Ghana in the 1960s and '70s. This is not a country, a time, or a way of life that most readers will know much about. “Child of Polygamy” relates the many interesting, fictional stories of Safia, her extended family, and her community, and how they react to and initiate change in their lives.

AuthorHouse (2005)
ISBN 1420873067
Reviewed by Deb Shunamon for Reader Views (8/06)


Ghana in the 1960s and '70s. This is not a country, a time, or a way of life that most readers will know much about. “Child of Polygamy” relates the many interesting, fictional stories of Safia, her extended family, and her community, and how they react to and initiate change in their lives. The novel starts off with Safia's memory of a potentially deadly situation involving her grandfather Mededu, the town's Chief. The reader is presented with an interesting story of the traditional way of handling things then is immediately exposed to the ever-present theme of change as we learn that this very likeable character is constantly under siege by Safia's mother to convert to Christianity. As Safia grows, her personal tragedies and triumphs are told alongside those of many other characters and situations resulting in a book packed full of interesting vignettes. An interesting fictional story, it's also a sociological comment on a small town in Ghana, and is written with as much detail as an anthropological text.

It's also a lovely, professional looking book both inside and out. From its topics of societal ethics and the price of unacceptable behaviour, to the more mundane ones of schooling, spanking, and what's being made for supper, a lot is covered with its very relaxed pace of writing. Lovely language such as "...a long hug, one that expressed the fulfillment of a need for human touch more than just greetings..." help to keep the novel grounded as a piece of fiction. Occasional tense changes and switches in the style of writing interrupt some of the flow, with emotional situations often being followed by long descriptive passages or chapters before returning to the story, but I was kept continually curious about what was going to happen to Safia next, right up to the extremely satisfying ending.

To many North American readers, the title will seem a bit risque, but anything scandalous has been kept to the end of the novel where an explanation of polygamous marriage arrangements are given a matter of fact, rational explanation revealing the normalcy of it in this society. If there's any darker excitement to be had it's in a chapter involving incest. I'm not entirely sure why this universal taboo was included as the book seems to generally present daily or reoccurring situations, but the episode is handled thoughtfully and its consequences used to support a different situation and the collective demand for change.

Most readers would be hard-pressed to point out Ghana on a map without some thought, and I believe even more would know little of its history or present day situation. This book will leave the reader surprised at how much knowledge they have gained about this one group of African people, and more importantly, it shows how little effort is made in North America to present the everyday lives of Africans to us. Although the information in “Child of Polygamy” is now thirty years old, there is clearly much more for us to be told about the countries and peoples of Africa than what our newscasts present, and our schools neglect to teach.