Customer Reviews

The Housemaid (African Writers SeriesRG)

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If you're an old poor wrinkled and bent woman living in an Africa village, then you're a witch! If your relatives living in the cities suddenly face a bad turn of events, then you're the architect of their misfortune. You eat up babies in the wombs of "baby anxious" married women, and until you die no good will come of that community...That's the opening innuendo of this wonderful short and precise novel.
However the book is not only about old witches living in villages. This book, set in the villages and towns of Ghana, dwells on the misconception that African rural dwellers have about life in the city. There is a mother and daughter duo who use their "bottom power" to rise in the very competitive world of trading, using men only for two things... Throw in the poor girl from the village whose only hope of relative success would be in leaving her family to work as a house maid to the promiscuous and successful trader, who happens to be her distant relative, in the city. Of course this is not without the manipulative pressures of the village customs and the housemaid's wizened grandmother who sees her as the only hope for emancipation of the family and is ready to concoct and direct any scheme to achieve this dream.
As a Nigerian, I found this book to be a confirmation that all African societies are basically the same. It was written in simple language and the scenarios were painted in such vivid images by the writer's words that you almost found yourself in a village square or "Akpeteshi" seller's shack sometimes.
A highly recommended read.