Ilesa, Nigeria, 1985: Yejide is hoping for a miracle: for a child. It is all her husband wants, and all her mother-in-law wants. She has tried everything – arduous pilgrimages, medical consultancies, appeals to God, all without success. When her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair. In the midst of the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, what follows is a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood.
Ilesa, Nigeria, 1985: Yejide is hoping for a miracle: for a child. It is all her husband wants, and all her mother-in-law wants. She has tried everything – arduous pilgrimages, medical consultancies, appeals to God, all without success. When her relatives insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair. In the midst of the social and political turbulence of 1980s Nigeria, what follows is a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood.
