The Son of the House

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.