The Baby Is Mine is a short story set in Lagos, Nigeria, during the COVID-19 lockdown. It follows an entanglement that Bambi, a young man thrown out by his girlfriend, happened upon, between his late uncle’s wife and his late uncle’s mistress, who were, strangely, isolating together in the same house.
Book Summary
Bambi was living well, being taken care of by his latest woman during the lockdown in Lagos. That was until she found incriminating evidence of cheating on his phone and kicked him out in the middle of the night.
What was he to do? Where was he to go?
He decided to go to his late uncle’s house, knowing there was always a space for him there. But what he found was unexpected: his aunty Bidemi was sharing the house with his uncle’s mistress and the baby.
The baby, as the title suggests, became the mystery. Whose baby was it? Was it Aunty Bidemi’s or someone else’s?
Bambi suddenly found himself playing the role of peacekeeper between the two women, who one day, seemingly out of the blue, started fighting over the maternity of the child. In the wake of the maternity dispute, there were worrying happenings around the house, including tribal scores on the baby’s face. As tensions grew, the baby’s safety came into question, and Bambi took it upon himself to be his protector.
Whose baby is it really? And was peace ever restored?
Grab your copy to find out.
Recommendations
I read this book because I love Oyinkan Braithwaite’s work. Having read Treasure and My Sister, the Serial Killer, and excitedly anticipating Cursed Daughters, due for release in September 2025, I wanted to add The Baby Is Mine to my Oyinkan collection.
However, I have to say, I struggled to finish this one, even though it’s a short story. Oyinkan’s usual humour and touch of darkness were there for sure, but I didn’t enjoy this story as much as I had anticipated.
As is typical of short stories, it left me wanting more, but that’s a characteristic of the genre, not a flaw of the author.
My rating: 3 out of 5 stars. I just couldn’t connect with it. But if you’re looking for a quick read and a few laughs, this one might be for you.
Motherhood is a multitude of existence. When one becomes a mother, they cease to exist for themselves. The first chapter of Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night reflects this. Mothers are charged with bringing life into the world, cultivating it, pruning it, watering it, and caring for it. Most mothers would do anything for their children’s well-being and survival. Sometimes, it means leaving them (physically) to be their mother, as one of the protagonists in this book emphasised.
Book Summary and Reflections
Living, Loving, and Lying Awake at Night is a collection of short stories in two parts. Part one consists of nine short chapters about women at work, maids, and their’ modems’, titled after these working women. Part two consists of seven short chapters and focuses on other stories.
The first chapter follows Atini, a woman living in destitution with her children. Her husband works away often and hardly sends anything their way in terms of sustenance. She must make a difficult decision. She must decide what to do to be a mother to her children. She decided to leave them, realising: “I would not be a mother if I didn’t do this.” (p. 7)
The following chapters in this book also surround Atini’s story, but more on how she listens to the narrations of other maids – gossiping monologues, where the women come to Atini to tell her about their ‘medems’ and warn her of her medem, including things to look out for and so on. Atini does not say anything during these visits, but her reflections are reserved for the final chapter in Part One.
As the women narrate their stories and troubles, they are utterly hilarious, but they express various vital themes, such as the inequalities between whites and blacks in South Africa during that time and, probably, for some, today still. Their exploitative working conditions and the lack of advancement in some of their lives. Atini helps us understand the humour in her reflections in Chapter 9 — laughter is a better option than crying.
This brings me back to the notion of Black Joy, which Elaine Nichols explains: “When people live in a world that devalues them because they are black or brown and dismisses their contributions to the larger society, Black Joy is and has been an effective tool that has allowed individuals and groups to shift the impact of negative narratives and events in their favor.”
Therefore, it is not because these women do not see the terrible realities of their lives but because, in the midst of all that, they choose to find moments of joy, not in the happy-go-lucky type of way but in a way that resists, that is resilient, and that reclaims, as Elaine Nichols states. We see similar Black Joy exhibited in We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo.
White women employ black women. Women with their own families are treated less than human by their ‘medems’. Many of the stories explore exploitation, but also highlight agency. Joyce particularly stood out to me. She is young and political – she speaks of inequalities and human rights and makes a case for why whites and blacks should all have the same benefits and treatment. However, upon closer examination of the other stories, the other women also speak of these inequalities, questioning how they are treated and how their humanity is often regarded or disregarded.
Stella, in Chapter 3, for instance, ends her monologue with: “Ho! White people! You slave for them. Slave for their children. slave for their friends. Even slave for their cats and dogs. And they thank you with a kick in the back.” (p. 19). The women use animals and other objects to emphasise how inhumane they are treated.
Atini stated it in a profound manner when she stated: “They hate to see anything free. The flowers of the veld – made for fresh air, sunshine, and freedom – they pluck and imprison inside their houses. Like us, the flowers have no choice.” (p. 54)
Joyce is young and a feminist. She especially questions the wages paid to the maids and compares how white women’s lives will advance. In contrast, the black women working with them cannot advance because of the ridiculous pay they receive. We see this same theme woven in all the stories, too, in the older maids stuck with their employers and in Atini’s reflections.
On top of that, the white women infantilise the black women who work for them. Atini compared the wages they pay to those of white women’s twelve-year-old children’s allowances. She reflects: “white women may grow; they may become distingusidhed writters, champion golfers, renowned fashiondesigners, executives, and anything else; it is the unappreciated black women, who slave for them for next to nothing, who give them the time to indulge their fancies, follow their dreams, and live their fantasies to the fullest.” (p. 41)
The women in general refer to their work as “slave work” (p. 43). In Chapter 9, Atini reflects on how black women lack the tools to achieve anything; they cannot thrive, merely survive: “Where would I get the money to pay anyone enough?” I don’t get enough myself. Enough is not for people like me. It is a word that has one meaning for us. Trouble. That is about the only thing we have enough of. Not wages. Not food. Not money. Not clothes. Not children’s books. Not house. Not marriage. Not doctors…” (p. 51). This again reinforces the exploitative relationships these women had with their employers, working almost for free, which is deeply exploitative.
Atini speaks of not having a pass, and this implies that the book was set in apartheid South Africa, and as such, these women’s experiences are very much in line with that system. They were hardly allowed to go home to their families, too, a common element of the apartheid exploitative system.
But Atini raises a poignant point, both the Black women and the white women are suffering, just in different ways. This brings to mind the patriarchy that also affects white women. In the apartheid era, many of these women were confined to the home. None of these ‘medems’ actually worked; they were home all day, save for that occasional visit to the beauty shop or maybe to town, but in a way, they are stuck at home. They depend on their Black women employees, and they take out their frustrations on them. In this, they get to exercise some form of power, because their larger society gives much of that to the white men.
The book’s second half was completely disjointed from the first half, which threw me off. I read the stories that came, all in their differences and complexities, all interesting but different from Atini’s stories. But this is the nature of short stories. They are different. I had to step away from the book for a few days to calibrate and return to it. It did feel like I was reading two or more books, but the themes of injustice, inequality, apartheid, poverty, hope, and the fight for better conditions remain visible throughout.
Recommendation
This is a short story book; if you enjoy short stories, please go for it. You can read it at your own pace and do not necessarily have to remember what happened before (save for the book’s first half to connect the stories).
This book may be hard to follow if you require a long, coherent narrative, especially in the second half. But all in all, the stories told here are important and raise questions about apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Sindiwe Magona is also one of my favourite South African authors. I love her writing style; she masterfully breaks down complexity without losing sight of the critical message in such complex stories.
About the Author
Dr Sindiwe Magona is a South African author who has published widely, including two autobiographies. Her works include: To My Children’s Children and Forced To Grow; two collections of short stories: Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night and Push-Push and Other Stories; and four novels: Mother to Mother, Beauty’s Gift, Life is a Hard but Beautiful Thing, and Chasing Tails of My Father’s Cattle!
Dr Magona has also received various recognitions, including a Lifetime Achievement Award (2007) for contributing to South African literature.
My copy of African Love Stories: An Anthology, edited by Ama Ata Aidoo, was captured on a sunny day. Photograph by Tungombili Shangadi.
African Love Stories: Introduction
In my usual way, I went into this book blindly. I read the title, and I was sold. I love love and was extremely excited to read about African love stories. But Ama Ata Aidoo makes it very clear in the introduction that these are not conventional (the Western love stories we are used to) love stories.
These stories are about love nevertheless—in the various ways it is experienced. Relationships that sometimes had a romantic connection, and others with other aims, like survival. In some of them, the love story is not told.
The point that Aidoo makes is that, firstly, African love stories exist. That people do not always live and live happily ever after. Love stories are certainly never smooth.
She adds:
“The twenty-one tales that make up this edition are some of the most complex love stories any reader may have come across in a long time” (page xi).
I concur.
Book Summary
This book is an anthology containing 21 short stories of African people, spanning across the continent. I counted Sudan, several from Nigeria, Uganda, Ghana, Egypt, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast, and Kenya.
Many of the stories do not detail romantic love, and some narrate the afterlives of relationships. Some do not even detail a love connection but rather allude to one. The stories are about the ordinary realities of everyday life—the complexities of co-existence, navigating race, cultural differences, forbidden love in some cases and survival relationships in others. The stories vary in length – Some of the stories are so short that just as you get into them, they end. This is what I felt with Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s Modupe—an extremely short story about a woman reminiscing in an airport lounge.
However, I found many of them—being African myself—resonated with me. Many times, I felt like I was reading something from my own community. It always fascinates me how similar we all are. For instance, strange white men coming to do business in our villages and cities, and taking a native girl for themselves, like in Tropical Fish by Doreen Baingana.
Extramarital affairs, as explored in various stories. ‘Transition to Glory’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie—this one had a sudden and unusual, yet very real, twist to it, which I thoroughly enjoyed. The emotions, the commotion, the calm, and even the audacity in the end were remarkable. Molara Ogundipe’s ‘Give Us That Spade!’ details the remnants of an extramarital affair, and it was hilarious! I loved it. I loved the complexity but also the determination and bravery.
Equally, ‘The Rival’ by Yaba Badoe was a hilarity. The audacity of both the sister and the niece is out of this world—or is it? What was striking for me, though, was how Mr. Mensah tried to love the women in his life the best way he could—gentle but firm and fair. He stood up for his wife but also helped his sister and her children, including the one who thought herself worthy of replacing his wife!
I thought Blessing Musariri’s Counting Down the Hours was quite heartbreaking and had many layers of complexity. I loved it when Namibia, my home country, was mentioned, but it left me heartbroken in its brief yet impactful narration of the different relationships we have—family, lovers, and ourselves—and the hurt and loneliness of abandonment.
Véronique Tadjo’s offering, A Sunny Afternoon, is not an extramarital relationship, but it could have been. It was definitely a romantic love story—albeit one-sided and even delusional, but all the same, hopeful. This one was quite gripping, very intense, and complex. I gasped and gasped and gasped as I read. It can be relatable in so many ways to so many people: intense desire, mistakes, self-inflicted heartbreak, bold moves, misjudgment, abandonment. It was everything, and I loved it.
I was a little sad when the protagonist thought on page 220:
“What a silly thing to have done. Nobody escapes reality. Nobody can escape the truth.”
The Lawless by Sefi Atta painted such a bleak picture of loss, poverty, and a government failing its people. The love story—if one can even call it that—was not the main feature, but the author builds several layers that one must peel like an onion. The theme of survival is very much at the centre, but as much of life is, it intertwines with others.
Interracial relationships are narrated in Something Old, Something New by Leila Aboulela, and Marriage and Other Impediments by Tomi Adeaga. There are definite love stories here, but they are not the focus. The focus is elsewhere—overcoming various impediments: culture, religion, race, parental expectations, and much more.
Mildred Kiconco Barya’s Scars of Earth, set in Uganda, was very short but striking. I was reading it expecting something else to have happened—only for the ending to reveal another. This story does not even narrate the love story itself, but leaves it up to our imagination to figure out how much that love story meant to the protagonist.
Sindiwe Magona’s Modi’s Bride tugged at my heartstrings. I could vividly imagine Modi—a strong, determined man who knew exactly who he wanted and would not settle for just anything or anyone. I was surprised that marriage in their culture could come by way of abduction—I thought that was interesting. This story had all the makings of the romantic love stories we consume in Western literature and media: a warrior, a beautiful woman, a tragedy, and a rescue.
Monica Arac de Nyeko’s Jambula Tree was interesting—different from all the rest so far in a particular way, but also like the others in its complexity. It interweaves several stories in one, with snippets across generations—refreshing in that way.
Helen Oyeyemi’s The Telltale Heart was very poetic and lyrical. It might need a few re-reads to grasp—at least, I needed to revisit it to understand some of its deep-rooted meanings.
Nawal El Saadawi’s The Veil was very short, approximately four pages. It was something of a love story, but again, there is a lot to reflect on there—on the relationships we have with ourselves and the way we navigate our relationships with others. Something the protagonist said on page 210 stayed with me:
“A violent desire to find out can sometimes be more compelling than the desire for love and can, at times, draw me into loveless contact simply to satisfy that curiosity.”
Chika Unigwe’s Possessing the Secret of Joy is the penultimate story, and it started off with a very familiar but very bleak beginning. The pressures of parents to marry well—marry rich to lift the family out of poverty. That is a type of pressure that is unimaginable. It has the effect of stripping one of their autonomy, their hold on their own lives.
But what is one to do when one has to think about more than themselves? When the worst has happened to them, and their mother did the best she could to keep them alive? My heart bled for Uju, but it fluttered warmly for her in the end, when Unigwe defined the secret of joy Uju possessed!
Wangui wa Goro’s Deep Sea Fishing was so romantic and touching. I kept thinking the whole time—reciprocity. It was a remarkable way to end the book.
Final Reflections and Recommendations
I did as Ama Ata Aidoo advised in the beginning—took each story in its individuality, savoured it, and sat in it to truly appreciate each and every one. This is what I did; I read one story at a time and let the characters and the storylines sink in.
By nature, I do not gravitate towards short stories, as I tend to have more questions in the end, longing to find out more, knowing no more will come. But these stories, varying in length and tenacity, were holistic nonetheless. They are stories that cover broad themes that encapsulate our varied lived experiences. Although fictional, they resonate in many degrees.
I would recommend it for all adults. Not for those looking for typical romantic stories—even though some of the stories contain this theme—but for those looking for relatable, real stories of how love manifests in our lives in various degrees.
And to cement Aidoo’s advice: read them slowly to take them in.
