Prisoners in their sordid world

On Black Sisters' Street by Chika Unigwe, 296pp, Jonathan Cape, £12.99

On Black Sisters’ Street tells the story of four women, Ama, Efe, Joyce and Sisi, black Nigerian immigrant prostitutes, working in Antwerp, Belgium. They each have their reasons for travelling from the familiar world of Lagos to the mirage of the bright lights of Antwerp.

What is refreshing in this debut novel is that it is clear that these are not passive victims. They each grasp at the riches that their pimp falsely promises them and which entice them out of their less-than-satisfactory African lives: A child to educate, an abusive step father to escape from, abandonment by a boyfriend, an inability to find a job as a graduate. They are driven by their dreams, and at home in Zwartezusterstraat we see them as women who have courageously tried to take their own lives firmly into their hands, and are living their lives as best they can, with parties, shopping, cooking, working.

But make no mistake. There is no pleasure in strutting one’s stuff behind the brightly lit windows of the red light district, more often there is pain and degradation. The sad inevitability of their shared dream for riches, adds pathos to the story, which reaches its tragic climax in the murder of Sisi. Throughout the novel men feature as rapists, overbearing and weak fathers, and ruthless married men exploiting young girls, lecherous klanten,(customers). The figure of the pimp, Senghor Dele, looms large.

The tension Chika Unigwe builds through the book is between the feisty spirit of these clearly courageous and ambitious women and the harsh reality that over time they will become prisoners in their sordid world. The story is told in a loose flowing style, rather than tight snappy street-wise prose, and as such is reminiscent of the long oral tradition of African story-telling, meandering through the rarely-exposed lives of people living in the underbelly of a modern European city packed full of immigrants. Sometimes the plot is a little too meandering, and is a little too documentary, but the research that the author put into the book has driven an interesting and engaging exploration of the complex mix of motives, reactions and even dignity of women in such circumstances.

For an insight into a generation of young African prostitutes living in Europe and the lives they build in the murky world of sex workers, this is definitely a book to read.

2 Responses to “Prisoners in their sordid world”

• I am actually reading this book right now.

  The plot is depressing, but sadly these things have been going on for a while.

  Just do a simple Google search and you will find a number of cases reports about fellow Nigerians who have sadly fallen into the honey trap, and end up as prostitutes across western Europe pleasuring European men to earn their keep.

  I am about half way through the book

  The author Chika Unigwe was actually in London in December as part of a book festival, and even read some pages from her book at the event (sadly I missed it though as it clashed with another event)

  JP says
  January 13, 2010 at 1:57 pm

• Well written work. I enjoyed everybit of it but must admit it had a sad plot. I felt connected to the women in a strange way. Will do a review of the book for my university newspaper so people can catch glimpse of the realities in the book. After all literature mirrors the society and the Zwartezusterstraat gives a bad reflection that we must all face up to – Life is unfair and Africans back home must get the message that life and living in Europe is not like the biblical Canaan land. It is real, as real as can be.

  bemnyax says
  November 4, 2009 at 8:06 pm