Young Esi Agyekum is the unofficial “secret keeper” of her family, as tight-lipped about her father's adultery as she is about her half-sisters’ sex lives.
But after she is humiliated and punished for her own sexual exploration, Esi begins to question why women's secrets and men's secrets bear different consequences.
It is the beginning of a journey of discovery that will lead her to unexpected places.
As she navigates her burgeoning womanhood, Esi tries to reconcile her own ideals and dreams with her family’s complicated past and troubled present, as well as society’s many double standards that limit her and other women.
Against a fraught political climate, Esi fights to carve out her own identity, and learns to manifest her power in surprising and inspiring ways.
Funny, fresh, and fiercely original, The Teller of Secrets marks the American debut of one of West Africa's most exciting literary talents.
My Review of The Teller of Secrets by Bisi Adjapon.
I love Esi, her boldness, her fierceness. But she doesn't become bold, fierce in a day. No. She takes us through her journey and draws us into her life, and I love the way she keeps leading us deeper and deeper into her life, fears, beliefs, suffering, till her story finally ends.
At the young age of nine, she is left to figure out life by herself, and even though she has elder sisters who would teach her things she's supposed to know about her evolving body, they don't.
She is left all by herself to wonder and wonder. Being a Ghanaian - Nigerian, she and her younger brother Kwabena, leave their mother in Nigeria to go live in Ghana with their father and step mother and sisters.
But instead of warm hugs and kisses, her step mother and sisters serve her exactly what is expected of polygamous families, hostility.
Her sisters Abena, Yaa, and Mansa treat her like the nickname they call her, 'Nigerian animal.' They despise her and don't even bother trying to hide their irritation.
Maybe they're jealous she has come from Nigeria to steal their Papa's affection from them, or they're outright wicked.
She, too isn't all innocent, because she curses them out inwardly too. She even nicknames the worst of the lot, Yaa, 'Crocodile Jaws' because she is ugly and looks exactly like a crocodile.
Esi is an inquisitive girl. She craves answers, why is her body changing? What is going on inside her?
But instead of answers, her auntie and step sisters insert ginger inside her vagina, because she was caught peering into it with a mirror.
The truth is she just wants to know what her vagina looks like, which is normal for a girl her age. But her family calls her a spoilt girl and deal with her mercilessly.
However, she's the secret keeper of the house. She knows Papa and 'Hotel woman' are having sex, she caught them on the night she spent with her father at a hotel in Accra, but she doesn't tell anyone.
She even knows Hotel woman has a baby for Papa, and she doesn't tell anyone too, because she feels that's the right thing to do.
She knows Mansa doesn't go for choir practice on the days she pretends to, and even the night he sneaks a man inside their house. She is in the room with them, but doesn't tell anyone.
Since answers are not coming from her family, she seeks them from school. She buries herself in books and learn that a woman can be anything she wants to be.
At home, though Papa is an academia, he still maintains his patriarchal beliefs that a woman's glory is her husband.
But Esi starts unlearning and relearning every thing she has been taught. She learns to speak out for herself, for her rights, whenever need be.
Esi is feisty and outspoken. When the police tries to harass her and her brother on their way back from Nigeria, she challenges them and insists they settle at the station.
When Papa beats Auntie, she challenges her father and warns him to never lay a hand on his wife again.
She doesn't even know where this courage comes from, she just knows she would take no rubbish from no one.
When she becomes much older, and her elder sisters try to bully her like before, she stands up against them and dare them to.
She's no longer the weak nine year old, who cowers in fear when they curse and scream at her.
In fact, if I am to describe her with a line from a song, it will be from Burna Boy's 'Last Last. "I no go fit take your insult o..." she doesn't entertain any form of disrespect from no one.
This book explores so many themes like the importance of sex education, female rights and emancipation, military coup and self governance, human rights activism and freedom of expression.
If Esi was given adequate sex education and orientation as a child, she would have averted some of the mistakes she would make in future.
Set in the 1960's and 70's when Ghana was experiencing tremendous changes in government, the book tells us stories of how Ghana existed prior to the 21st century, and how those changes affected them and their relationships with other countries like Nigeria and Togo.
In love, Esi is expressive and goes all out. With Kayode and Rudolph, she experiences true love and learns what she wants and does not want in a man.
She speaks up for her sisters when they're being maltreated by their husbands, and finally chooses her life, a life where she is free to live as Esi, and do whatever pleases her.
Because at the end of the day, we all have only ourselves and we should do more of what makes us happy.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, the narration and descriptions. The characters play their roles very well, and I love how Bisi draws us in with her storytelling technique, how she teaches us history without boring us.
I am glad she brought Esi's story to life, and I resonated with some aspects of her experiences. In all, it's a refreshing read and I seriously recommend. It's a 4.7/5 book for me.
Have you read the book? What do you think about it? Please share your thoughts with me in the comment section.
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