Published in 2020, this is by Peace Adzo Medie, a Ghanaian author and academic (she lectures in gender and international politics, and wrote this, her first novel, while concurrently working on scholarly material -- all of which I find phenomenal...).

My audio-version was read by Soneela Nankani. She did a perfectly good job -- she's an excellent reader -- but like many other listeners-who-commented, I felt it would have been nice if she'd sounded Ghanaian rather than American... I know the narrator's accent is always a tricky issue, but I would have liked her to sound, for example, more like the author.

The story is set in 2014, and it is told from the point of view of Afi Tekple, a young Ghanaian woman who is embarking on an arranged marriage to a man named Eli Ganyo. (His name is pronounced Elly, not Ee-lai. At first I thought this was a mistake on the narrator's part, but that's how the author pronounces it too.)

Now, it's not what you think... Eli is not cruel, ancient, or disgusting. He's young, rich, handsome, sophisticated, and in many ways very kind. Afi genuinely falls in love with him. But he has one major defect. He's already heavily involved with a Liberian woman, with whom he has a child.

His family detest the Liberian woman, who apparently very much has a mind of her own, and this is where Afi comes into the picture. Eli's mother, known to everyone as "Aunty", and very much a Big Potato in the upcountry township of Ho, has in the past been very good to Afi's mother (widowed, impecunious, and otherwise dependent on the cold charity of her brother-in-law, named Pious, but actually anything but). Aunty's scheme is that the young, beautiful, sweet, apparently biddable Afi will be able to wean Eli away from That Woman, and back into the bosom of his family. Afi, meanwhile, stands to gain considerably: not only will Aunty's gratitude smooth her mother's path, but she herself will also shift to Accra, which means she moves up several rungs in terms of socio-economic status. This new position brings her a materially very comfortable lifestyle, complete with a nice flat, a car and driver, and a regular allowance. But more that that, it puts her in a position to develop her fashion design skills under the tutelage of a well-known practitioner, and eventually to open her own very successful business.

In terms of the Eli-Afi partnership, however, the writing is on the wall from the word go, when the husband-to-be doesn't even turn up for the traditional wedding with which the book opens. He is represented by one of his brothers, Richard.

As the story progresses, we follow Afi's indefatigable attempts to rectify this situation, and bring Eli to the point of recognizing her as "his only wife". But whatever she does -- her methods range from fawning docility, complete with exemplary housekeeping prowess, to full-throated defiance, and as a huge bonus, she gives birth to the coveted boy-child, Selorm -- nothing shakes off Muna, the fabled other woman. At the end, realizing that she will never have her husband to herself, Afi files for divorce.

According to Medie, arranged marriages are not at all common in Ghana. Rather, she invented that scenario as a means to explore the dynamics of family pressure. I can't help but feel that's a flaw. Everything feels very realistic in the book -- apart from the fundamental premise on which it stands.


Cote d'Ivoire, 1998. In the book, Afi studies fashion design. These are some of the talented tailors we knew

There are two major strengths, however. The first is the way the book deals with the exercise of power.

Indeed, we witness an astonishing number of different forms of leverage at work. There's Aunty, who exerts soft power through generosity, but also a much harder form of power through emotional and economic manipulation (the only time Eli's power falters is when it runs up against his mother's). The other female characters demonstrate a wide range of power strategies. Beauty is a trump card (as we see with Muna, Afi, and Evelyn, who is Richard's girlfriend, but is also disapproved of by the family, and in danger of being sidelined). Business acumen is another advantage, and Evelyn and Afi are good examples of how to exploit your connections in order to network, invest, and make things happen (although the book ends with Afi's divorce, the final note is not failure but success, as she looks forward to growing her enterprise even further). Maternity is a powerful lever, especially if you manage to produce a boy, and of course social class works its magic in Ghana as elsewhere (Eli's sister, Yaya, is very fond of reminding Afi that she was picked up "from the gutter", and needs to be grateful and obedient).

According to Medie: "In Ghana, women who push back against cultural norms are often described as 'disrespectful.' Respect is important and something that is very much needed in society, but has been constructed by some to mean submission and self-denial, especially in regard to young women. It has therefore been used to box women in, to limit them, and to shut them up."

The fact remains that this is a horribly male-oriented world, and men have infinitely more options than women. Medie continues: "Young women are constantly being told to respect men, but society rarely puts the same pressure on men to respect young women."

None of the proponents of Afi's marriage with Eli sees anything wrong with setting up a situation where she needs to constantly fight to "win" him (or, for that matter, anything wrong with providing a never-ending stream of advice on how to do that). He, on the other hand, is fighting purely to make sure he has to give nothing up. For all his modern ways and his considerate talk, he's a cake-and-eat-it type of guy. As one of his male groupies puts it: "You're a lion. You should have an entire pride."

And many of Afi's female supporters see nothing wrong with this. Mawusi, her cousin, tells her that it's "not ideal" to live in a relationship where the man is effectively shared between two women, but "you can still have what you've always dreamed of. A good life with a man who loves you, and is kind, and takes care of you." Evelyn manages things differently; nevertheless, she is also effectively sharing her man, as the family has lined up an alternative match for Richard, and Evelyn is pretty sure there'll be no wedding ring in the offing while Aunty is still alive. But then, Evelyn has also taken on a side-interest, and is very cool-headed about exploiting what she can while she can...

The problem, says Medie, lies in the way people think about masculinity. Having a beautiful woman, having money -- these are the things that are seen as enhancing a man's status. The more you have, then, the higher you go... There is nothing to push back against this sense of entitlement.



The novel's second major strength stems from the author's interest in -- and success in portraying -- the mundane, the nitty-gritty of everyday life.

Whether it's the differences between small-town Ghana and the hip set in the city, or the life of the extended family, or the difficulties of finding a job, or the challenges of dealing with the hired help; whether it's the way family members seek to sponge off their more successful relatives, or the way building projects progress or don't (you can't do without a good foreman), or the way people choose their clothes and favourite dinner dishes -- it's all here, brightly documented.

Definitely a novelist to watch out for, then. And her academic work sounds pretty interesting as well.