66 – Nigeria – Lola Shoneyin – The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives – December 2018 - (Score 7.1)

We find ourselves in Nigeria with a man who has four wives. He is a happy man because his wives have given him a total of seven children. Except that, and here is his possible single point of sadness, all his children have been gifted to him by his first three wives. His fourth wife is not playing ball, and he wonders what is wrong with her.

The story goes back to the arrival of his fourth wife, Bolanle, a well-educated university graduate. She decides to improve the other wives. We shall see.

There is humourous writing throughout the book, an example being “an old train snorted and let out a gasp before it commenced its daily chugging”. Many policemen and guards seem to be corrupt, increasing their meagre salaries by politely extracting some money from travellers going through the checkpoints on the roads at night.

We get very enjoyable back-stories of the lives of the four wives before they married Baba Segi. Wife No 1, Iya Segi (married 1984) and Wife No 3, Iya Femi, (married 1994), try to make Bolanle’s life a misery. Wife No 2, Iya Tope, tries to mollify them, but is unsuccessful.

Iya Segi, the first wife, really took a dislike to Bolanle and led the other two wives too although Iya Tope was not too keen. Iya Segi’s daughter Segi seems to have been poisoned by eating chicken which was intended for Bolanle’s meal. Iya Segi and Iya Femi seem to have conspired over this but have misjudged things.

The cover of the book carries the words “Four women, one husband and a devastating secret”. Enjoy this book on your way to determining the secret. I gave this book a score of eight.