44  Nigeria – Chibundu Onuzo – The Spider King’s Daughter– February 2017 (Score 5.80)

The  narrator is ten year old Abike Johnson whose wealthy father deliberately told his chauffeur to run over her dog, showing right at the start what kind of man he is. She was watching from her bedroom window, but her father acted as if it had been an accident. The dog was severely injured, and in great pain. Abike hid her emotion and her tears and shocked her father by asking him to tell the chauffeur over the dog’s head.

Was she sadistic, or compassionate? She thinks “Abike 1, Mr Johnson 0!”

There is much use of Nigerian patois, which takes a bit of work to follow. Abike talks to a young street hawker, selling by the side of a main road. He is doing this as a result of his family having lost their money and their home so that, although he has learned patois, he speaks Standard English. He has been to New York, and can prove it by the visa stamps in his expired passport. Abike, too, has seen New York snow – gritty and brown.

The first person narrative alternates between Abike and the hawker, letting us see events from both points of view.

I have reached the point where it would spoil the book if I were to tell you anything more about events. It is sufficient to say that the ending is completely unexpected.

I gave the book a score of six.