She has not spoken since she was five. He is the first person who never asked her to explain.
Erinayo “Fire” Talabi-Sonuga is twenty-four and has not said a word since she was a child. She speaks with a whiteboard, a text-to-speech app, and her hands — and lives with a mother who treats her silence as a family embarrassment to be hidden rather than a daughter to be understood.
Then Fikun Oni walks back into her life at a party she is trying to escape. An old schoolmate. Someone who reads her without effort and adapts to her without being asked, and who carries a grief of his own that he will not name.
As they grow closer, the memory Fire has spent nineteen years unable to reach begins to surface: in nightmares first, then in daylight. What waits there will force her to look again at her family, at the people who were meant to protect her, and at a face she has walked past her whole life.
Set in contemporary Lagos, The Days We Long For is a tender, unflinching debut about trauma and the people who outlast it, about love that listens rather than rescues, and about what it costs to reclaim a voice.
“A heartwarming unique love story. Truly, the deepest conversations sometimes happen beyond words.” — Rosemary Okafor, author of Akwaugo
“Through striking and beautifully crafted prose, The Days We Long For gathers momentum from page to page … a deeply absorbing story that is emotionally resonant and impossible to put down.” — G.T. Dípè, author of Runnin No More
“Tender, emotionally intelligent, and deeply hopeful … reclaiming one’s voice is sometimes the greatest love story of all.” — Mofiyinfoluwa O., Founder, Abebi AfroNonfiction Institute
Ratings & Reviews
She has not spoken since she was five. He is the first person who never asked her to explain.
Erinayo “Fire” Talabi-Sonuga is twenty-four and has not said a word since she was a child. She speaks with a whiteboard, a text-to-speech app, and her hands — and lives with a mother who treats her silence as a family embarrassment to be hidden rather than a daughter to be understood.
Then Fikun Oni walks back into her life at a party she is trying to escape. An old schoolmate. Someone who reads her without effort and adapts to her without being asked, and who carries a grief of his own that he will not name.
As they grow closer, the memory Fire has spent nineteen years unable to reach begins to surface: in nightmares first, then in daylight. What waits there will force her to look again at her family, at the people who were meant to protect her, and at a face she has walked past her whole life.
Set in contemporary Lagos, The Days We Long For is a tender, unflinching debut about trauma and the people who outlast it, about love that listens rather than rescues, and about what it costs to reclaim a voice.
“A heartwarming unique love story. Truly, the deepest conversations sometimes happen beyond words.” — Rosemary Okafor, author of Akwaugo
“Through striking and beautifully crafted prose, The Days We Long For gathers momentum from page to page … a deeply absorbing story that is emotionally resonant and impossible to put down.” — G.T. Dípè, author of Runnin No More
“Tender, emotionally intelligent, and deeply hopeful … reclaiming one’s voice is sometimes the greatest love story of all.” — Mofiyinfoluwa O., Founder, Abebi AfroNonfiction Institute