Table of Contents
Oyinkan Braithwaite’s Cursed Daughters is an intricate, multi-generational saga set in Lagos, Nigeria, exploring the lives of the Falodun women who are believed to be under a historical curse. The narrative is structured non-linearly, weaving together the lives of Monife (the “cursed” daughter of the 1990s), her cousin Ebun (who bears the weight of Monife’s legacy), and Ebun’s daughter Eniiyi (the modern descendant who must decide if she is a reincarnation or her own person). The story is framed by the legend of Feranmi Falodun, the matriarch whose conflict with her husband’s first wife supposedly triggered a curse that all Falodun women would “love in vain” and “suffer for man’s sake”.
The Prologue: The End as a Beginning
The novel opens with a visceral scene of Monife’s suicide at Elegushi beach. Described as a “mermaid” and “queen of song,” Monife wades into the cold, dark waters not out of a desire for death itself, but as an “inevitable consequence” of a tragedy that has already occurred. Her last thoughts are a defiant act of surrender directed at “Golden Boy,” hoping his heart would “shatter into a million glittering, self-pitying pieces”. This act of self-destruction sets the stage for the rest of the novel, which seeks to uncover the “dream count” of her life and the trauma she left behind.
Part I & IV: Ebun and the Birth of a Legacy (2000–2006)
Following Monife’s death in 2000, Ebun, heavily pregnant, attends the funeral with a sense of “wretchedness” and “condemnation”. The grief is so intense that Ebun’s water breaks at the cemetery. She gives birth to a daughter, Eniiyi, five weeks early. From the moment of birth, the family notices an uncanny resemblance: Eniiyi has Monife’s wide-set, downturned eyes and thick, coily hair.
Aunty Bunmi (Monife’s mother) becomes convinced that Eniiyi is “Motitunde” “I have come again” a reincarnation of her lost daughter. This belief creates a stifling environment for Eniiyi. Ebun, however, is desperate to protect her child from being a “vessel” for her dead cousin. She notes a small birthmark on Eniiyi’s neck three pale droplets that Monife did not have, using it as a desperate proof of her daughter’s individuality.
Despite Ebun’s resistance, the family’s traditions take hold. During Eniiyi’s naming ceremony, Ebun is forced to eat the head of an agama lizard, a ritual intended to teach her “sacrifice” and “denial” as a mother. The fear that the curse will repeat is constant. When Eniiyi accidentally burns her leg as a toddler, the resulting scar shaped like pampas grass is a haunting mirror of a scar Monife had in the exact same spot.
Part II, V, VIII & X: Monife’s Life and the Golden Boy (1994–2000)
The middle sections of the book return to the 1990s to detail Monife’s life and her relationship with Kalu, known as “Golden Boy”. Monife is a law student in Lagos, vibrant but prone to “bursts of sadness” and insomnia. She lives in the ancestral Falodun home, a place “virtually a museum” of the family’s past. Her mother, Bunmi, is obsessed with breaking the curse and bringing back Monife’s philandering father through “strange spirits” and “spiritual herbs” (which Monife correctly identifies as marijuana).
Monife meets Kalu at a football match and is immediately transfixed by his “golden” presence his amber eyes, smooth skin, and effortless grace. Their romance is passionate but plagued by class and tribal tensions. Kalu comes from an elite, wealthy family that views Monife as a “parasite”. His mother, Mrs. Kenosi, is overtly hostile, dismissing Monife as an “attractive girl” with “average grades” from a “cursed” family.
The relationship begins to fray when Kalu’s family pressures him into a match with Amara, a girl from a “good family”. Desperate to keep him, Monife resorts to the very superstitions she once mocked, visiting Mama G, a “mamalawo” who provides her with a “juju” powder and instructions to pin Kalu’s name to her menstrual pad to create an “unbreakable bond”.
Kalu eventually discovers the “juju” in Monife’s bag and is repulsed. This betrayal, combined with his family’s pressure, leads him to break up with her and marry Amara. The tragedy compounds when Monife discovers she is pregnant. At the same time, Ebun who has been secretly having her own affair is also pregnant.
The two cousins, in a state of mutual despair, decide to visit a “shady” practitioner to obtain pills for a medical abortion. While Monife goes through with the procedure and suffers a harrowing loss, she later discovers that Ebun could not go through with it and decided to keep her baby Eniiyi. This realization, combined with Kalu’s refusal to leave his wife even after learning of the pregnancy, leads to Monife’s final descent and eventual suicide.
Part III, VI, IX & XI: Eniiyi and the Modern Reckoning (2024–2025)
In 2024, Eniiyi returns to the Falodun house after finishing her master’s degree in human genetics. She is a specialist in inherited genetic illnesses, a choice of career that mirrors her internal struggle to understand the “curse” through a scientific lens. The house is now a place of “dementia” and “ghosts,” as Grandma West (Bunmi) is losing her mind and constantly mistakes Eniiyi for Monife.
Eniiyi meets a young man named Zubby after saving him from drowning at Elegushi beach the same place where Monife died. Their attraction is immediate and intense, which Eniiyi fears is another manifestation of the curse. When she finally meets Zubby’s parents, the past and present collide with devastating clarity: Zubby is the son of Kalu (Golden Boy) and Amara.
The meeting is a disaster. Amara attacks Eniiyi, screaming that she is a “ghost” come to destroy her son’s life. Kalu is shaken to his core, asking Eniiyi if she was “sent here to haunt me”. This confrontation forces the family’s secrets into the light.
The Resolution: Breaking the Cycle
In the final act, Tolu (Monife’s brother) delivers a blistering critique of the family’s “old wives’ tales”. He reveals that the “curse” was often a self-fulfilling prophecy fueled by the women’s own choices and the manipulation of figures like Mama G. He also reveals a long-held secret: Kalu did leave a message on the answering machine for Monife the day before she died, saying he wanted the child and was sorry, but Tolu deleted it to “spare her pain”.
Eniiyi also discovers the truth about her own father. He is Osagie (Oba), a family friend and air force pilot who has been trying to “luck his way” into Ebun’s life for years. Ebun had kept him away not because he was a bad man, but because she was convinced by the “curse” that all men eventually leave.
The novel concludes with Eniiyi’s emancipation. She decides to take a job in the UK, physically and emotionally distancing herself from the Falodun house. In a symbolic act of reclaiming her identity, she gets a tattoo of a black kite (a bird of prey), something Monife never had. As she flies toward her new life, she realizes she is the “owner of her body,” finally “untethered” from the specters of the past.
Major Themes
- The Power of Narrative: The book explores how “curses” and “traditions” can be forms of intergenerational trauma that dictate the lives of the living.
- Identity and Reincarnation: Through Eniiyi, the novel asks if we are merely “clones” of our ancestors or if we have the agency to “claw back control”.
- Class and Tribalism: The conflict between the “pious” elite Kenosi family and the Faloduns highlights the social barriers that reinforce personal tragedies.
- Motherhood and Sacrifice: The strained relationships between mothers and daughters (Bunmi/Monife, Kemi/Ebun, Ebun/Eniiyi) serve as the emotional core of the “curse”.
The novel ends with the death of Sango the “Immortal” dog, signifying the final end of Monife’s era and the beginning of a new, unscripted future for the Falodun daughters.