Pulsing with vitality and intense human drama, Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’s debut The Son of the House is set against four decades of vibrant Nigeria, and celebrates the resilience of women as they navigate and transform what remains a man’s world.

‘We must do something to pass the time, I thought. Two women in a room, hands and feet tied.’

Kidnapped in Nigeria by a group not unlike Boko Haram, two women, Nwabulu and Julie, relate the stories of the very different lives fate has meted out for them.

When Nwabulu’s father dies, her stepmother sends her off to become a housemaid. For years, she suffers the abuse of employers, a love affair with an employer’s son offering little comfort. Out of their union, a son is born, but the young Nwabulu has to give him up, and is bound to suffer in her stepmother’s home again until she can flee, establishing herself as a fashion designer, finally able to inhabit Julie’s world.

Julie: privileged, educated, and adored by her parents. She has the opportunity to become whomever she desires. But sometimes too much choice can be a dangerous thing, and in Julie’s case it is. At thirty-four she is still unmarried and, for the first time, there is pressure: a burden that will only be lifted with the birth of a son. So determined is Julie for release that she goes as far as a polygamous marriage.

While the two women wait for the ransom to be paid, fate will once again decide the course of their lives.

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Categories Africa Fiction South Africa

Tags Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia New books New releases Nigeria Penguin Random House SA The Son of the House