Second-Class Citizen

Second-Class Citizen
Buchi Emecheta
RRP:
NZ$ 26.00
Our Price:
NZ$ 20.80
Paperback
h198 x 129mm - 224pg
7 Oct 2021 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9780241532683
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
A tale of survival from one of the most beloved Nigerian writers, now in Penguin Modern Classics for the first timeWhen Adah' s dream of moving to England becomes a reality, she soon discovers that life for a young Nigerian woman living in London in the 1960s is far from what she had imagined. The cold weather and cramped, crumbling accommodation might become bearable, were it not for her tyrannical husband who abuses the power conferred on him by traditional Igbo culture and provides precious little support of any kind. As Adah finds herself providing for her rapidly growing family - rescuing her children from the hands of a slovenly childminder, learning the unspoken rules of society and negotiating everyday slights and wounding insults along the way - she takes refuge in her work as a librarian and resolves to salvage her dreams of becoming a writer. Second Class Citizen is the story of a woman' s courage in the face of crushing inequalities that threaten to overwhelm her as she navigates the rigid patriarchal culture of her birth and discovers the racism at the heart of her adopted home. It also captures in vivid and moving detail, the experience of so many West African families who arrived in the UK at that time. Funny, poignant and profound, Emecheta' s groundbreaking novel resonates as powerfully today as when it was first published.
The foremother of black British women' s writing . . . her early books, in particular, were powerful fictions written from and about our lives -- Bernardine Evaristo * TLS * Emecheta' s prose has a shimmer of originality, of English being reinvented . . . issues of survival lie inherent in her material and give her tales weight * John Updike * A harrowing immigrant story of racism and domestic violence - it shook me to the core when I first read it . . . Buchi Emecheta was a writer who struggled against all kinds of odds to produce novels that are now lodged deep in the DNA of almost every African writer -- Leila Aboulela * author of The Museum * Gripping and authentic * Guardian * Bold, brave, defiant . . . its exploration of blackness, the white gaze, and the development of the main character Adah' s sense of self is extremely powerful and continues to hold great relevance in contemporary British society * Gal-dem * There' s inspiration in her sense of injustice, in her insistence that her character' s lives should be better . . . the ideal version of life, the one we' re striving for. Emecheta never lost sight of it * Paris Review * Buchi Emecheta re-ignited the rich place of women at the heart of African literature . . . without her the current strong generation of women writers, who write well and fearlessly, would not exist -- Ben Okri Emecheta revealed the thoughts and aspirations of her countrywomen, shaped by a patriarchal culture but stirred by the modern promise of freedom and self-definition * The New York Times * Emecheta' s women do not simply lie down and die . . . always there is resistance, a challenge to fate, a need to renegotiate the terms of the uneasy peace that exists between them and accepted traditions * The Voice Literary Supplement *
Buchi Emecheta (1944-2017) was born in Lagos, Nigeria and moved to London in 1961. A writer and academic, she wrote sixteen novels, three children' s stories and numerous articles and television plays.
Status: Active
ISBN-13: 9780241532683
Published: 7 Oct 2021
Published In: United Kingdom
Imprint: Penguin Classics
Publisher: Penguin Books
Format: Paperback
Height: 198mm
Width: 129mm
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 168g
Pages: 224

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