After The End

by Olukorede S. Yishau

One death. Four lives.

Idera: The new widow who discovers her perfect husband’s heartbreaking secret, and must live with the after-effects of his legacy while raising her three sons.

Demola: Despite his vow to be different from the father who abandoned him, inescapably makes some of the same choices his father made.

Lydia: Struggling with personal insecurities, she battles herself on how to stop loving an unworthy man too much and for far too long.

Justus: The ex-political prisoner who tries to rebuild his life and find peace in exile but can’t outrun his past.

Spanning Lagos, Liverpool, Ile-Ife, and London, After the End traces the journeys of four intertwined lives as they navigate personal growth, betrayal, forgiveness, and unforgiving pasts. And eventually, they will realise that death is not quite the end they thought it was.

211 pages, Paperback

Published May 23, 2024

Reviews

[Anthony Akaeze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone described a great work of literature as simply it grips you, or it doesn't. After The End by Olukorede Yishau, does. The author weaves together, in beautiful prose, a work to remember. No mean achievement. Highly recommended!

[gigireadsbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such an entertaining read for me. I loved how the story used one person's death to reveal so many layers around social issues, personal history and the consequences of the choices people make. The sections about the imprisonment of journalists and writers during past political regimes in Nigeria were especially striking.
Reading about people punished simply for writing the truth stayed with me. However the middle part of the book did slow down a bit for me and I got a bit bored at some point, but the way everything came together toward the end made the wait worth it. I really enjoyed watching the plot settle into itself.
The romance towards the end also added something soft to the story. Their bond felt gentle and earned, found myself smiling through those parts. I genuinely love that it didn't all end in tragedy, the ending was quite satisfying. The writing was not overly lyrical, but certain lines stood out to me and I know I will remember them for a long time. Definitely a YES for me!

[Ayo Deforge · Rating 5 out of 5]

I fell in love with French films because of how real and human they felt… far more grounded than many American movies. That is exactly how this book made me feel: deeply connected to real people rather than fictional characters.

Demola’s dual nature is fascinating and deeply tragic. The way he ends up repeating his father’s mistakes (particularly with adultery and dying young) shows how unhealed trauma can echo across generations. His mother’s death is heartbreaking. Idera’s life could have ended in a similar tragedy, fortunately she refuses to be defined by her losses. Her resilience is one of the most powerful aspects of this story.

The chaos and emotional mess woven through the plot kept me fully engaged. It’s a fast-paced read, yet the characters stayed with me for weeks afterward. It’s a reminder that even after despair, there can be hope, that light eventually breaks through, and that giving up is never an option.

What surprised me most is how authentically the author wrote the female characters. This book does not read like it was written by a man at all; the women are vivid, layered, and deeply relatable.

A powerful, emotionally resonant read. Kudos to the author.

[Oluwaseyi Oso · Rating 5 out of 5]

It appears as though one construct that continues to fascinate Yishau's intellect is the duality of human nature, a construct he has perceivably yet to intellectually move on from, demagnetise, or permanently shelve since his sophomore fiction publication, Vaults of Secrets. This time, however, he widens, through the novel's central character, the mess, the mental distress that comes with discovering a person's dual nature. In the novel's central character's case, Idera, it becomes difficult to espouse the newly-found side of her now-deceased husband of ten years. Yishau reminds us once again that every individual wears a veil, and behind that veil, there are many secrets waiting to be unearthed. He does this quite cinematically, inviting you to spectate the conflict that arouses the thematic clusters of the novel—duality, mystery, modern life chaos, angstful desire for place in the diasporan mind, love and forgiveness (as a possible calmative to Idera's brand of mental conflict). Whether you are a contemporary literary fiction fan or not, After the End has a realistic or theatric charm that pulls you in.

[Shammah Godoz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a long ass unpublished review for this. Let me fetch a part of it.

This book feels like a story was told more than a story was written. Its genius lies in what the plot shows rather than what it tells us. Because the work is dated, readers can rely on real-world events to bolster their understanding of this story.

The central message can be summed up as "Loss offers a new beginning to everyone it touches." However, several smaller messages can be understood as the story stays intersectional on the various issues it tackles throughout its runtime.
Personal Notes (or opportunities to improve)
Even though these events are connected smoothly, the characters tend to move awkwardly during the scenes, feel flat in their expressions of their actions, and tilt more towards stereotypes rather than complex people. Their dialogue also rushes towards the end of the scene. These slants reveal a weakness in writing intricate characters and an outdated understanding of women. The story would have enjoyed these greatly.

[Sima Essien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yishauʼs latest book is a grand mark of his improvement in storytelling. As the critic Nzube Nlebedim confirms in his review, there is a stylistic growth in Yishauʼs storytelling this time around, his writing having taken on “a firmer authority of prose.” However, and quite fortunately, Yishauʼs deft storytelling steers After The End away from the terrain of cheap drama and overfamiliar tropes. By fully immersing the reader in the lives, voices and perspectives of four different people, Yishau serves up a narrative that deftly blends psychological depth with well-paced suspense. His control of the narrativeʼs non-linear progression, and development of the characters, translates into revelations about the human condition, as well as a poignant lesson about the ties which bind past to present and future.

[Chinyere Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the End by Olukorede Yishua follows the intertwined lives of four individuals, each haunted by their pasts and driven by their unique struggles. As they confront their demons, personal betrayals, and the need for forgiveness, their stories intersect in unexpected ways. One grapples with the weight of family secrets, another wrestles with the scars of a broken relationship, while the third seeks redemption for a mistake that altered their life's course. The fourth, burdened by a tragic loss, must face the harsh realities of moving forward. Along the way, they are forced to reconsider everything they believed about life and death, only to discover that the end may not be as final as they once thought.

[The Book Fairy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel explores the background stories of families that had a solid lifespan and bright prospect and the slightest accidents that dismantled them. Set in Ibadan and Britain, the novel reveals the life of “Google”, a man who tries as possible not to end up like his father but lived in his father’s shadows throughout his lifetime and unintentionally make the same mistakes as his father. He passed away from shock and an inherited disease - cardiac arrest, leaving behind two women to unravel the mystery behind his personality. Both women are forced to reconcile with his imperfections, heal and forgive to proceed to new beginnings. A breath of fresh air, this book is like a compensation for all the sad African fiction I read this year, the author blesses us with a happy ending and that’s all I could ask for.

I will rate this a solid five.

[Azeeza · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imagine this: a Nigerian woman has just become a widow and a single mom of three boys after her husband’s sudden death. She’s grieving, her sons can’t fully grasp what’s going on and she’s doesn’t really have close family members in the UK who can hold her through it.

And then a woman shows up with a child at her house.

That’s the premise of the story.

I have a bias against story about men who cheat or have a secret family outside. So I couldn’t properly enjoy this story about a woman suffering because her perfect husband was actually a cheat and a coward.

But the character development? Really great. Cos the woman rose above it all and that’s what I love to see.

[Shehu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Olukorede embarked on the story from what seemed like a closing chapter, and opened it up to unending plots and twists, with undecipherable suspense that is beyond the reader's prediction. It is like starting a sprint from the finish line. With his signature narration, which emphasizes on limpidity and freeflow, the story progresses quite fast with an resistible appeal. Two men, two women, one emotion, plethora lies and inevitably, one truth. Ideraoluwa, the protagonist moves through life on a mission to unravel mysteries that the death of her husband has presented her with.

[tomilovesbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book is too too underrated