Yewande Omotoso
Author of The Woman Next Door
About the Author
Image credit: Pen South Africa
Works by Yewande Omotoso
Associated Works
New Daughters of Africa: An International Anthology of Writing by Women of African Descent (2019) — Contributor — 115 copies, 1 review
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Birthdate
- 1980
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Cape Town
- Occupations
- architect
designer
novelist - Relationships
- Omotoso, Kole (father)
Omotoso, Akin (brother) - Short biography
- Yewande Omotoso was born in Barbados. She grew up in Nigeria and moved to South Africa in 1992. Yewande trained as an architect and is a designer, freelance writer, poet and novelist. After completing a Masters degree in Creative Writing, her debut novel Bom Boy was published in 2011 by Modjaji Books. It won the 2012 South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author, was shortlisted for the 2012 Sunday Times Fiction Prize in South Africa as well as the M-Net Literary Awards 2012, and was the runner-up for the 2013 Etisalat Prize for Literature. Yewande lives in Johannesburg.
- Nationality
- Nigeria
South Africa - Birthplace
- Bridgetown, Barbados
- Places of residence
- Ife Ife, Osun State, Nigeria
Johannesburg, South Africa
Cape Town, South Africa
Members
Reviews
Yewande Omotoso tells the story of two elderly women living in an affluent neighborhood in Capetown, South Africa. Marion, a white woman, runs the neighborhood committee and has a hand in everything going on. Hortensia, a black woman who moved to the neighborhood with her white husband after Apartheid ended, is stand-offish but she attends the committee meetings. Hortensia and Marion are constantly in disagreement and have never gotten along. After Hortensia's husband dies and they are both show more widows, circumstances push them together.
This isn't a feel-good story about old enemies becoming friends, or at least not quite. The gulf between the two women and the shared weight of their personal histories doesn't allow for a glib ending. Instead, there's a nuanced story of two women who lived through tumultuous times and were shaped by the places they'd lived. Omotoso does a wonderful job of portraying each of the women with equal nuance. It's not an easy thing to write a sympathetic and critical character study of a racist old woman, but Omotoso has managed to make Marion not only into a living, breathing woman, but to make her reactions and thought-patterns understandable. show less
This isn't a feel-good story about old enemies becoming friends, or at least not quite. The gulf between the two women and the shared weight of their personal histories doesn't allow for a glib ending. Instead, there's a nuanced story of two women who lived through tumultuous times and were shaped by the places they'd lived. Omotoso does a wonderful job of portraying each of the women with equal nuance. It's not an easy thing to write a sympathetic and critical character study of a racist old woman, but Omotoso has managed to make Marion not only into a living, breathing woman, but to make her reactions and thought-patterns understandable. show less
In a posh Cape Town suburb, two octogenarian women neighbors have been trading barbs for years. Hortensia James was born in Barbados, trained as a textile designer in England, and had a successful career in her own design business. She and her white husband purchased home #10 about twenty years ago, making her the first black homeowner in the housing plan.
The architect for #10 was Hortensia's neighbor in #12, Marion Agostino. She designed #10 at the apex of her career as her own dream home. show more Family responsibilities thwarted her career, and residence in #12 was the closest she could get to her aspiration for #10.
Marion heads up the local homeowners association which Hortensia attends just to oppose Marion. Hortensia's bitter and oppositional personality is cued up perfectly against Marion's prejudiced upper class pretensions. When Hortensia sets up a home renovation project to spite Marion, a twist of fate damages Marion's home, breaks Hortensia's leg, and puts them in a situation of mutual need. Hortensia invites Marion to live in her home, not out of generosity, but as an attempt to keep visiting care nurses out of her home.
The two women set about forming a crotchety relationship as widows who have been betrayed by their husbands in different ways. Childless Hortensia is forced into meeting her deceased husband's love child, while Marion is forced to face her own inadequacies as a mother, and the limitations of her background as a while woman under Apartheid.
If you are looking for an antidote to all the current popular books about the redemption of grumpy old men...this is it...the redemption of two intelligent, creative, grumpy old women. I highly recommend it based on that fact alone. show less
The architect for #10 was Hortensia's neighbor in #12, Marion Agostino. She designed #10 at the apex of her career as her own dream home. show more Family responsibilities thwarted her career, and residence in #12 was the closest she could get to her aspiration for #10.
Marion heads up the local homeowners association which Hortensia attends just to oppose Marion. Hortensia's bitter and oppositional personality is cued up perfectly against Marion's prejudiced upper class pretensions. When Hortensia sets up a home renovation project to spite Marion, a twist of fate damages Marion's home, breaks Hortensia's leg, and puts them in a situation of mutual need. Hortensia invites Marion to live in her home, not out of generosity, but as an attempt to keep visiting care nurses out of her home.
The two women set about forming a crotchety relationship as widows who have been betrayed by their husbands in different ways. Childless Hortensia is forced into meeting her deceased husband's love child, while Marion is forced to face her own inadequacies as a mother, and the limitations of her background as a while woman under Apartheid.
If you are looking for an antidote to all the current popular books about the redemption of grumpy old men...this is it...the redemption of two intelligent, creative, grumpy old women. I highly recommend it based on that fact alone. show less
"Good fences make good neighbors," while often true, isn't particularly the case in Yewande Omotoso's novel, The Woman Next Door. Not even a fence can make the two neighbors, one black and one white, like each other, get along with each other politely, or even just tolerate each other when they pass in the street or encounter each other at neighborhood meetings. In fact, Marion and Hortensia, two women with what should be quite a lot in common, loathe each other and delight in making the show more other uncomfortable or angry in their well-off suburban Cape Town neighborhood. Both are highly educated and were quite well respected in their chosen fields (textile design for Hortensia and architecture for Marion). Each had a less than ideal marriage and shortly after the opening of the novel with the death of Hortensia's husband, both are widows. In their eighties now, having been neighbors and enemies for years, each of them holds tightly onto her rancor towards the other one. These two irascible women delight in sniping at each other without really knowing each other more than superficially. But when an accident happens and a legal threat to their homes surfaces, Hortensia and Marion are forced into a grudging cooperation.
Compared by many to Grumpy Old Men, this is actually something entirely different. Yes, the two main characters are cantankerous and competitive but they also have the weight of South African history underpinning their sometimes hilarious and sometimes bitter and mean hostilities. Their personal stories wrap around the greater political history of apartheid, slavery, and race in general. Omotoso keeps a light hand on the history, politics, and issues though so as not to make the characters simply foils for past injustice. Hortensia and Marion feel real in their own right with their flaws, occasional nastiness, veiled insecurities, disappointments, and personal problems. It is the women and their relationships, warts and all, that drives the narrative here. There is some humor but in general the novel is more serious than not, taking on race, women's rights, marriage, motherhood (or not), jealousy, aging, and more. I found this to be a worthwhile and enjoyable read if not entirely what I expected.
Of note: this book is one of the Women's National Book Association's Great Group Reads for 2017-2018. show less
Compared by many to Grumpy Old Men, this is actually something entirely different. Yes, the two main characters are cantankerous and competitive but they also have the weight of South African history underpinning their sometimes hilarious and sometimes bitter and mean hostilities. Their personal stories wrap around the greater political history of apartheid, slavery, and race in general. Omotoso keeps a light hand on the history, politics, and issues though so as not to make the characters simply foils for past injustice. Hortensia and Marion feel real in their own right with their flaws, occasional nastiness, veiled insecurities, disappointments, and personal problems. It is the women and their relationships, warts and all, that drives the narrative here. There is some humor but in general the novel is more serious than not, taking on race, women's rights, marriage, motherhood (or not), jealousy, aging, and more. I found this to be a worthwhile and enjoyable read if not entirely what I expected.
Of note: this book is one of the Women's National Book Association's Great Group Reads for 2017-2018. show less
The Woman Next Door is set in Capetown, South Africa, and is the story of two elderly ladies, Hortensia and Marion, who have been neighbors and enemies for twenty years. Marion is white and Hortensia is black, and although this is well after apartheid, Omotoso shows that while laws can change material situations, it is more difficult to change minds and hearts.
After the deaths of their husbands and an accident, Marion and Hortensia are forced to interact on a new level. Omotoso uses show more flashbacks to reveal the history of the two women, who are both great characters. One of the strengths of the novel is that fact that Omotoso does not make either character all good or all evil. Instead, we get complex characters in a complex situation.
I really enjoyed the novel. Perhaps the ending was a little contrived, but still, this is recommended. show less
After the deaths of their husbands and an accident, Marion and Hortensia are forced to interact on a new level. Omotoso uses show more flashbacks to reveal the history of the two women, who are both great characters. One of the strengths of the novel is that fact that Omotoso does not make either character all good or all evil. Instead, we get complex characters in a complex situation.
I really enjoyed the novel. Perhaps the ending was a little contrived, but still, this is recommended. show less
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- Rating
- 3.7
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