The
Secret Lives of Babu Segi’s Wives by Lola Shoneyin
4 stars - Strongly recommended by Kate
Pages: 245
Released: 2010
Baba Segi is worried. His first three wives have had seven
children between them but his fourth wife has yet to get pregnant. He decides
to take action. Being, in his own eyes, a considerate man, he decides to humour
his graduate wife, Bolanle, and seek help from a doctor, rather than a
herbalist or a prophet.
So begins the story of a polygamist household in Nigeria. Bolanle
is already resented by the first three wives. Before she arrived, the household
had an uneasy equilibrium. This development threatens to upset the whole
family.
The title of this book nicely captures the ambiguity of the
story – the four women are defined by their status as wife but each has her own
world and her own secret. The wives tell their own stories in alternating
chapters, while Babu Segi is narrated in the third person, making them the
protagonists and him a bystander.
The book avoids easy judgements and stereotypes. Babu Segi
is not a brute. He is clumsy but caring. He has unappealing habits and a
sensitive bowel. He plays the master of the house but is blissfully – or
wilfully - unaware of the struggles for power and the small daily cruelties that
go on around him.
The women show Babu Segi almost comical levels of deference
while they plot and scheme, but whatever the challenges of the marriage, their
experiences to date have taught them that life could be much worse.
They are strong and they have suffered. They have
experienced poverty and abuse but they narrate their stories with energy and
earthy humour. They speak in direct language disrupted by startling imagery and
vivid colour.
All of life is here, pain and laughter, evil and absurdity. Some
of what happens is truly shocking but is also understandable. What shines
through is the determination of the women to survive, to wring some happiness
from life, even if that means inflicting harm on others. This is a beautiful
and unsettling book.
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