The Gods of Women Have Gone Mad by Wole Akosile
From Goodreads
The privileged daughter of a prominent village chief challenges age-long traditions. This is much to the chagrin of the ruling class and her family. This sets up a cataclysmic set of events that forever change their thoughts about women and the place of traditional beliefs in an ever-changing world.
About the author
Wole Akosile is a psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist based on the Gold coast. He is also an Afro-Australian author, novelist, and playwright. His works have been performed in several sold-out stage plays at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria in his undergraduate years. When he is not writing, he loves to spend time with his family.
ISBN: 9780648326267
Publisher: Australian Self Publishing Group
Publication date: June 11th 2019
Pages: 160
Review
The story centres around a place called Rolami and a girl who is trying to get people to rethink the tradition of FGM and see the trauma, physically and mentally, that it causes the young girls throughout their reproductive lives.
The opening scene shows the despondency that this pioneering girl experienced because she felt that all her efforts to change a 1000 year old tradition failed, resulting in her trying to commit suicide, albeit unsuccessfully, and as punishment for the shame that she brought upon her family was forced to have FGM done on her anyway.
It became very clear throughout the novel that this tradition was primarily geared as a control mechanism for women as the men blamed them for being promiscuous and not admitting to their own promiscuity. These issues are only just touching the tip of the iceberg. There is a lot more contained in this book’s 160 pages.
The subject matter of this book (Female circumcision aka FGM) is very serious and still happening in some countries in the world today. The way the book is written makes it easy to read in that the language used is easily accessible to whoever the reader is. The reader is given an insight into the culture, and belief structure that allows this practice to continue.
I was drawn into this story from the very first chapter often finding myself getting lost in the story and forgetting about what was happening around me. I had huge difficulty putting this book down. It’s a well written story even though the story is extremely harrowing.
Recommend for: Adults only
Rating: 5 stars
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