Night Dancer

Night Dancer is set in Nigeria and tells the story of Mma and her stubborn mother, Ezi. Ezi's unexpected death leads Mma to learn about her mother's past and rethink the resentment and contempt she has held for her mother her whole life. Mma resents her mother who likes to say things twice like 'dance-dance' and 'happy-happy' and who won't let Mma know anything about her father - Ezi her husband, Mike, and life in Kaduna, when Mma was a baby to raise her as a single mother.

Written in three parts, Chika Uniqwe tells a beautiful story, which reveals what happened, why everything is the way it is and why every character in the book did what they did. It starts in 2001, after Ezi's death, and concentrates on Mma's very negative feelings and hatred towards her mother. From Mma's point of view, we see what being raised by a proud single mother did to her childhood and how it affected Mma's life. When Mma starts reading Ezi's letters or her 'memoirs', Mma finds out the truth about her mother, her past life and why she did what she did. Her mother's letters also lead Mma to be reunited with the family she never knew she had - grandfathers, uncles, aunts, father. It goes back to 1960 where we find out what exactly happened to make Ezi leave her husband Mike, and raise their daughter Mma on her own. And it comes back to 2002 when Mma eventually meets her father, Mike, and begins to change her mind about her mother. In these three parts, we hear both Ezi and Mma voices.