Bookish People's Book Club November Book of the Month is 'On Black Sisters' Street' by Chika Unigwe.
Synopsis
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. Pledged to the fierce Madam and a mysterious pimp named Dele, the girls share an apartment but little else—they keep their heads down, knowing that one step out of line could cost them a week’s wages. They open their bodies to strangers but their hearts to no one, each focused on earning enough to get herself free, to send money home or save up for her own future. Then, suddenly, a murder shatters the still surface of their lives. Drawn together by tragedy and the loss of one of their own, the women realize that they must choose between their secrets and their safety. As they begin to tell their stories, their confessions reveal the face in Efe’s hidden photograph, Ama’s lifelong search for a father, Joyce’s true name, and Sisi’s deepest secrets—-and all their tales of fear, displacement, and love, concluding in a chance meeting with a powerful, sinister stranger. (Source: Goodreads)
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On Black Sisters Street in Unigwe debut Novel published by Vintage Books, London, in 2010 (first publication by Jonathan Cape in 2009). It is a raw retelling of the illusion of the dream of the West as told by four African women who are forced into a sisterhood by the tragic circumstances of their dream and their fate in Europe.
Bookish People Book Club will be reading this book this November and will have a sit down on the 17th in Nairobi, Kenya, for an in depth discussion.
Make sure you grab yourself a copy and read with us!
NOTE: 'Bookish People Book Club' is a small community of book lovers from Nairobi, Kenya. The book club is currently focusing on exploring African Literature. We read, review, showcase and recommend notable books by African authors and the Diaspora.
If you would like to join the book club, you can get in touch via email: Muthoni.Moerory@gmail.com