Stay With Me by Ayòbámi Adébáyò

Stay With Me

Ayòbámi Adébáyò

Yejide does not have an easy life. In fact, her life is a tragedy of huge proportions reeling from crisis to crisis, as it approaches disaster. Ayobami Adebayo transfixes you with her tale, like the Ancient Mariner clutching the wedding guest's arm. You will certainly emerge sadder. Whether you emerge wiser depends on your ability to listen.

Extract
Olamide would darken beyond Akin's brownness to my shade, my mother's shade, a midnight black that would glow ethereally in the fierce sun. She would get all the prizes and I would stand up throughout the prize-giving ceremonies at her school.clapping loudly so that everyone would recognise her as my child. She would go on to university, of course, become a doctor, an engineer, an inventor, a Nobel prize-winner in medicine, chemistry or physics.
I could see all of this in her eyes when she suckled my breast, and I was already proud.
Parallels
  • The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
  • Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo
  • Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Borrow this book
Violence
Explicit sexual Content

Our suggestions if you enjoyed The Women by Kristin Hannah

The Lives of Others

Neel Mukherjee

Girl

Edna O'Brien

Out

Natsuo Kirino

Thirty Girls

Susan Minot

The Mercies

Kiran Millwood Hargrave

I Am Not Your Eve

Devika Ponnambalam

Stay With Me

Ayòbámi Adébáyò

Now You See Us

Balli Kaur Jaswal

Palmares

Gayl Jones

Drifting House

Krys Lee