Kehinde

The story is simple yet beautifully told. Any immigrant from Africa to the West will identify with Kehinde or her husband. Another masterfully told story by Buchi Emecheta.

Author Buchi Emecheta takes the reader deep into lives of a Nigerian couple during the late 1970's. Touching on the trials of marriage , friendship and various facets of Nigerian culture. Told in an unforgettably visceral fashion. Beginning first in London , and later moving to the couple's homeland of Nigeria. It's a spiritual journey to Africa. No plane necessary.

In this novel of culture clash and the burden of tradition perpetuated on and by women, Kehinde and her husband Albert are poised to return to Nigeria from London, their home for 16 years. Reluctant to leave her job and relinquish the independence she has come to treasure, Kehinde convinces herself she will respected at home as a "been there" woman. But, she discovers, in Nigeria she is only a woman, and a discarded wife at that. Her husband has taken a second wife, an educated professional who has given him a son and shows him the respect he feels is his due. This slim, deceptively simple novel is rich in complexity. Emecheta effectively portrays the smothering feel of the extended family for Kehinde while showing how the second wife, unspoiled by Western culture, borrows strength and power from it when she is weak. Kehinde's strength must come from inside herself and, in Nigeria, that will never be possible. Emecheta, a British immigrant with numerous novels to her credit, celebrates personal fulfillment, with a distinctly feminist cast.

Buchi Emecheta's novel captures attention from the very first page and it is most likely that any reader of post-colonial fiction will see the last page in just one go. Apart from Emecheta's mastery in reflecting the experiences of a Nigerian woman living in London in the 1960s and 1970s, what appeals to the reader is the delicate sense of what Homi Bhabha calls "hybridity" that is professionally placed within the texture of the narrative. The Nigerian and the English worlds come together in the novel. For my part, I believe that "Kehinde" can well be read as a novel reflecting the cross-cultural adaptation of a Nigerian woman, who can no longer accept the values and the traditional social structures of her country of origin. Neither does she readily assimilate into the English culture. Rather she reconciles the two cultures. This is the story of how a bicultural identity is formed. Once Kehinde tastes freedom, then she can't be expected to accept marital slavery again. This is what her new identity requires and she finds spiritual balance and reconciliation in following the urges of her new bicultural self.