The Secret Lives Of Baba Segi 39;s Wives Free Pdf Download BETTER
Shakita Sohm
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.
Bolanle is a soft-spoken university graduate who is quickly ostracized by her illiterate co-wives. However, she is determined to give Baba Segi the children he expects. Her failure to conceive exposes a dark family secret.
For Baba Segi, his collection of wives and children are signs of his virility. All runs smoothly in the polygamous home until wife number four arrives. Wife number four is a soft-spoken university graduate who is quickly ostracized by her illiterate co-wives. However, she is determined to give Baba Segi the children he expects. Her failure to conceive exposes a dark family secret. This revelation has devastating consequences for the entire household.
An educated wife means trouble.
The three wives of Baba Segi are managing their seven children just fine when he takes it into his head to marry again. To make matters worse, his fourth wife is a graduate from the university, an uppity young woman who knows too much for her own good. To make matters even worse yet, in two years she has not produced a child.
Baba Segi is a plump, flatulent, 42-year-old Nigerian polygamist, whose bladder control is not particularly good. Calm, intelligent, patient Bolanle has entered a household where she is not wanted, where the other wives will try anything to drive her out. And to everyone's amazement, Bolanle peacefully continues loving the other wives and their children, treating everyone in the household kindly, convinced that her love will win them over.
Author Lola Shoneyin was born in Idaban, Nigeria, where this story takes place, and she plunges you into a culture where a woman's worth is measured by her children. She creates situations straight out of classic farce, but plays them for their real-world values, so her comedy always has teeth and realistic, tragic consequences spring from light-hearted contrivances in the plot.
As the story circles around the four fascinating, feuding women, the reader constantly discovers new sides of them. Secrets emerge, surprises erupt and alliances shift from wife to wife, with Baba Segi often none the wiser. Baba Segi has only one real concern other than money: offspring. He needs children to make him happy. To find out what's wrong with Bolanle, he hauls her to the hospital to have her barrenness cured. In doing so, he opens a Pandora's box of deception and lies, including a dangerous secret that threatens the security of all his other wives.
Shoneyin handles the multiple points of view skillfully, each voice recognizably its own, and knows exactly where she's weaving her plot threads, so that the alternating voices have an actual narrative purpose. This frequently hilarious novel develops moral depth, and everything wraps realistically and satisfyingly, with some sadness, some loss and some hard lessons learned.--Nick DiMartino
Shelf Talker: A frequently hilarious novel, with moral depth, about a Nigerian polygamist, his three wives and seven children and the arrival of his fourth, and university-educated, wife.
When Baba Segi woke up with a bellyache for the sixth day in a row, he knew it was time to do something drastic about his fourth wife's childlessness.
For Baba Segi, his collection of wives and gaggle of children are a symbol of prosperity, success, and a validation of his manhood. All is well in this patriarchal home until Baba arrives with wife number four: a quiet, college-educated, young woman named Bolanle. Jealous and resentful of this interloper who is stealing their husband's attention, Baba Segi's three wives begin to plan her downfall. How dare she offer to teach them to read, they whisper. They vow to teach her a lesson instead. What they don't know is that Bolanle hides a terrible secret - a secret that unwittingly exposes the deception and lies upon Baba Segi's household rests.
A stirring tale of men and women, mothers and children, servitude and independence, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives illuminates the common threads that connect the experiences of all women: the hardships they bear, their struggle to define themselves, and their fierce desire to protect those they love.
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives is a scandalous, engrossing tale of sexual politics and family strife in modern-day Nigeria. Lola Shoneyin's bestselling novel bursts on to the stage in a vivid adaptat---ion by Caine Award-winning playwright Rotimi Babatunde.
"Men are like yam, you cut them how you like." Baba Segi has three wives, seven children, and a mansion filled with riches. But now he has his eyes on Bolanle, a young university graduate wise to life's misfortunes. When Bolanle responds to Baba Segi's advances, she unwittingly uncovers a secret which threatens to rock his patriarchal household to the core.
For Baba Segi, his collection of wives and children are signs of his virility. All runs smoothly in the polygamous home until wife number four arrives. Bolanle is a suit-spoken university graduate who is quickly ostracised by her illiterate co-wives. However, she is determined to give Baba Segi the children he expects. Her failure to conceive exposes a dark family secret. This revelation has devastating consequences for the entire household.
As the story hops between past and present, the tone switches repeatedly from the comic to the brutal. In the present, we follow young Bolanle as she marries into a polygamous family, to become the fourth wife of the rich, rotund patriarch, Baba Segi. She is a young, beautiful and - crucially - college-educated, and the existing wives treat her with a suspicion that quickly spills over into contempt. Survival becomes paramount as she repeatedly dodges the plots hatched against her. Then there's the fact that she harbours a secret that will eventually expose them all.
Attempting to rise above the secrets of her past, Bolanle, a university graduate, marries Baba Segi, who promises her everything in exchange for agreeing to become his fourth wife. Thus she enters into a polygamous world filled with expensive clothes, a generous monthly allowance ... and three Segi wives who disapprove of the newest, youngest, most educated addition to the family. There's Iya Femi, a fiery vixen with a taste for money; Iya Tope, a shy woman whose kindness is eclipsed by terror; and Iya Segi, the first, most lethal, and merciless of them all. Bolanle quickly becomes Baba Segi's prized possession ... until her very presence unlocks a secret that the other wives have long since guarded, and unleashing it could change life as they know it.
Lola Shoneyin's publications include three books of poems and two children's books, Mayowa and the Masquerade and Iyaji, the Housegirl. The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, Shoneyin's debut novel, was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction 2011 and won the PEN Oakland 2011 Josephine Miles Literary Award and the 2011 ANA/ NDDC Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize. Mayowa and the Masquerades won the 2011 ANA/ Atiku Abubakar Prize for Children's literature. Shoneyin is the founder of the Book Buzz Foundation and Director of Ake Arts & Book Festival. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria
Through the voices of Baba Segi and his four wives, Lola Shoneyin weaves a vibrant story of love, secrets and a family like every other - happy and unhappy, truthful and not, sometimes kind, sometimes competitive, always bound by blood, and the past.
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