Abi Daré

Adunni is fourteen years old, and living in a small town in Nigeria with her alcoholic father and her brothers. Since her mother died, her limited educational and life possibilities have shrunk, the more so when her father marries her off as the third wife of a much older man. Her dream of somehow becoming a teacher is immediately shattered. A series of disasters sees her become a house servant - a slave really, to a rich, callous and self-absorbed Big Madam. Her dream becomes even more unlikely to be realised. But the plot develops when she is befriended by the house cook, Kofi, and Tia, an unlikely member of Big Madam's circle. Written in the first person, in the author's own version of pidgin, this lively, involving and often humorous story highlights the difficulties and limitations imposed on many women in Nigeria, particularly those of limited means: forced marriage, domestic slavery. Novels such as this may spark conversations that engender change.… (mais)

This is narrated by 14-year-old Adunni, in very stilted, ungrammatical English to start with. This makes it difficult to understand at first, but I soon became used to it. I found the first half of the book thoroughly depressing, albeit eye-opening about the terrible situation of many girls in Nigeria.

I almost gave up, but it was a selection for our book group, so I kept going - thankful that I had paid just 99p for a Kindle special offer - and the second half was much more engaging. I found Adunni a bit naive at times, and it was hard to believe that someone undernourished, doing hard physical labour for 15 hours a day (and being regularly beaten by her 'madam') could remain so feisty and outspoken. But I started feeling more empathy for her and found the ending encouraging.

Whether or not someone likes the book, it's a story that should educate people around the world about some terrible abuses that are still happening. I doubt if I'll read it again, but I'm glad I finished it.

Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-girl-with-louding-voice-by-abi-...… (mais)

The fourteen-year-old narrator of Abi Daré’s debut novel, The Girl with the Louding Voice, is determined to fulfill her late mother’s ambition for her to get an education. As Adunni’s mother lay dying, her father promised Adunni would be educated, but both she and her brother are pulled out of school and, even worse, her father essentially sells her to a much older man who already has two wives and four daughters, where she endures this man’s brutality. To effect her escape from the remote Nigerian village, she accepts assistance from the brother of a woman her mother knew in hopes of finding a better future in the modern city of Lagos. But she is essentially sold into indentured servitude (slavery really, since the man steals her money), serving a wicked and cruel, wealthy Nigerian woman whose husband is an abusive sexual predator. The “louding voice” she desires appears to be a metaphor for having a say in her future.

The story is heartwarming and enlightening, told in an interesting English dialect (one that knows the foundations of English vocabulary, but not the nuances of tense and grammar), by a girl who persists in her sometimes naïve, but always honest and refreshing, struggle to get the education her mother wanted for her so she in turn could teach the children of her village.… (mais)