Kehinde

With her usual lucidity and in a lilting yet plain-spoken style, Emecheta ( Head Above Water ) tells of a woman's search for independence. Albert and Kehinde Okolo have been living in London for 18 years when Albert's sisters begin pressuring him to return to Nigeria. Kehinde resists the idea: their two children have never been to Nigeria and she has recently learned that she is pregnant. At Albert's insistence she has an abortion. Albert then leaves, and Kehinde remains behind to sell the house. After Albert sends for the children, Kehinde is lonely at first but manages on her own. Eventually, she begins to feel like a ``half-person'' without Albert, gives up her job and departs for Nigeria. On her arrival, she is horrified to learn that, during their two-year separation, Albert has taken a second wife. Kehinde decides to return to England and establish a life for herself there. Kehinde's troubled relationship to Albert and her children are parallelled in her recollections of a difficult childhood: Kehinde's twin was stillborn and her mother died at birth, prompting the family to believe that she had eaten her sister. It's a story that she at first accepts, but as she becomes her own woman she rejects its superstitious quality. (Mar.)