The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives
By (Author) Lola Shoneyin
Profile Books Ltd
Serpent's Tail
30th March 2021
3rd December 2020
Main
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
823.92
Winner of PEN Oakland-Josephine Miles Literary Award 2011 (UK)
Paperback
272
Width 128mm, Height 194mm, Spine 20mm
230g
When Baba Segi awoke with a bellyache for the sixth day in a row, he knew it was time to do something drastic about his fourth wife's childlessness.
To the dismay of her 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. She only wants to escape to a quiet life, but the others disapprove of the newest, youngest, cleverest addition to the family. Treated with respect by her husband, she is viewed with suspicion by her seniors - who fear she may unlock their well-guarded secret.
Through the voices of Baba Segi and his four wives, Lola Shoneyin weaves a vibrant story of love, secrets and a family like every other - happy and unhappy, truthful and not, sometimes kind, sometimes competitive, always bound by blood, and the past.
Comic, tragic, topical and entertaining in equal measure -- Bernardine Evaristo
Heavy issues, but her touch is so skillful that she finds redeeming features in even her wickedest characters, and comedy even in violence and cruelty * Guardian *
A funny and moving story told with love and compassion ... a jewel of a novel -- Petina Gappah
A Rabelaisian picture of polygamous marriage, comically capturing the physical realities of ordinary Nigerian life. -- Giles Foden
This deft, lightly spun story packs quite a punch. Shoneyin's unravelling of a family is rooted in and flavoured by Nigeria, but speaks more widely. It is a book you'll want to eat in a sitting - and then start again -- Diran Adebayo
Riotous... this debut novel is a real eye-opener: a deft, compelling and unsettling tale. -- Ailin Quinlan * Irish Examiner *
Lola Shoneyin has published three collections of poems and a children's book. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is her debut novel. In 2014 she was named on the Hay Festival's Africa39 list of 39 Sub-Saharan African writers aged under 40. Shoneyin is the director of Ake Arts and Book Festival. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria.