Before getting married, it is essential to equip oneself with knowledge and insight that can help navigate the complexities of this lifelong commitment. While no book can fully prepare you for marriage, certain books offer invaluable guidance and perspectives that can help you understand of love, communication, and partnership.
In our latest book recommendation, we have compiled a list of seven books that explore various aspects of marriage and relationships—from communication and conflict resolution to intimacy and personal growth. Whether you’re engaged, considering marriage, or simply curious, these books by African authors offer insights that are invaluable for building lifelong partnerships.
Read our recommendations below.
STAY WITH ME
Author: AYỌ̀BÁMI ADÉBÁYỌ̀
Genre: FICTION
Yejide and Akin have been married since they met and fell in love at university. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, he and Yejide have always agreed: polygamy is not for them. But four years into their marriage—after consulting fertility doctors and healers, trying strange teas and unlikely cures—Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time–until her family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as Akin’rs second wife. Furious, shocked, and livid with jealousy, Yejide knows the only way to save her marriage is to get pregnant, which, finally, she does—but at a cost far greater than she could have dared to imagine. Stay With Me asks how much we can sacrifice for the sake of family.
THE PARLOUR WIFE
AUTHOR: FOLUSO AGBAJE
GENRE: FICTION
With the announcement of the Second World War and a change that sends shockwaves through her family, Kehinde is forced to put aside her dreams of writing and become the third wife of Mr Ogunjobi. Kehinde makes her peace by selling snacks at a small market. When she gets the chance to assist the leader of the Lagos Women’s Market Association, fighting for the rights the British are trying to take away, Kehinde finally feels useful again. But if her husband finds out he’ll abandon her. Can Kehinde find the courage to fight for herself and the other women of Lagos? Or will she remain a caged bird, a parlour wife, forever. The Parlor Wife is a poignant story of a young Nigerian woman, living with the consequences of a war her country didn’t choose.
CHANGES
AUTHOR: AMA ATA AIDOO
GENRE: FICTION
Living in Ghana’s capital city of Accra with a postgraduate degree and a career in data analysis, Esi Sekyi is a thoroughly modern African woman. Perhaps that is why she decides to divorce her husband after enduring yet another morning’s marital rape. Though her friends and family are baffled by her decision (after all, he doesn’t beat her!), Esi holds fast. When she falls in love with a married man—wealthy, and able to arrange a polygamous marriage—the modern woman finds herself trapped in a new set of problems.
THE MEMORY OF LOVE
AUTHOR: AMINATTA FORNA
GENRE: FICTION
In contemporary Sierra Leone, a devastating civil war has left an entire populace with secrets to keep. In the capital hospital, a gifted young surgeon is plagued by demons that are beginning to threaten his livelihood. Elsewhere in the hospital lies a dying man who was young during the country’s turbulent postcolonial years and has stories to tell that are far from heroic. As past and present intersect in the buzzing city, these men are drawn unwittingly closer by a British psychologist with good intentions, and into the path of one woman at the center of their stories.The Memory of Love seamlessly weaves together two generations of African life to create a story of loss, absolution, and the indelible effects of the past—and, in the end, the very nature of love.
BEHOLD THE DREAMERS
AUTHOR: IMBOLO MBUE
GENRE: FICTION
Jende Jonga, a Cameroonian immigrant living in Harlem, has come to the United States to provide a better life for himself, his wife, Neni, and their six-year-old son. In the fall of 2007, Jende can hardly believe his luck when he lands a job as a chauffeur for Clark Edwards, a senior executive at Lehman Brothers. Clark demands punctuality, discretion, and loyalty—and Jende is eager to please. Clark’s wife, Cindy, even offers Neni temporary work at the Edwardses’ summer home in the Hamptons. With these opportunities, Jende and Neni can at last gain a foothold in America and imagine a brighter future.
However, the world of great power and privilege conceals troubling secrets, and soon Jende and Neni notice cracks in their employers’ façades.
When the financial world is rocked by the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Jongas are desperate to keep Jende’s job—even as their marriage threatens to fall apart. As all four lives are dramatically upended, Jende and Neni are forced to make an impossible choice.
HIS ONLY WIFE
AUTHOR: PEACE ADZO MEDIE
GENRE: FICTION
Afi Tekple is a young seamstress whose life is narrowing rapidly. She lives in a small town in Ghana with her widowed mother, spending much of her time in her uncle Pious’s house with his many wives and children. Then one day she is offered a life-changing opportunity—a proposal of marriage from the wealthy family of Elikem Ganyo, a man she doesn’t truly know. She acquiesces, but soon realizes that Elikem is not quite the catch he seemed. He sends a stand-in to his own wedding, and only weeks after Afi is married and installed in a plush apartment in the capital city of Accra does she meet her new husband. It turns out that he is in love with another woman, whom his family disapproves of; Afi is supposed to win him back on their behalf. But it is Accra that eventually wins Afi’s heart and gives her a life of independence that she never could have imagined for herself.
THE SECRET LIVES OF BABA SEGI’S WIVES
AUTHOR: LOLA SHONEYIN
GENRE: FICTION
The Secret Lives of Babi Segi’s Wives is an entertaining and eye-opening novel of polygamy in modern-day Nigeria. The struggles, rivalries, intricate family politics, and the interplay of personalities and relationships within the complex private world of a polygamous union come to life in this book.