Here are some questions from a book club meeting held at Village Well Books in Culver City, California.

Opening topic: What food reminds you of home?

1) Fodo’s Better Half. Why do you think Adaoma makes the decision that she does, to leave with their boy Uchenna?

2) Do you identify more with Adaoma or Fodo?

3) How did Aisha, Remi, Nonso and Solape’s friendship impact their lives?

4) What do you make of Aisha’s decision to become a lawyer, as revealed in Czekolada?

5) After their disagreement in Start Your Savings Account Today, do you believe that Remi will cut off all contact with her father?

6) Do you think Nonso is more like her biological grandmother, Fodo, or her step-grandmother, Adaoma?

7) Guardian Angel of Elmina. What made Nonso’s mother fume during their stay in the airport hotel? What do you think is meant by the title Guardian Angel?

8) Remi’s husband, Segun, is the only male character that gets to tell his own story in this collection. Why do you think that is? How do his experiences with the police in Nigeria and the US reflect both societies?

9) In what ways have things improved for Nigerian women since Adaoma’s time? In what ways have they regressed?

10) What role does faith play throughout the linked collection of stories? Consider the impact of colonization: the destruction of existing social norms and societies and the imposition of a new culture, language, and religion.

11) MessengerRNA describes a near future in which people are jailed to work off health care debt. Do you find this believable? Why or why not?

12) The novel is titled Jollof Rice and Other Revolutions, while the story’s title is Jollof Rice and Revolutions.  How do the stories in the collection represent other revolutions to you?