Helen Oyeyemi
Anchor
All the critics agree that Oyeyemi's second novel is challenging. It is a story about Maja, a 24-year-old black Cuban woman, who recently discovers she is pregnant. She begins to wonder about Cuba, where her family fled Castro's revolution for London when she was seven, and she starts  a journey back to her origins. Coloring her search for a sense of belonging are the gods and goddesses of Santeria, a fusion of Catholicism and West African Yoruba beliefs. Flashbacks flesh out Maja's relationships with her Santeria-practicing Mami, her professor Papi (who is not a Santeria practitioner) and her bully-bait younger brother, Tomás. Maja's gay best friend, Amy Eleni, provides Maja with sharp insight that helps her come into her own. Interwoven is the story of Aya, a goddess of Santeria who lives in the "somewherehouse," which has one door that opens onto Lagos and one onto London.