An almost-blind mother pawns her daughter off to save her. A grieving son must bury his Muslim father in twenty-four hours in the thick of winter. A doctor battles to save her partner from himself. Desperation makes a young businesswoman seek out a spiritual experience. A dominatrix wants to give life to her sexual kinks in her repressive household. The weight of the word "slave" is put to the test during a first date in conservative Idaho. A boy escapes his bipolar mother.

These stories and more are an excavation of what it means to exist at the crossroads of desire, ambition, and tradition. Tehingbola explores the indelible erasure of personhood when one tries to fit into the hard places where injustice reigns. She fillets the flesh as these characters try to exercise autonomy in their worlds and swim against the uncontrollable tides that mould their lives.



Ayotola Tehingbola