The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives (novel)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
| Author | Lola Shoneyin |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Serpent's Tail |
| ISBN | 9781846687488 |
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is the title of the 2010 debut novel by the Nigerian poet Lola Shoneyin. The novel was longlisted for the prestigious Women's Prize for Fiction in 2011.[1] It won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2011[2] and the ANA Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize in the same year.[3] It was short listed for the NLNG Nigeria prize for literature in 2012[4] and was listed in the top ten novels about Nigeria by The Observer newspaper in 2014.[5] It has been translated into several languages including Arabic[citation needed] and has been adapted for the stage and screen.[6]
The novel follows the Alao family of Baba Segi of Ibadan, his four wives and seven children, during the period that his fourth wife, a university graduate, is within the household. In Nigeria polygamy is a common practice[7][8] and the novel, written by an author familiar with this system of multiple wives,[9] deals with the cultural pressures on the infertile and impotent within a polygamous society,[10] as well as with the universal themes of rape, domestic abuse, marital property rights, girls’ education, jealousy and power relations in a family.[11]
Because of its themes, the novel has been the basis of academic papers on stress management among co-wives,[8] polygamy[12] and female agency,[8] and has contributed to a feminist analysis of patriarchal structures.[13]
The life-changing events of rape and abortion, which she has largely kept secret, have led Bolanle to choose to become the fourth wife of Baba Segi, a man she sees as plump, prosperous, kindly and undemanding. Her mother, who has worked hard to give her daughter the benefit of a university education, is furious at her decision. On arriving at her new home, Bolanle meets the first wife Iya Segi and her children Segi and Akin, the second wife Iya Tope and her children Tope and Afolake, and the third wife Iya Femi who has borne Femi and Kole. Bolanle believes at first that she can educate the family to be more courteous and literate and that with loving kindness towards them she can become a valued member of the household. Two years of jealous attacks on her by the oldest and youngest wives make her realise however that this is unlikely. She has also still not become pregnant. Receiving advice from male acquaintances in a bar, Baba Segi takes Bolanle to a hospital for tests, believing that she must be the one who has a fertility problem.
The main characters, the four wives, the husband and his driver all have their own chapters during which the reader discovers their individual stories, their reasons for ending up in Baba Segi's household and the secrets that they are all keeping from Bolanle and from the husband.
When Baba Segi is called to the hospital for tests of his own, the first three wives know that the game will shortly be up. His infertility and the wives’ recourse to other men in order to become pregnant will be revealed, the household in disarray and their material comfort affected. A plot to poison Bolanle misfires and Segi, the first daughter, dies instead. Baba Segi, a loving father, has to deal with this trauma and the news that none of the children in the household were fathered by him. He decides to offer freedom to his wives. The first three opt to stay on under strict new regulations that keep them at home and thus their husband's infertility a secret. Bolanle is the only one who decides to walk free, vowing to overcome her resultant status as a 'damaged' woman with education, training and fortitude.