Shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize 2018
Shortlisted for the Bailey’s Women’s Prize for Fiction 2017
There are things even love can't do ...If the burden is too much and stays too long, even love bends, cracks, comes close to breaking and sometimes does break. But even when it's in a thousand pieces around your feet, that doesn't mean it's no longer love ...
Yejide is hoping for a miracle, for a child.
It is all her husband wants, all her mother-in-law wants, and she has tried everything - arduous pilgrimages, medical consultations, dances with prophets, appeals to God. But when her in-laws insist upon a new wife, it is too much for Yejide to bear. It will lead to jealousy, betrayal and despair.
Unravelling against the social and political turbulence of 80s Nigeria, Stay With Me sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. Ayobami Adebayo weaves a devastating story of the fragility of married love, the undoing of family, the wretchedness of grief, and the all-consuming bonds of motherhood. It is a tale about our desperate attempts to save ourselves and those we love from heartbreak.
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 9781782119609
Number of pages: 304
Weight: 205 g
Dimensions: 198 x 129 x 18 mm
Edition: Main
MEDIA REVIEWS
Scorching, gripping, ultimately lovely - Margaret Atwood
A must read - AFUA HIRSCH
This terrific first novel (shortlisted for the Baileys women's prize for fiction) deals with the daily stresses of living with the political upheavals of the time but the real drama is happening in Yejide's womb. Adebayo unfolds the many layers of truth with insight and skill - The Times
A thoroughly contemporary style that is all her own . . . clever and funny . . . despite the intense sadness of her subject matter, she has produced a bright, big-hearted demonstration of female spirit, as well as the damage done by the boundlessness of male pride - Guardian
Has a remarkable emotional resonance and depth of field [ . . . Adebayo] is an exceptional storyteller. She writes not just with extraordinary grace but with genuine wisdom about love and loss and the possibility of redemption. She has written a powerfully magnetic and heartbreaking book - New York Times
One of the must-reads books of the year so far: Stay With Me has it all, including big themes of love, grief and jealousy, a fantastic female protagonist plus it reads like a page-turning thriller - Stylist
Affecting and powerful . . . Adebayo's prose is a pleasure: immediate, unpretentious and flecked with whip-smart Nigerian-English dialogue - Sunday Times
This deeply impressive novel of infertility, loneliness and longing is the first by the hotly-tipped Adebayo and it packs a tremendous punch - Daily Mail
This confident and fearless writer challenges us to think about marriage from all perspectives in her first novel . . . Stay With Me is the closely observed, heartbreaking and original tale of the desperate attempts we make to save ourselves from severing the very bonds that make us - ELLE
This impressive debut creates, in deceptively simple prose, a portrait of a marriage in crisis in a deeply patriarchal and oppressive society - Mail on Sunday
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I was given a free copy of Stay With Me by Net Galley in exchange for an honest review.
Stay With Me grabbed me from the first page and wouldn't let me go until I arrived wrung out at the end. Set during a period...
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