“A new and exciting African female voice tackling the subject of polygamy with originality.”

A perceptive and entertaining debut novel set in modern-day Nigeria about four wives and one husband. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives explores the intricacies of family life and relationships through a wonderful cast of characters of one extended family. A fiercely funny, endearing and provocative novel.

Nigerian Edition, February 2010.

UK Edition releasing on the 8th April, 2010. Pre-order from amazon.co.uk

US Edition releasing on the 29th June, 2010. Pre-order from amazon.com

What people have been saying:

“A funny and moving story told with love and compassion … a jewel of a novel” – Petina Gappah

 

“It is a book you’ll want to eat in a sitting – and then start again.” – Diran Adebayo”

 

“A rich debut… an engrossing and beautifully written domestic tale of polygamy and rivalry set in her native Nigeria.” – Harper’s Bazaar

 

“This first novel is a compelling, unsettling tale of a polygamous household, and the women within Baba Segi’s walls. Shoneyin’s sharply written portrait of a family and a nation gripped by the past yet surging into modernity, manages to be funny, disconcerting and violent all at once. An utterly gripping read.” – Patricia Duncker

 

“For a first novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives surprises as a powerful, mature and absorbing work of fiction. Lola Shoneyin reprises in this novel many of the strengths and virtues of her poetry: the use of language with both precision and evocative power; considerable technical skill in capturing and transfiguring minute details of individual lives and social experience; exploration and celebration of women’s lives and experiences with candor, grit, wit and insight. Like the proverbial pebble dropped in a pond, this novel will continue to haunt the reader’s imagination with suggestive ripples of wonder, sadness and delight long after the last page has been turned.” – Biodun Jeyifo, Harvard University