Stay With Me

Ayòbámi Adébáyò

Yejide does not have an easy life. In fact, her life is a tragedy of huge proportions reeling from crisis to crisis, as it approaches disaster. Ayobami Adebayo transfixes you with her tale, like the Ancient Mariner clutching the wedding guest's arm. You will certainly emerge sadder. Whether you emerge wiser depends on your ability to listen.

Extract

Olamide would darken beyond Akin's brownness to my shade, my mother's shade, a midnight black that would glow ethereally in the fierce sun. She would get all the prizes and I would stand up throughout the prize-giving ceremonies at her school.clapping loudly so that everyone would recognise her as my child. She would go on to university, of course, become a doctor, an engineer, an inventor, a Nobel prize-winner in medicine, chemistry or physics.
I could see all of this in her eyes when she suckled my breast, and I was already proud.

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