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Bezig met laden... The Girl with the Louding Voice: A Novel (origineel 2020; editie 2020)door Abi Daré (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkThe Girl With the Louding Voice door Abi Daré (2020)
Books Read in 2022 (41) » 5 meer Bezig met laden...
Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Adunni is fourteen years old, and living in a small town in Nigeria with her alcoholic father and her brothers. Since her mother died, her limited educational and life possibilities have shrunk, the more so when her father marries her off as the third wife of a much older man. Her dream of somehow becoming a teacher is immediately shattered. A series of disasters sees her become a house servant - a slave really, to a rich, callous and self-absorbed Big Madam. Her dream becomes even more unlikely to be realised. But the plot develops when she is befriended by the house cook, Kofi, and Tia, an unlikely member of Big Madam's circle. Written in the first person, in the author's own version of pidgin, this lively, involving and often humorous story highlights the difficulties and limitations imposed on many women in Nigeria, particularly those of limited means: forced marriage, domestic slavery. Novels such as this may spark conversations that engender change. Excellent book about life in Nigeria and the injustices that young girls/women face in a man's world. Adunni is a strong character, overcoming many challenges. The book begins with broken English, but towards the middle to end, Adunni's language improves and the book is written as such. A must read. This is narrated by 14-year-old Adunni, in very stilted, ungrammatical English to start with. This makes it difficult to understand at first, but I soon became used to it. I found the first half of the book thoroughly depressing, albeit eye-opening about the terrible situation of many girls in Nigeria. I almost gave up, but it was a selection for our book group, so I kept going - thankful that I had paid just 99p for a Kindle special offer - and the second half was much more engaging. I found Adunni a bit naive at times, and it was hard to believe that someone undernourished, doing hard physical labour for 15 hours a day (and being regularly beaten by her 'madam') could remain so feisty and outspoken. But I started feeling more empathy for her and found the ending encouraging. Whether or not someone likes the book, it's a story that should educate people around the world about some terrible abuses that are still happening. I doubt if I'll read it again, but I'm glad I finished it. Longer review here: https://suesbookreviews.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-girl-with-louding-voice-by-abi-... The fourteen-year-old narrator of Abi Daré’s debut novel, The Girl with the Louding Voice, is determined to fulfill her late mother’s ambition for her to get an education. As Adunni’s mother lay dying, her father promised Adunni would be educated, but both she and her brother are pulled out of school and, even worse, her father essentially sells her to a much older man who already has two wives and four daughters, where she endures this man’s brutality. To effect her escape from the remote Nigerian village, she accepts assistance from the brother of a woman her mother knew in hopes of finding a better future in the modern city of Lagos. But she is essentially sold into indentured servitude (slavery really, since the man steals her money), serving a wicked and cruel, wealthy Nigerian woman whose husband is an abusive sexual predator. The “louding voice” she desires appears to be a metaphor for having a say in her future. The story is heartwarming and enlightening, told in an interesting English dialect (one that knows the foundations of English vocabulary, but not the nuances of tense and grammar), by a girl who persists in her sometimes naïve, but always honest and refreshing, struggle to get the education her mother wanted for her so she in turn could teach the children of her village.
Daré has said of the language in which the book is written: “Nigerians speak something called pidgin English, and I knew I didn’t want to write in pidgin English because even the very educated people speak pidgin English. I wanted it to be nonstandard English.The results of this invented English are uneven.. I could make it Adunni’s. It could be her own English, so to speak....The novel is strongest when dealing with interpersonal relationships, especially between characters of different classes.....The story told in this novel is an important one. The trauma of girls forced into marriage and the blight of domestic slavery in Nigeria are both issues that must be brought to light. As Adunni wonders: “Why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?” The Girl With the Louding Voice joins a long and fine tradition of issue-led novels that have sparked conversations resulting in social change. Social justice is a laudable intention when writing a novel, yet one also reads them for subtler and less concrete gains. PrijzenOnderscheidingenErelijsten
"A powerful, emotional debut novel told in the unforgettable voice of a young Nigerian woman who is trapped in a life of servitude but determined to get an education so that she can escape and choose her own future. Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. This, her mother has told her, is the only way to get a "louding voice"-the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir. When Adunni runs away to the city, hoping to make a better life, she finds that the only other option before her is servitude to a wealthy family. As a yielding daughter, a subservient wife, and a powerless slave, Adunni is told, by words and deeds, that she is nothing. But while misfortunes might muffle her voice for a time, they cannot mute it. And when she realizes that she must stand up not only for herself, but for other girls, for the ones who came before her and were lost, and for the next girls, who will inevitably follow; she finds the resolve to speak, however she can-in a whisper, in song, in broken English-until she is heard"-- Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)823.92Literature English English fiction Modern Period 2000-LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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“I want to ask, to scream, why are the women in Nigeria seem to be suffering for everything more than the men?”
A beautiful book which tells the story of 14 year old girl Adunni who grew up in a village in Nigeria. Her early years were shaped by a loving mother who prioritized education for her daughter. Adunni’s life becomes ten-fold harder after her mother’s death, when she looks after the home and her brother Kayus and Born-Boy until her father sells her as a frightened fourteen year old, to become the third wife of corpulent middle-aged Morufu. She eventually escapes this life of poverty and abuse to work as a maid for a wealthy Nigerian family in Lagos. Here despite the riches Adunni is a virtual slave, subject to beatings by Big Madam, and harassment by Big Daddy. The contrast between the wealth of Nigeria’s upper classes and villagers is stark. Adunni’s only chance at freedom is a newspaper clipping advertising a scholarship application, and her unexpected friendship with one of the wealthy housewives Ms Tia. Tia is an English-educated environmentalist who does not fit in with her Gucci-wearing gossiping neighbours, and makes it her mission to help Adunni reach her goal of speaking and being heard in her voice, not just any voice but “a louding voice”. A story of great courage in the face of hardship. The book is written in dialect, which was easy to listen to with the skilful audiobook narrator Adjoa Andoh, but I wondered if it may have been difficult to read in a physical book. Interestingly the language changes through the book as Adunni’s understanding of English grows. 5 stars for me for an insightful and powerful book ( )