MORINADE
Cover artwork for MORINADE: Fabunmis Princess by Kola Odetola
MorinadeFabunmis princessKiriji: United by War, Torn Apart by Love and Betrayal.

An explosive novel dramatising the Kiriji war by Kola Odetola

The book opens the door. The story carries you through it.

Fabunmi's Princess · Historical fiction
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Cover artwork

A novel of the Kiriji War · 1877–1893

History remembers the war.
She remembers its cost.

A Yoruba historical epic drawn from family memory, following Morinade and Prince Fabunmi through love, duty and rebellion.

Portrait artwork of Morinade
Place

Okemesi, Ekiti

Inheritance

A great-great-grandfather's story

Conflict

The Kiriji War

Prince Fabunmi returning to his community

The story behind the story

A family inheritance, carried into fiction.

Prince Fabunmi was the author's great-great-grandfather. MORINADE brings that inheritance close—not as a museum piece, but as a story of people forced to choose what they will protect.

Against the upheaval of the Kiriji War, love, loyalty and duty pull a family in opposing directions. The novel moves between the scale of history and the private cost paid by those living inside it.

Archival-style portrait of Yoruba warriors
Campaign interpretation · Kiriji War history

The history

Sixteen years that reshaped Yorubaland.

The Kiriji War was one of the longest civil conflicts in Yoruba history. The novel enters that period through a family whose choices reveal the human scale beneath the dates.

1877The conflict begins
1886Peace efforts intensify
1893The war comes to an end
Kola Odetola seated at a desk in a library
Kola Odetola in a suit at an event Kola Odetola outdoors wearing sunglasses

Kola Odetola · Author

“This history was never distant.
It lived in my family.”

Kola Odetola transforms an inherited story into a historical novel about memory, power and the choices that survive long after a war ends.

In the press

MORINADE in Vanguard.

Read Japhet Davidson’s review in Vanguard’s Arts section.

From the book · Excerpt 1

Kiriji: Fabunmi confronts the British army on the outskirts of Okemesi

(Trailer for Morinade Fabunmi's princess)

By Kola Odetola

“Fabunmi is a king of war, peace will destroy him...and that's what we want”
Thomas Gilbert Carter (British Governor of Lagos 1892)
From MORINADE, Fabunmi’s Princess
Read the excerpt

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Reader list

Step deeper into MORINADE.

Join the reader list for book updates, Kiriji War history notes, event news and reader material as it becomes available.

You will receive MORINADE updates from Kola Odetola. You can unsubscribe at any time. Questions: hello@morinadebook.com.

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KoboEbook · EPUB

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United KingdomPaperback · Hardback

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