Love & Sickle Cell in Stay With Me
Sunday 7 July, 11:00 – 11:45
British Library Knowledge Centre, Main Auditorium

The author in conversation with award winning author Chibundu Onuzo.

Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ discusses love, desire and the devastating consequences of sickle cell in her critically acclaimed debut Stay With Me, shortlisted for the 2017 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction, the Wellcome Book Prize and the 9mobile Prize for Literature among others.

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, appeals to God. But when her relatives 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 1980s Nigeria, Stay With Me sings with the voices, colours, joys and fears of its surroundings. The novel is 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.

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Included in Weekend Pass and Sunday Day Ticket.

Image: Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ by Pixels Photography and Chibundu Onuzu by Blayke Images