'Fresh, timeless ... a lively work of art' Observer

'Buchi Emecheta was the foremother of black British women's writing . . . powerful fictions written from and about our lives' Bernardine Evaristo

'Most dreams, as all dreamers know quite well, do have setbacks. Adah's dream was no exception, for hers had many'

They nicknamed Adah 'the Igbo tigress' at school in Nigeria, she was so fearless. Now she has moved to London to join her husband, and is determined to succeed. But her welcome from 1960's England - and the man she married - is a cold one. Providing for her growing family, struggling to survive and negotiating everyday injustices along the way, Adah still resolves that she will never give up her dream of becoming a writer.

'Bold, brave, defiant ... its exploration of blackness, the white gaze, and the development of the main character Adah's sense of self is extremely powerful' Gal-dem

"Fresh, timeless ... a lively work of art" - Observer

"The foremother of black British women's writing . . . her early books, in particular, were powerful fictions written from and about our lives" - TLS

"Haunting . . . the trials and tribulations in Adah's personal life . . . are set against the endemic racism (and to only a slightly lesser degree, the sexism) she has to contend with in sixties London" - Paris Review

"Emecheta's prose has a shimmer of originality, of English being reinvented ... issues of survival lie inherent in her material and give her tales weight" - John Updike

"A harrowing immigrant story of racism and domestic violence - it shook me to the core when I first read it . . . Buchi Emecheta was a writer who struggled against all kinds of odds to produce novels that are now lodged deep in the DNA of almost every African writer" - author of The Museum

"Gripping and authentic " - Guardian

"Bold, brave, defiant ... its exploration of blackness, the white gaze, and the development of the main character Adah's sense of self is extremely powerful and continues to hold great relevance in contemporary British society" - Gal-dem

"Emecheta revealed the thoughts and aspirations of her countrywomen, shaped by a patriarchal culture but stirred by the modern promise of freedom and self-definition" - The New York Times

"Emecheta's women do not simply lie down and die ... always there is resistance, a challenge to fate, a need to renegotiate the terms of the uneasy peace that exists between them and accepted traditions" - The Voice Literary Supplement