Abi Dare’s 2020 debut novel – The Girl with the Louding Voice – became an international bestseller. Here, we review the novel and reveal our takeaway thoughts. The novel is available now for purchase here.
Abi Dare’s 2020 debut novel Girl with the Louding Voice has already become an international bestseller. Although it takes a little while to get into, due to the way that Adunni narrates the novel in broken English, as soon as you are taken by the novel, its grip does not leave you until the final pages. It is a sweet and sincere novel full of hope, for Adunni, for Nigeria and for social change more generally.
Narrated by Adunni, she opens with the discovery that her father has sold her to be the third wife to an older man in the village, Morufu. After the death of the second wife in pregnancy, Adunni flees to Lagos where she finds employment as the housemaid of an enormously wealthy woman, only known as Big Madam. Through all of this time, Adunni never gives up on her desire to get an education, even during the abuse that she experiences, working with one of Big Madam’s club members, Ms. Tia, to improve her English and enter to win a scholarship.
The novel is an important story that shines a light on the trauma that girls endure who are forced into marriage and domestic slavery in Nigeria. The novel sparks a host of conversations on social change – a phenomenal debut that leaves a lingering effect.
