Shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature

Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize

In Igboland, the lives of two Nigerian women change forever…

In the city of Enugu in the 1970s, young Nwabulu dreams of becoming a typist as she endures the endless chores she is tasked with by her employers. She’s been a housemaid since the age of ten, but she is tall and beautiful and in love with a rich man’s son.
Educated and privileged, Julie is a modern woman. Living on her own, she is happy to collect the gold jewellery love-struck Eugene brings her, but has no intention of becoming his second wife.
When, years later, dramatic events straight out of a movie force Nwabulu and Julie into a dank room, the two women relate the stories of their lives as they await their fate.
Pulsing with vitality and intense human drama, Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia’s debut is set against four decades of vibrant Nigerian history, and celebrates the resilience of women as they navigate and transform what remains a man’s world.

Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia
Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia is a lawyer working in the areas of health, gender, and violence against women and children, and, since the publication of The Son of the House, one of Nigeria’s brightest literary talents.

• Apr 7 2021
  The Son of the House
  — Publishers Weekly