Tomorrow I Become a Woman

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I imagine a situation where Uju’s mother was a soft, a listener, a friend to Uju. I imagine that she would never end up with Gozie. Uju would have never been reassured to bring a boy home or even accept his proposal. She won’t be told to be grateful to Gozie for marrying her and maybe she would have had the courage to bring Akin home. Tomorrow I Become a Woman follows its protagonist, Uju, whose dreams are muted by her desire to please her mother. This desire would lead her to make decisions she would ultimately regret later. On the cusp of graduation from the University, Uju marries Gozie, a handsome man she met in her friends’ church, even though she is not certain of her love for him. This would be Uju’s greatest hubris: her inability to make firm decisions until someone else pushes her into it. What follows in Uju’s marriage to Gozie would lead us to a quiet tragedy of three intertwining lives. Aiwanose Odafen Events in this story reflect the time and place setting well. Dele Giwa and the letter bomb came to mind. People rejoicing over the death of the Head of State and other events thrown in reminded me of growing up in Nigeria. When we were far enough from the group, he stopped at a pillar and turned to me. ‘Sister Uju, how are you?’

I found Uju’s mother hard to stomach but I had to remind myself that she thought she was doing her best by her daughter, having gone through the same herself. Mama never got tired of telling me the story. She’d been married for many years to Papa, and her position was safe: she’d had sons, three strong boys. But Mama had wanted a daughter; she’d prayed and begged for one. Someone to share her stories with, to pass on the recipes her mother and grandmother had given her, to teach all that she knew about life, to take trips to the salon with and gossip about the things only girls cared about. A story of Uju, a Nigerian girl who grows into womanhood, seeking her mother’s approval, and trying to meet the societal and cultural expectations set for her, while all the time severely suffering for it.Uju, a university student is very good friends with a young and handsome lecturer, she might even love him but he is Yoruba and she is Igbo. The ghosts of war lingers and while she spends a lot of time with him on campus, she can’t think about taking him to her Igbo parents. When you have read Buchi Emecheta’s books, Olisakwe’s Ogadinma you would clearly understand why reading Aiwonse today only brings tears to my eyes. Similar plot lines with similar struggles only tells you one thing; over the years the stories of women have not gotten better and we need to do more for our daughters. Questo libro non mi é dispiaciuto e si lascia anche leggere piuttosto in fretta perché é scritto in modo scorrevole, nonostante le frequenti incursioni in lingua yoruba o qualche altro dialetto nigeriano a me completamente sconosciuto.

You’re a witch!’ Gozie screamed. And I knew I’d dream of those words, the letters dancing in circles around me – you’re a witch! You’re a witch! If you enjoyed Ogadinma, this book is for you. If you thought the characters in Ogadinma pissed you off, the characters in this book will make you want to beat somebody. Abeg if you are looking for a book that isn't heavily themed on domestic violence avoid this book and look for something light make you no go dey complain give us. Resilience I loved this despite some of the hopelessness felt at certain points in the book. This would be a 6/5 stars rating for me. Well done for a first time book. Ada giggled. ‘If you’re interested in him, you better join the queue because every girl in church is gunning for that one. I don’t even know what they see. Fine boy, no kudi. Fine face cannot buy food.’ Church members would approach me with timid smiles to say, ‘I saw you in so-and-so magazine,’ and compliment my expensive wrapper and head-tie, my designer shoes. And I would smile with just the right blend of pleasure, humility and satisfaction, tilt my head elegantly and say, ‘Thank you.’

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Maybe I made a mistake by letting your father send you to the university. That’s why you like arguing like this; too much book is inside your head,’ she’d lamented one day after interrupting a heated conversation between me and my brothers. ‘Today, it’s politics; tomorrow it’s football. Instead of you to come and join me in the kitchen, you’re shouting up and down the house like a street boy. My grandmother used to say, Only a foolish rat dances with the lizard in the rain. You’re a woman! Your brothers will have wives to cook for them. Akuko abughi nri. After all this book, better make sure you come home with a husband. You better not bring just a certificate home. Adaugo has that young man Uzondu; even Chinelo has somebody.’ We met at church – the perfect place for an upstanding Christian girl to find a husband – on a Sunday in August of ’78. I was a student at the University of Lagos at the time, with only a few months left till graduation. We all laughed; it was such a Lagosian statement to make – the city was a melting pot for several tribes, from Igbo to Yoruba to Igala, and so we threw words around that weren’t indigenously ours and forgot that kudi was Hausa for money and ode, another word we often used, was Yoruba for a daft person.

The early-morning Sundays and loitering around the church premises long after sermons became a ritual, until even my friends, having reached their limit, abandoned me to my endeavours. ‘If you wake me up early again, I’ll break your head. I’ll see you in church!’ Ada said to me in a voice that told me she meant every word. The brothers- chef's kiss to them, they stood up for their sister even if they just stopped eventually but the times that they did stand up for her. What can I do?’ she asked. You can fight , I thought , you can fight for your daughters . But then again, who was I to speak of such thingsTold in short chapters, the story does not exactly paint men as angels. Where they appear to be, there’s always a less-than-desirable monstrosity lurking. But there are good men such as Akin, who redeems the image of men in the novel.