Raw and unfiltered.

Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives will have you turning the pages until you read the final full stop. It’s almost like there is no stopping once you entangle yourself in the web of the secrets of his first three wives which only come to the open because of his fourth wife Bolanle.

Baba Segi is a middle-aged man who acquires wives like tubers of yam, at least that was how he got his second wife Iya Tope. Bolanle is a graduate who to the dismay of her mother marries Baba Segi, a polygamist. As with many polygamous settings, she’s faced with fierce rivalry and stiff hatred. Despite the attempt of two of the wives to get her out of the house so they could reclaim their positions in Baba Segi’s lives, she stays despite Iya Segi’s saying that ‘… these educated types have thin skins; they are like pigeons. If we poke her with a stick, she will fly away and leave our home in peace.’

Not only is Bolanle faced with the wickedness by the wives, but Baba Segi also wants children by her; he places much value on children and his quest to get barren Bolanle pregnant is what as predicted by Iya Segi ‘exposes their private parts to the wind and reveals their secrets.’

There’s a lot going on in Baba Segi’s household he is not aware of and when all his wives’ secrets come to the open, he ‘feels like a dying branch before it offers its leaves to the next gust of wind’. In the aftermath of the exposure, he leaves these words with his son, ‘When the time comes for you to marry, take one wife and one wife alone. And when she causes you pain, as all women do, remember it is better that your pain comes from one source alone…’

I enjoyed the way Lola Shoneyin gave voice to all the major characters and dexterously weaved these voices together to paint a lucid picture of this polygamous household of 12. It’s a full-blown drama you’ll totally enjoy!