2020 Desmond Elliott Prize (nominee)
The Private Joys of Nnenna Maloney is a comic novel about Nnenna, a half-Nigerian teenager living with her beloved mother Joanie.
As Nnenna approaches womanhood she longs to connect with her Igbo-Nigerian culture. Her once close and tender relationship with her mother becomes strained as Nnenna begins to ask probing questions about her estranged father, who her mother who refuses to discuss.
Nnenna is asking big questions of how to 'be' when she doesn't know the whole of who she is. Meanwhile, Joanie wonders how to love when she has never truly been loved. Their lives are filled with a cast of characters asking similar questions about identity and belonging whilst grappling with the often hilarious encounters of everyday Manchester.
Okechukwu Nzelu brings us a funny and heart-warming story that covers the expanse of race, gender, class, family and redemption, with a fresh and distinctive new voice.
Genre: General Fiction
As Nnenna approaches womanhood she longs to connect with her Igbo-Nigerian culture. Her once close and tender relationship with her mother becomes strained as Nnenna begins to ask probing questions about her estranged father, who her mother who refuses to discuss.
Nnenna is asking big questions of how to 'be' when she doesn't know the whole of who she is. Meanwhile, Joanie wonders how to love when she has never truly been loved. Their lives are filled with a cast of characters asking similar questions about identity and belonging whilst grappling with the often hilarious encounters of everyday Manchester.
Okechukwu Nzelu brings us a funny and heart-warming story that covers the expanse of race, gender, class, family and redemption, with a fresh and distinctive new voice.
Genre: General Fiction
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