Book description
To the dismay of her overbearingly ambitious mother, Bolanle marries
into a polygamous family, where she is the fourth wife of a rich, rotund
patriarch, Baba Segi. She is a graduate and therefore a great prize, but
even graduates must produce children and her husband s persistent
bellyache is a sign that things are not as they should be. Bolanle is
too educated for the white garment conmen Baba Segi would usually go to
for fertility advice, so he takes her to hospital to discover the cause
of her barrenness. Weaving the voices of Baba Segi and his four
competing wives into a portrait of a clamorous household of twelve, Lola
Shoneyin evokes an extraordinary Nigerian family in splashes of vibrant
colour. To the dismay of her overbearingly ambitious mother, Bolanle
marries into a polygamous family, where she is the fourth wife of a
rich, rotund patriarch, Baba Segi. She is a graduate and therefore a
great prize, but even graduates must produce children and her husband s
persistent bellyache is a sign that things are not as they should be.
Bolanle is too educated for the white garment conmen Baba Segi would
usually go to for fertility advice, so he takes her to hospital to
discover the cause of her barrenness. Weaving the voices of Baba Segi
and his four competing wives into a portrait of a clamorous household of
twelve, Lola Shoneyin evokes an extraordinary Nigerian family in
splashes of vibrant colour.
