{"id":1882,"date":"2021-07-08T10:45:04","date_gmt":"2021-07-08T09:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?p=1882"},"modified":"2021-07-08T10:45:04","modified_gmt":"2021-07-08T09:45:04","slug":"review-the-son-of-the-house-by-cheluchi-onyemelukwe-onuobia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/07\/08\/review-the-son-of-the-house-by-cheluchi-onyemelukwe-onuobia\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: THE SON OF THE HOUSE by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Europa Editions, 2021<\/h2>\n<p>First of all, subscribers might have noticed that the blog posts have been coming less frequently lately, and I\u2019m sorry for this. As long-term readers will know from my <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2020\/03\/25\/an-open-letter\/\">open letter<\/a> last year, I had hoped to carry on as normal during the pandemic, despite the added time restrictions that came with balancing work and homeschooling. As the months have gone by and things haven\u2019t eased up, I\u2019ve had to significantly reduce the number of books I read and review. I have my reviews backlog down to four books, so there will be a few in quick succession now and then a break again for part of the summer; I\u2019m grateful for your patience while the posts are less regular.<\/p>\n<p>I hope you\u2019ll enjoy the review I\u2019ve got for you today: it\u2019s a slightly different review than usual, in that the book isn\u2019t a translation. It\u2019s by Nigerian debut author Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia, and is written in English. This actually raised some interesting questions as I was reading it, as there were frequent turns of phrase that stood out to me as a different kind of English than UK English, and this made me fall down a rabbit hole: I asked myself whether if it were a translation it would come under easy fire for not being \u201cauthentic\u201d in English, whereas authenticity can be just as much about the source context as the target context. Anyway, I didn\u2019t reach a conclusion on that, but it made me think about how translations are judged in terms of linguistic quality (including by me) and what biases we might bring to it when we talk about \u201cquality\u201d, and so I thought I\u2019d throw it out there so you can join me down the rabbit hole!<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1885\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/07\/Son-of-the-House.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"373\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/07\/Son-of-the-House.jpg 240w, https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/601\/2021\/07\/Son-of-the-House-193x300.jpg 193w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 240px) 100vw, 240px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>The Son of the House <\/em>follows the lives of two very different women who, for the most part of the narrative, are entirely unaware of what binds them together. Three separate stories unfold: first there is the framing narrative, in the present day, when Nwabulu and Julie find themselves together in a sticky situation. Then as they tell their stories to one another, we are transported back first to Nwabulu\u2019s miserable and abusive childhood, then later her attempts to find autonomy and her love affair with Urenna, the son of a rich family, and the pain and humiliation that relationship ultimately brings her. Next we delve into Julie\u2019s past: she is educated and therefore respected as a professional, but single and therefore not valued as a woman. This state of affairs, and the age she finds herself at, force her to resort to desperate measures in order to marry a man she barely tolerates. Finally, the two back stories come together when the women fall victim to what the blurb for <em>Son of the House <\/em>describes as \u201cdramatic events straight out of a movie.\u201d I confess this wasn\u2019t a line that pulled me in (I\u2019m not a fan of improbably sensational tales), but the dramatic events referenced were, I thought, entirely believable \u2013 the bigger suspension of belief has to come regarding the connection between the two women. I managed not to be too cynical, though, as I reminded myself how often \u201creal life\u201d brings enormous coincidences of people and place, and the coincidence in question is well thought through in terms of narrative development. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s intended to be any significant mystery or revelation, as I guessed it almost instantly (and I am notoriously terrible at guessing correctly when it comes to plot intrigue). So although I still won\u2019t mention the details because NO SPOILERS, I suspect you\u2019ll figure out fairly swiftly what connects the two women, and then you can just enjoy reading about how they each arrived at the point they find themselves when the narrative opens.<\/p>\n<p>The focus on women underlines the many cultural and social restrictions they face in their daily lives, and how these change (or not) in the course of several decades: this focus reflects Onyemelukwe-Onuobia\u2019s work as a lawyer working against gendered violence, and shows how social status and wealth can never truly protect women from being reduced to objects and targets. The women are helpless in the face of men\u2019s lies and machinations, and too often other women are complicit in their condemnation, the frustratingly facile phrases \u201cbecause he is a man\u201d or \u201cbecause you are (just) a woman\u201d so frequently used to legitimate life-altering injustices. The civil war and its aftermath is an omnipresent backdrop, but cleverly woven into the narrative without any obvious agenda. Similarly, the perilous circumstances in which the women find themselves is not just a narrative device to entangle their fates, but also a comment on the fragility of freedom for women in Nigeria. <em>The Son of the House <\/em>is an extremely enjoyable novel: it offers intrigue without relying too much on mystery or suspense, and the humanity of \u201ctwo women doing their best in their world\u201d radiates as much in Nwabulu and Julie\u2019s moments of ignominy as in their moments of glory.<\/p>\n<h6>Review copy of <em>The Son of the House <\/em>provided by Europa Editions<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Europa Editions, 2021 First of all, subscribers might have noticed that the blog posts have been coming less frequently lately, and I\u2019m sorry for this. As long-term readers will know from my open letter last year, I had hoped to carry on as normal during the pandemic, despite the added time restrictions that came with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[201,319,667,959],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Review: THE SON OF THE HOUSE by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia - Translating Women<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2021\/07\/08\/review-the-son-of-the-house-by-cheluchi-onyemelukwe-onuobia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Review: THE SON OF THE HOUSE by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia - Translating Women\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Europa Editions, 2021 First of all, subscribers might have noticed that the blog posts have been coming less frequently lately, and I\u2019m sorry for this. 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