AND SO I ROAR

Nigerian British writer Daré follows up The Girl With the Louding Voice (2020) with a suspenseful, eventful sequel.

The previous novel followed 14-year-old Adunni, who was raised in a Nigerian village with ambitions of becoming a teacher; after the death of her mother, though, her father forced her to marry an older man who already had two wives. When Khadija, the second wife, died during pregnancy, Adunni was afraid she’d be blamed, so she turned to a local man, Mr. Kola, who offered her an escape to Lagos—and then sold her into indentured servitude. As this novel begins, just days after the previous one ended, Adunni is staying with Tia, the neighbor who rescued her, and is about to enter a boarding school on scholarship. Unfortunately, those plans are interrupted when Mr. Kola and a chieftain from Ikati, the village where she grew up, appear at her door and accuse her of murdering Khadija, demanding she return to the village for judgment. Determined to clear her name, she goes with them—and Tia goes, too. The action unfolds over the next 24 hours as Adunni, awaiting trial, gets to know other girls accused of various “crimes” such as resisting genital mutilation and causing the failure of crops. Meanwhile, Tia journeys with Adunni’s younger brother to find male relatives who will be able to attest for Adunni and the other girls. The novel alternates between the voice of Adunni, speaking in a version of English she has cobbled together, and Tia, an environmental activist who was raised in an upper-middle-class family and educated in the U.K. She has her own set of problems: Her estranged mother is dying, and her husband has discovered a stack of letters she wrote to a mysterious lover. Daré doesn’t shy away from melodrama; deaths, injuries, and children born to fathers whose identities are concealed pile up rapidly. But readers willing to go along for a ride will be treated to prose that is alternately poetic and comic, two heroines worth cheering for, and sharp insights into the contrast between urban and rural Nigeria.

Part old-fashioned adventure yarn, part feminist manifesto, and completely captivating.