Of ties and lies: Ethical disruptions in Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister the Serial Killer (2018)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Within the landscape of contemporary Nigerian literature, the debut novel of Oyinkan Braithwaite, My Sister, the Serial Killer (2018), stands out for its blend of black humour, ethical aspersions, denouncement of patriarchal violence, and unreliable narration. Readers are bound to sympathize with two criminal sisters, despite the decidedly thorny situation they are immersed in: stunning Ayoola inadvertently kills her boyfriends and connives with her sister Korede, a nurse who effectively disposes of the corpses. This article will revisit some considerations of entropic humour and comic distance with a view to demonstrating why the sisters are granted a redeeming opportunity. Additionally, it will examine the effects of domestic trauma – mainly from an African-centred perspective – and a possible fictional unlearning of patriarchal narratives. Finally it will focus on the role of the narrator’s unreliability in order to underscore the additional ironical undercurrents of the novel’s layered plot.