This Motherless Land

Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism and substance abuse.



Funke is a primary protagonist from whose perspective most of the novel is told. At the start of the text, she is a nine-year-old living in Nigeria with her mother, father, and brother, Femi. She has a loving and caring family, who—although wealthy—help many local families by employing them and helping to pay for their medical care and education. 

As a child of a Black Nigerian father and a white British mother, Funke does her best to assimilate into life in Lagos. In this way, Funke is characterized as someone who does her best to fit in, learning Yoruba, braiding her hair like the other children, and intentionally doing worse in school than she should so that she is not at the top of her class. Both times Funke is forcibly removed from her home—first to London, then back to Lagos—this trend continues, as she does her best to be as English, then as Nigerian, as she can to fit into her new lives.

Two important elements of Funke’s character that reflect her desire to adapt throughout the text are her name and her hair.