After the sudden death of her mother, London photographer Joy struggles to pull the threads of her life back together with the support of her kind but mysterious neighbour Mrs Harris. Joy's fortunes begin to change when she receives an unexpected inheritance from her mother: a huge sum of money, her grandfather's diary and a unique brass artefact from the ancient kingdom of Benin. Joy's search for the origins of the artifact takes us on a journey through time, and as dark family secrets come to light, Joy unearths the ties between her mother, grandfather, the wife of a king, a fearsome warrior, and the brass head's pivotal connection to them all. A spiritual successor to the tales of Márquez, Butterfly Fish masterfully combines elements of traditional Nigerian story-telling and magical realism in a multigenerational tale of the legacy of inheritance.
