, but also as discovery, of desire, of fury, of home’ Raven Leilani A wonderful novel full of richly-drawn, complicated, nuanced characters all trying to love and connect with each other. An ode to the bonds of friendship across decades, Dele Weds Destiny is a marvelous debut' -- Jami Attenberg, author of All This Could Be Yours A generous and patient consideration of life, and of lives... I am so thankful for the world of this book, and so excited for everyone who gets to sit in it' - Hanif Abdurraqib, author of A Little Devil in AmericaThe story of three once-inseparable college friends in Nigeria who reunite in Lagos for the first time in thirty years—a sparkling debut novel about mothers and daughters, culture and class, sex and love, and the extraordinary resilience of female friendship. You said you started writing DELE WEDS DESTINY during the summer of 2019. Could you paint a picture of that summer for you? How did your world at that time draw you into the lives of Funmi, Enitan, and Zainab? Also, I kept thinking that Dele and Destiny would play more of a role given that they are the ones mentioned in the title but they do not.

What fuels their friendships? Their love, support, and sisterhood to each other. In college, they rallied around Zainab, the arty and rich friend, when she wanted to get married right after graduation, despite her father’s protests. When Funmi, the bombastic, yet deeply loving member of the friend group, loses her boyfriend, they stood by her side, despite Funmi’s bravado and claims of not needing support. Thirty years later, they are still friends, steadfast in their commitment to staying connected, and when Funmi invites Enitan and Zainab to attend her daughter Destiny’s wedding in Lagos, Nigeria, they both put a pause on their fraught personal lives to attend.

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The story of three once-inseparable college friends in Nigeria who reunite in Lagos for the first time in 30 years --- a sparkling debut novel about mothers and daughters, culture and class, sex and love, and the extraordinary resilience of female friendship.