Lola Shoneyin’s work includes three books of poems: So All the Time I Was Sitting on an Egg (1997), Song of a Riverbird (2002) For the Love of Flight (2010) and two children’s books: Mayowa and the Masquerades (2010) and Iyaji, the Housegirl (2014)
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives was longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2011 and went on to win the PEN Oakland 2011 Josephine Miles Literary Award and the 2011 ANA/Ken Saro-Wiwa Prose Prize. Her children’s book, Mayowa and the Masquerades won the 2011 Atiku Abubakar Prize for Children’s literature.
Shoneyin is the director of Ake Arts & Book Festival which takes place every November in Abeokuta, Nigeria. She lives in Nigeria.
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A Durbar Festival for Hassan and Hussaina
Age Range: 3 – 8 years
The Durbar festival in Katsina is here and everyone is excited to see the Emir leading a colourful procession on horseback. Hassan and Hussaina jump up and down when they see their brother riding behind the Emir.
Inspired by the festivities, the twins decide to organise a Durbar festival of their own. They do not have horses or colourful costumes but they have a clever plan. Soon, the twins are on their way to join in the fun.
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Jamila’s Clever Plan
Age Range: 3 – 8 years
Jamila lives with her grandmother in Bebeji, Kano state. Her grandmother, Kaka, is a dressmaker. One day, Kaka decides to pack away her sewing machine because she can no longer see.
Sad and scared, Jamila stops school to care for her blind grandmother. Together, they beg for alms in the marketplace until they come across a new eye clinic.
Jamila hatches a clever plan to help Kaka get her sight back.
₵42.00Jamila’s Clever Plan
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The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives
For a polygamist like Baba Segi, his collection of wives and a gaggle of children are the symbol of prosperity, success and validation of his manhood. Everything runs reasonably smoothly in the patriarchal home, until wife number four intrudes on this family romance. Bolanle, a graduate amongst the semi-literate wives, is hated from the start. Baba Segi’s glee at bagging a graduate doesn’t help matters. Worse, Bolanle’s arrival threatens to do more than simply ruffle feathers. She’s unwittingly set to expose a secret that her co-wives intend to protect, at all costs.
Lola Shoneyin’s light and ironic touch exposes not only the rotten innards of Baba Segi’s polygamous household in this cleverly plotted story; it also shows how women not educated or semi-literate, women in contemporary Nigeria can be as restricted, controlled and damaged by men – be they fathers, husbands, uncles, rapists – as they’ve never been.
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Do As You Are Told, Baji!
Baji goes to Kaduna to spend the weekend with his grandfather, Baba. Baba takes Baji to his farm but soon finds that Bajo doesn’t often do as he is told. As an eventful day on the farm ends, fun loving Baji encounters a stubborn donkey.
₵42.00Do As You Are Told, Baji!
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