[8] Yewande Omotoso was born in Bridgetown, Barbados;[9] and within a year of her birth went with her Barbadian mother, Nigerian father and two older brothers to Nigeria.
She grew up in Ile-Ife, Osun State, until 1992, when the family moved to South Africa[10][11] after her father took an academic appointment with the University of the Western Cape.
[16][17][18] Like Bom Boy, her second novel, The Woman Next Door (Chatto and Windus, 2016)[19] was also positively reviewed, with Publishers Weekly referring to it as "this charming, touching, occasionally radiant tale of two prickly octogenarians: two women, one black and one white, neighbours who discover after 20 years of exchanging digs and insults that they might help each other... Omotoso captures the changing racial relations since the 1950s, as well as the immigrant experience through personal detail and small psychological insights into mixed emotions, the artist’s eye, and the widow’s remorse.
"[20] The Irish Independent described The Woman Next Door as "a finely observed account of female prejudice, redemption and that often elusive commodity - friendship.
[26][27] Omotoso has contributed stories and poetry to various publications, among them Konch, Noir Nation, Speaking for the Generation: Contemporary Stories from Africa, Contemporary African Women’s Poetry,[11] Kalahari Review, The Moth Literary Journal, One World Two, the 2012 Caine Prize anthology,[28] and New Daughters of Africa (2019), edited by Margaret Busby.