On Black Sisters Street: A Novel (Modern African Writing) - Softcover

Unigwe, Chika

3.87

2,548 ratings by Goodreads

9780821419922: On Black Sisters Street: A Novel (Modern African Writing)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0821419927 ISBN 13: 9780821419922

Publisher: Ohio University Press, 2012

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Chika Unigwe is the winner of the 2012 Nigeria Prize for Literature for On Black Sisters Street.
On Black Sisters Street tells the haunting story of four very different women who have left their African homeland for the riches of Europe—and who are thrown together by bad luck and big dreams into a sisterhood that will change their lives. Each night, Sisi, Ama, Efe, and Joyce stand in the windows of Antwerp’s red-light district, promising to make men’s desires come true—if only for half an hour. They offer their bodies to strangers but their hearts to no one, each focused on earning enough to get herself free, to send money home, or to save up for her own future. Drawn together by Sisi’s murder, the women must choose between their secrets and their safety.
This first paperback edition of On Black Sisters Street celebrates once again the U.S. publication debut of Chika Unigwe, a brilliant new writer and a standout voice among contemporary African authors.

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Review:

“Boiling with a sly, generous humor ... On Black Sisters Street marks the arrival of a latter-day Thackeray, an Afro-Belgian writer who probes with passion, grace and comic verve the underbelly of our globalized new world economy.”
― New York Times Book Review

“Unigwe’s gripping tale chronicles the lives of four African women working as prostitutes in Antwerp’s red-light district.... As Unigwe tells her characters’ stories in interweaving narratives and time lines, the women embody depths of fear and displacement, as well as the will to survive and prosper.”
― Booklist

“This spellbinding novel ... combines a storyteller’s narrative flair with a reporter’s eye for grim, gritty details about the sex industry.... Unigwe crafts her characters’ voices with crystalline prose and compassion, in a revelatory work as tough, humane and unsentimental as its heroines.”
― Caryn James, More Magazine

“In her English-language debut, the Nigerian-born Unigwe convincingly exposes an unfamiliar world without sentimentality.”
― Kirkus Reviews

“Unigwe has a talent for capturing the dashed dreams of young women who are stronger than they imagine.... (T)he women’s personal stories are wrenchingly memorable.”
― Library Journal

“Powerful ... The author’s raw voice, unflinching eye for detail, facility for creating a complex narrative, and affection for her characters make this a must read.”
― Publishers Weekly, starred review

From the Publisher:

Before Efe came to Belgium, she imagined castles and clean streets and snow as white as salt. Belgium: "...a country wey dey Europe. Next door to London."

At the house on the Zwartezusterstraat four very different women have made their way from Africa to claim for themselves the riches of Europe. Sisi, Ama, Efe and Joyce are prostitutes, the girls who stand in the windows of the red-light district, promising to make men's dreams come true - if only for half an hour and fifty euros. The murder of Sisi, the most enigmatic of the women, shatters their already fragile world and, as the women gather to mourn, the stories they have kept hidden are finally told.

Drawn together by the tragedy, the women reveal, each in her own voice, what has brought them to their present lives. Joyce, a great beauty whose life has been destroyed by war; Ama, whose dark moods manifest a past injustice; Efe, whose efforts to earn her keep are motivated by a particular zeal; and, finally, Sisi whose imagination takes her far beyoind the squalor of her relaity. These are stories of terror, of displacement, of love, and of a sinister man named Dele...

Raw, vivid and suffused with the power of the oral storytelling tradition, On Black Sisters' Street is a moving story of the illusion of the West through African eyes, and its annihilation. It is also, however, a story of courage, of unity and of hope.

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