Hawa, the bar girl to be, was born in a village in Ghana in the early 1950s. Her family were emigrants from Upper Volta, which is now called Burkina Faso. When she was three her mother died, and this was the beginning of her misfortunes. For a time she was indulged, because it was believed that dead mothers watch over their babies, and come back to carry them off if they're not treated well. But with middle childhood, indulgence ran out. Her father, a cocoa farmer and a polygamous Muslim, passed her around the extended family.

LRB 21 October 2004 | PDF Download