Coconut

Olajide, Florence2021

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Summary

A generation of Nigerian children were born in Britain in the fifties and sixties, privately fostered by white families, then taken to Nigeria by their parents. 'Coconut' is the story of one of those children. 1963, North London. Nan fosters one-year-old Florence and calls her 'Ann'. Florence adores her foster mother more than anything but Nan, and the children around her, all have white skin and she can't help but feel different. Then, four years later, after a weekend visit to her birth parents, Florence never returns to Nan. Two months after, sandwiched between her mother and father plus her three siblings, six-year-old Florence steps off a ship in Lagos to the fierce heat of the African sun. Swapping the lovely, comfortable bed in her room at Nan's for a mat on the floor of the living room in her new home, Florence finds herself struggling to adjust.