Fadimatu

Linda Perry is a senior policy analyst at the Ontario Ministry of
Colleges and Universities.

This book is the story of a young woman coming of age in Nigeria and
experiencing the clash of cultures: western and African, Christian and
Islamic, traditional and modern. Most pronounced is the clash between
genders, and the competing and irreconcilable demands on women in a
changing society.

This genre is characterized by a formula wherein a bright and beautiful
young woman adopts an untraditional position and takes liberties
inappropriate for women in her society. She may be supported in adopting
this position by some mentor figure, usually male. However, she is
punished for challenging societal constraints. She may be at least
figuratively beaten but remains unbowed. With fierce determination, she
overcomes all obstacles and through her virtue and self-sacrifice
achieves some happy compromise in the end. Itwaru’s Shanti,
Mukherjee’s Jasmine, and Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife are other
recent examples.

Mitton’s heroine, Fadimatu, is refreshing in that she is far from
exemplary. She has no ethical qualms about cheating on exams or sexually
provoking her teachers. It’s not that she breaks the rules, but that
her rules seem to be different. She is able to manage in her own
way—the way of a practical opportunist.

The fact that Mitton lives and taught for some time in Nigeria lends
authenticity to the setting, but with it comes a sense of detachment.
The story is told not by a participant but by a dispassionate observer.
The characters’ exploits are described skilfully but without intimacy
or insight into why they behave as they do.

In all, Fadimatu presents a realistic, quasi-anthropological case study
in the life of a young woman in Nigeria.