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Modupe Olaogun

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A Ladder of Bones

by Bunmi Oyinsan (Goodreads Author)

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Modupe Olaogun said: " Can this Africa still be loved?

Bunmi Oyinsan’s coming-of-age story of hurt, tragedy, and intense trauma is jolting but keeps the reader interested and empathetic. A Ladder of Bones starts with the sudden appearance of a mysterious little girl in 199 Can this Africa still be loved?

Bunmi Oyinsan’s coming-of-age story of hurt, tragedy, and intense trauma is jolting but keeps the reader interested and empathetic. A Ladder of Bones starts with the sudden appearance of a mysterious little girl in 1997 on a Halifax street during a holiday honouring Queen Victoria. No one claims her. Showing signs of physical trauma, the girl, Enilolobo, lapses into trances in which she is fused with victims of violent dislocations within Africa and with enslaved Africans dispersed to the Middle East and the Western hemisphere. Adopted by one of the physicians who attend to her, Enilolobo settles into a normal adolescence but remains an empath. Oyinsan contrasts this surreal character with four realistically drawn youths. Three of them are seared by wars in their native countries, with one participating in the most chilling atrocities as a child soldier. Two of these youths come to Canada as refugees and the third, Melvin, is initially accepted by the US but failing to attain permanent residency there, is deported back to his native war-torn Liberia and ends up in an African island called Ile-Ifa. The fourth youth, Iona, is a Nova Scotian-Jamaican who has her own share of childhood trauma, in the forms of domestic instability and sexual abuse. Iona becomes an instructor at a university in Nova Scotia, where Enilolobo and the former child refugees who settle in Canada meet as late teens and come together in her class. She leads the students on a community development project trip to Ile-Ifa, sponsored by a philanthropist. While they are in Africa, old and new injustices stir dormant traumas and provoke a tragic encounter with Melvin and his new Ile-Ifa buddies.

Oyinsan says we can still love this Africa. She performs a vital function in choosing to tell a deeply felt story of traumatised and brutalised individuals. The more you know someone the better you can relate to their story and their struggle. In A Ladder of Bones you get all these details that allow you to see the characters’ perspectives, motives, and the outcomes of their actions in a way that you cannot by just watching the news. Oyinsan’s lucid and lyrical prose enable us to see and feel her multiple settings and characters; hear the layered accents of their Nova Scotia, Toronto, Monrovia, Lagos, Kingston, Charlottesville upbringings; and perceive the complex sounds of the towns, villages, and forests of Sudan and Sierra Leone. ...more "

Feb 20, 2026 11:44AM · see review