Author: Abdulai Sila
Pages: 188
Book takes place in the country: YES
Author is from the country: YES
I have visited: NO
This is my 68th read for the year
I realized that I have read quite a few books in a row. I did pick quite a few shorter books in a row. I am going to pay for that later because I see I have quite a few in my backlog that are over 500 pages.
This book takes place during the Portugese rule of Guinea-Bissau. It starts with a young girl named Ndani who is looking for work as a maid. She is going house to house until a couple finally decides to take her in. The head of the house- Dona Deolinda - thinks Ndani's soul needs saving through religious intervention. She treats Ndani more like a slave than a house maid.
Ndani leaves the service of this house when she becomes the wife of a village chief. He is wealthy and he built a mansion and a school to impressed the Portugese administrators. The village chief leaves Ndani when he finds out she isn't a virgin, and she falls in love with one of the teachers at the school. What happens next is a series of problems that happen only because of the teacher's skin color.
This is a good book. It is short, but I felt that it had enough time for character developement. There is definitely a lot of political and racial undertones in the book that ALMOST overshadow the story. But I do think they were necessary to reflect the feelings of the people in this area during the time the Portugese were there.
I definitely recommend giving it a read. I am glad I found this one.
Stars: 4
No comments:
Post a Comment