Abi Daré

In a Nutshell: A story about a brave female protagonist with a “louding voice” who faces every challenging situation with gumption.

Story:

Fourteen year old Adunni is married off against her will to a much older man in exchange for a high bride price. He sees that as the only means to escape his poverty. As her mother is dead, there is no one to help Adunni make her escape. But though she is forced to accept her fate, she doesn’t give up on her dreams. She longs to go back to school so that she can learn English, find her “louding voice” and stand up for herself. Life throws many challenges her way but she keeps fighting.

Where the book works absolutely is in showing you how unfair life can be for girls in certain parts of Africa simply because of their gender. The situations Adunni is in will make you frustrated and infuriated. Regardless of her behaviour, you will end up rooting for her. It’s a painful book to read, especially if you are a woman, because you end up feeling Adunni’s helplessness. Of course, Adunni seems fortunate in finding helpful people during every bad situation. So it is not her bravery alone that helps her get away but her connecting with the right kind of people.

The plot doesn’t really go in a predictable way and initially, I felt that there were many arcs that the author was throwing into the narrative just to lengthen the book. To her credit, she does end up connecting most of the dots and bringing most tracks to a nice close. But until this happens, the plot structuring feels haphazard.

Adunni’s character is interestingly carved. She seems extremely and unrealistically naïve for a fourteen year old. Her track becomes unbelievable because of this over-innocent voice. At the same time, she doesn’t come across as a simpleton who says “yes” to everything. She is outspoken to the point of being rude, she opens her mouth without thinking, she doesn't seem to learn from past events, and she is quite self-oriented in her thinking and and impractical in her behaviour. In most situations, her response directs itself from “What will happen to me?” So I didn’t find her a likeable protagonist, though she certainly is a strong one.

The entire story comes to us in the first person perspective of Adunni, and this makes for a slightly different experience as her English is quite stilted. She seems to have no grasp of verb tenses or adjective forms. (The fact that she is educated only till primary school is cited as the reason.) So we get to hear the story entirely in broken English. But I didn’t find the writing consistent. For instance, sometimes she says “was dead”, sometimes “has dead”. Sometimes, the prose is quite blasé and sometimes, poetic. She seems to know tough words but doesn’t understand some very common ones. The discrepancies were somewhat distracting for me.

I will still count this as a book to be read, though by no means will it be my favourite from contemporary African fiction. (Chimamanda’s books and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's “Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree” are far better. They actually blew me away. This one was just decent.) But if you are looking for a book with a brave young lead who doesn’t let circumstances weigh her down and who keeps her spirit even under tough situations, this will work well for you.

3.5 stars, rounding up to 4.



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“My mama say education will give me a voice. I want more than just a voice, Ms. Tia. I want a louding voice. I want to enter a room and people will hear me even before I open my mouth to be speaking. I want to live in this life and help many people so that when I grow old and die, I will still be living through the people I am helping."

“I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?”

A beautiful book which tells the story of 14 year old girl Adunni who grew up in a village in Nigeria. Her early years were shaped by a loving mother who prioritized education for her daughter. Adunni’s life becomes ten-fold harder after her mother’s death, when she looks after the home and her brother Kayus and Born-Boy until her father sells her as a frightened fourteen year old, to become the third wife of corpulent middle-aged Morufu. She eventually escapes this life of poverty and abuse to work as a maid for a wealthy Nigerian family in Lagos. Here despite the riches Adunni is a virtual slave, subject to beatings by Big Madam, and harassment by Big Daddy. The contrast between the wealth of Nigeria’s upper classes and villagers is stark. Adunni’s only chance at freedom is a newspaper clipping advertising a scholarship application, and her unexpected friendship with one of the wealthy housewives Ms Tia. Tia is an English-educated environmentalist who does not fit in with her Gucci-wearing gossiping neighbours, and makes it her mission to help Adunni reach her goal of speaking and being heard in her voice, not just any voice but “a louding voice”. A story of great courage in the face of hardship. The book is written in dialect, which was easy to listen to with the skilful audiobook narrator Adjoa Andoh, but I wondered if it may have been difficult to read in a physical book. Interestingly the language changes through the book as Adunni’s understanding of English grows. 5 stars for me for an insightful and powerful book… (more)

Adunni is fourteen years old, and living in a small town in Nigeria with her alcoholic father and her brothers. Since her mother died, her limited educational and life possibilities have shrunk, the more so when her father marries her off as the third wife of a much older man. Her dream of somehow becoming a teacher is immediately shattered. A series of disasters sees her become a house servant - a slave really, to a rich, callous and self-absorbed Big Madam. Her dream becomes even more unlikely to be realised. But the plot develops when she is befriended by the house cook, Kofi, and Tia, an unlikely member of Big Madam's circle. Written in the first person, in the author's own version of pidgin, this lively, involving and often humorous story highlights the difficulties and limitations imposed on many women in Nigeria, particularly those of limited means: forced marriage, domestic slavery. Novels such as this may spark conversations that engender change.… (more)