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The Woman Next Door

Yewande Omotoso

$24.99

Paperback

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English
Vintage
15 September 2019
A funny, sharp, delicately woven story of female friendship

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2017 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR FICTION

Read this funny, sharp, delicately woven story of two women's complicated relationship set in post-apartheid South Africa.

Hortensia and Marion are next door neighbours in a charming, bougainvillea-laden Cape Town suburb. One is black, one white. Both are successful women with impressive careers behind them. Both have recently been widowed. Both are in their eighties. And both are sworn enemies, sharing hedge and hostility pruned with zeal.

But one day an unforeseen event forces the women together. Could long-held mutual loathing transform into friendship?

Love thy neighbour? Easier said than done.

'At once historical and contemporary, The Woman Next Door is charged with beauty, precision, nuance, and hope. Yewande Omotoso is a stunning, essential voice - NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names

'Wit, charm and playful energy... An insightful and fascinating diptych of two women, with the history of colonialism and slavery lurking in the background' Herald
By:  
Imprint:   Vintage
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 130mm,  Spine: 17mm
Weight:   203g
ISBN:   9781784701376
ISBN 10:   1784701378
Pages:   288
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Yewande Omotoso was born in Barbados and grew up in Nigeria, moving to South Africa with her family in 1992. She is the author of Bom Boy, published in South Africa in 2011. In 2012 she won the South African Literary Award for First-Time Published Author and was shortlisted for the South African Sunday Times Fiction Prize. In 2013 she was a finalist in the inaugural, pan-African Etisalat Fiction Prize. She lives in Johannesburg, where she writes and has her own architectural practice.

Reviews for The Woman Next Door

Hilarious * Pool * At once historical and contemporary, The Woman Next Door is charged with beauty, precision, nuance, and hope. Yewande Omotoso is a stunning, essential voice -- NoViolet Bulawayo A finely observed account of female prejudice, redemption and that often elusive commodity - friendship -- Deidre Conroy * Irish Independent * Cape Town's answer to Mapp and Lucia, a war of wits and witticisms amid the bougainvillea of an impossibly smug neighborhood. Yewande Omotoso's deft writing and subtle weaving in of difficult history will leave you in love with these two stubborn old women. Delightful -- Helen Simonson, author of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand Wit, charm and playful energy... An insightful and fascinating diptych of two women, with the history of colonialism and slavery lurking in the background -- Nick Major * Herald Scotland *


  • Long-listed for Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017
  • Long-listed for Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017 (UK)
  • Long-listed for Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2017.
  • Long-listed for Baileys Womens Prize for Fiction 2017 (UK)
  • Long-listed for Wellcome Book Prize 2017 (UK)

See Also