The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré
This novel is brilliant. One of the many perfect decisions the author makes is to write in the voice of Adunni, a fourteen-year-old girl living in the current-day, small rural Nigerian village of Ikati. Adunni’s voice is a unique one in the text; while grammatically different, it is embedded with her passion for learning and her wise and honest observations. I can only convey how effective this is by letting you see for yourselves. This is Adunni, reacting to the decision that she has been sold by her father into marriage to the elderly local taxi driver, Morufu.
I keep looking, even when Morufu lie down and press his head to the floor in front of Papa seven times and Papa collect my hand, cold and dead, and put it inside Morufu’s own and say, “This is your wife now, from today till forever, she is your own. Do her anyhow you want. Use her till she is useless! May she never sleep in her father house again!” and everybody was laughing and saying, “Congra-lations! Amen! Congra-lations!”
My eyes was just watching myself, watching as the picture of schooling that I put on top a table in my heart was falling to the floor and scattering into small, small pieces. [p. 37]
The use of figurative language embedded in the narrative is more effective than any other I can remember reading lately. In fact, recently I have intentionally avoided narratives with metaphors because I found them forced or tired and trite. Not so with Adunni. When she arrives at Morufu’s home and his second wife, Khadija is showing her around, a storm begins. Adunni describes the scene as follows.
The rain is coming down with anger, be like the roof of the kitchen is a drum, and the rain is drumsticks in God’s hand. Khadija is standing under the roof shade of the kitchen, pointing to the here and the there.
“That is the kerosene stove,” she say, pointing at the iron stove in the left corner of the kitchen, her voice loud because of the roaring rain noises. “For cooking food,” she say, as if anybody will use kerosene stove to cook a motorcar. “There is two of the stove. One for me and one for Labake. You can be sharing my own stove if you want.” [p. 48]
Once again, the author’s unique comparisons are on display as Adunni describes washing herself at Iya’s house and later, when she visits the Balogun market.
The well, a circle of gray wall deep inside the ground and full of water, is behind the building. I throw the bucket inside, draw my water, and enter the baffroom: a square place with cold cement floor, slippery like someone pour raw egg on it. [p. 126]
The Balogun market is one long stretch of street, full of so many people and noise. I think that maybe God pack a whole city inside a suitcase, travel to this street, open the suitcase, and let the whole city out. [p. 266]
Throughout the novel Adunni’s life volleys from being treated abusively to being cared for by benevolent female characters. With their help she is able to keep her dreams and her forgiving, compassionate spirit alive. In this quote her friend and mentor Tia pays tribute to her courage and strength of will.
“I read your essay, Adunni,” she says. “You’ve been through so much, so bloody much, and yet you always have a smile, you cheeky thing, you always have a damn smile on your face. When I got flogged in that church, I felt a fraction of—-” She drops my hand, drawing another breath to steady herself before she picks my hand again. “I felt a fraction of what you have had to endure for months. I tasted your normal, Adunni, and I have to say, you are the bravest girl in the world. And all this bullshit happening to me, that’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through. Nothing.” [p. 320]
Adunni responds.
A day will come when my voice will sound so loud all over Nigeria and the world of it, when I will be able to make a way for other girls to have their own louding voice, because I know that when I finish my education, I will find a way to help them to go to school.
A day will come when I will become a teacher, send money to buy Papa a car, or build a new house for him, or maybe I can even build a school in Ikati in the memory of my mama and of Khadija, and who knows what else tomorrow will bring? So, I nod my head yes, because it is true, the future is always working, always busy unfolding better things, and even if it doesn’t seem so sometimes, we have hope of it. [p. 366]
