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Cover of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin

The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives

Lola Shoneyin

  • 96 pages · about 2 hours
  • First published 2010
  • 4 editions
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1 About this book

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. It won the PEN Oakland Josephine Miles Literary Award in 2011 and the ANA Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize in the same year. It was short listed for the NLNG Nigeria prize for literature in 2012 and was listed in the top ten novels about Nigeria by The Observer newspaper in 2014. It has been translated into several languages including Arabic and has been adapted for the stage and screen.

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.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Good for readers who want: a play and a short read.

  • Nigeria
  • Family life
  • Wives
  • Drama
  • Family secrets

2 About Lola Shoneyin

Born 1974

Lola Shoneyin (born Titilola Atinuke Alexandrah Shoneyin; 26 February 1974 in Ibadan, Nigeria) is a Nigerian poet and author who launched her debut novel, The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, in the UK in May 2010. Shoneyin has forged a reputation as an adventurous, humorous and outspoken poet (often classed in the feminist mould), having published three volumes of poetry.

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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