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Review Extracts (Please read full reviews below):
1.CHILD OF POLYGAMY by Kosi and Nella Avotri gives us a look into another culture during the 1960s and 70s. It is fascinating in that life in Ghana at that time is so different than what we are used to seeing and reading about. It is a lovely story that explains the closeness of families and of villages and even of a country. It is a book worth picking up.
  --Reviewed by Alice Holman of The RAWSISTAZ.com

2. March 09, 2006 -

A young girl in 1960s and 70s Ghana struggles with a fractured, polygamous family life and powerful cultural pressures. The authors, who also grew up in Ghana, capture the environment with a quiet, elemental tone.  A genuine, inspiring story that demonstrates the importance of cultural understanding.
  --Copyright 2005 Kirkus Reviews

3. The authors tackle difficult issues such as the treatment of mental illness, incest, the acceptance of the Catholic Church of polygamous families, while at the same time preventing them from fully participating, suicide, education, relations among siblings of a polygamous marriage, and taboos.

This is a compelling book that never gets strident, as the authors admirably succeed in laying out the information clearly and concisely pertaining to many serious topics dealing with Ghanaian culture that to most of us are foreign, and perhaps even mind boggling to some.
   --NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of "Bookpleasures"

4.‘Child of Polygamy' gives often heartbreaking insight.  "Child of Polygamy," (AuthorHouse) the new novel by Kosi J. Avotri, M.D., and his wife, Nella P. Avotri, is a revealing look into what kinds of hardship a child of polygamy actually has to live through.
   --Stan Veitch, an avid reader, who is a sports writer with The Gadsden Times.

5.I have just finished reading the book. It’s a masterpiece, very captivating from beginning to end. The narrative is beautiful and portrays the Ewe culture and legend so vividly. This book is going to be a hit - a best seller. It’s going to beat most, if not all, the popular African Writers (and I have read almost all of them). In fact, it is a must read.

It’s a great book. I truly enjoyed reading it - the first book I have read in a long time without sleeping it out.
   -- Constant Kojo Wuabu, Worcester, MA

6.Child Of Polygamy
By: Kosi J. Avotri, MD and Nella P. Avotri
Authorhouse (2005)
ISBN 1420873067

An interesting fictional story, it's also a sociological comment on a small town in Ghana, and is written with as much detail as an anthropological text.

It's also a lovely, professional looking book both inside and out. From its topics of societal ethics and the price of unacceptable behaviour, to the more mundane ones of schooling, spanking, and what's being made for supper, a lot is covered with its very relaxed pace of writing. Lovely language such as "...a long hug, one that expressed the fulfillment of a need for human touch more than just greetings..." help to keep the novel grounded as a piece of fiction.
   --Reviewed by DebShunamon for Reader Views (8/06)

FULL REVIEWS:
A: Editorial Reviews

Published November 23. 2005 6:01AM

`Child of Polygamy' gives often heartbreaking insight

"Child of Polygamy," (AuthorHouse) the new novel by Kosi J. Avotri, M.D., and his wife, Nella P. Avotri, is a revealing look into what kinds of hardship a child of polygamy actually has to live through.

The story follows the main character, Safia, from childhood through her teen years, from one tribulation to another in rural Africa.

Avotri writes this from first-hand knowledge, as he grew up in a polygamous family in Africa. He is now a pediatrician in Gadsden.

During the novel, Safia goes from living with her mother, who is her father's second wife, and grandfather, to living with her brother, then her father and back to her grandfather.

Mina, Safia's mother, is a converted Christian but has trouble convincing Medudu, Safia's grandfather, to renounce the traditional, pagan ways.
All of the arguing over religion leads to Mina trashing Medudu's shrine and consequentially losing her mind.
This leads to Mina being moved to a medical community and Safia goes into a deep depression, which causes the move to her brother's house.

Her brother, Seyo, lives in a college town, which at first excited Safia, but her depression deepens and eventually she is forced to move into her father's house.
Afreti, her father, is good to Safia, but her half-sister, Vena, is calculatingly cruel, a condition which doesn't allow Safia to progress out of her depression.

After months of this treatment, Safia finally has enough and tells Vena what she thinks of the treatment and runs away to go back to live with her grandfather.
These are just a few of the trials that Safia has to endure.

In some African countries, polygamy is legal and actually preferred for most men, but the first wife has to accept the second wife. A lot of times, the wives live in different sections of the same house and the husband alternates weeks of living with them.

Stan Veitch, an avid reader, is a sports writer with The Gadsden Times.


Kirkus Discovery Review: 

CHILD OF POLYGAMY
Author: Avotri, M.D., Kosi J. and Nella P. Avotri

Review Date: MARCH 09, 2006
Publisher:AuthorHouse (248 pp.)
Price (paperback): $14.95
Publication Date: August 1, 2005
ISBN (paperback): 1-4208-7306-7
Category: AUTHORS
Classification: FICTION

A young girl in 1960s and 70s Ghana struggles with a fractured, polygamous family life and powerful cultural pressures.

Safia lives with her mother, a converted Christian, and maternal grandfather, a traditional chief of his town in the Volta region. Safia attends a Christian school while her grandfather patiently informs her of local cust oms, drawing a distinct line between social and religious behavior. He also ably fields her many questions: What was the meaning of human sacrifice? What are taboos and what role do they play in the world? Who is considered a pagan, and why? Meanwhile, Safia’s mother continually badgers her father to accept Christianity, demanding that he explain to her the strange prohibitions that hamper women in tribal society. As Safia’s days pass, she serves as a conduit for exploring all manner of celebrations and customs in Ghana. These range from the harvest festival to the undeniable importance of rumor; the critical words of an ancient oracle to the punishments for offenses such as incest or false accusation. When her mother succumbs to mental illness, Safia is forced to live with her father and his cohabitant, Vena, who mercilessly torments the young girl. The authors, who also grew up in Ghana, capture the environment with a quiet, elemental tone that will swing readers into Safia’s co r ner. As she pushes on, Safia taps her resources both Christian and traditional, and eventually delivers the last, crushing word to Vena.

A genuine, inspiring story that demonstrates the importance of cultural understanding.

Web Reviews:

The following review was contributed by: NORM GOLDMAN:  Editor of Bookpleasures. CLICK TO VIEW  Norm Goldman's ReviewsTo read Norm's Interview With The Authors CLICK HERE

Set in the Volta Region of Ghana, Pediatrician Kosi J. Avotri and his wife Nella P. Avotri’s novel, Child of Pologamy makes excellent use of loosely linked tales to help us better understand the mores, customs and traditions of Ghanaians living in this corner of the globe.

Each chapter of the novel focuses on different aspects of daily life in a tiny village as experienced and narrated by three principal characters: Mina, one of the wives of a polygamist relationship, her father Mededu and her daughter, Safia.

The novel opens with the application of customary law pertaining to the trial of Mededu, chief of the town of Sakuma.  Accused of a criminal act by his rival Ketor, first in line to become chief, if Mededu’s rule is ended, the latter is required to place his dominant hand in a pot of boiling palm oil to prove his innocence. If guilty, he would suffer horrible burns or even death. Fortunately, Mededu is found innocent and his accuser is required to pay a fine for a false accusation.

The tricky relationship between Mina and Mededu are particularly intriguing, as it pertains to the pros and cons of conversion to Christianity. Mina fails to understand why her father is inflexible in not wishing to follow her lead and why he desires to maintain his traditional religion, worshipping the guardian spirits and ancestors. Mededu maintains that if he did convert the grandfathers would not be pleased, and to support his argument he relates an experience he had when he was saved by the ancestors.

The practice of polygamy that is governed by classical or customary law is explored and examined with great sensitivity. This is prevalent in the conversation between Safia and her brother Seyo, when the former questions the latter as to how their father could live with two wives. According to Seyo, the arrangement is quite simple, “he spent one week with one wife and the next week with the other.” When Safia questions her mother why she married Papa, when she knew he already had a wife, Mina reply is “it is common for a man to marry more than one woman if he is capable of taking care of them.”

The authors tackle other difficult issues such as the treatment of mental illness, incest, the acceptance of the Catholic Church of polygamous families, while at the same time preventing them from fully participating, suicide, education, relations among siblings of a polygamous marriage, and taboos.

This is a compelling book that never gets strident, as the authors admirably succeed in laying out the information clearly and concisely pertaining to many serious topics dealing with Ghanaian culture that to most of us are foreign, and perhaps even mind boggling to some.

Life in another country, December 31, 2005

Safia is the youngest daughter of Mina and Afreti of Ghana. Afreti has another wife, Winnie, who also has several children. Mina has to return to her father's house after her mother's death to help take care of him. Her father, Mededu, is the chief of his village and a very important man. Safia has a very pleasant childhood, doing well in school and at home with her mother and older siblings. Then one day, Mina, after attempting to convert her father to Christianity, destroys his shrine. He did not convert to Christianity but Mina lost her mind and was confined to an institution a good ways from the village. Safia, just at the beginning of puberty, is forced to go live with her father and her stepmother Winnie. Her stepmother is not too bad, but the oldest daughter hates Mina and all her children. Vena feels that since Mina was the second wife, she stole her father from her mother. Safia's life begins to go downhill from there.

CHILD OF POLYGAMY by Kosi and Nella Avotri gives us a look into another culture during the 1960s and 70s. It is fascinating in that life in Ghana at that time is so different than what we are used to seeing and reading about. It is a lovely story that explains the closeness of families and of villages and even of a country. The only mild distraction was that of the editing. Tenses changed in strange places and some words didn't quite fit. It is still a book worth picking up.

Reviewed by Alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ™ Reviewers

Ghana in the 60s and 70s, August 8, 2006

Reviewed by Deb Shunamon for Reader Views (8/06)

Ghana in the 1960s and '70s. This is not a country, a time, or a way of life that most readers will know much about. "Child of Polygamy" relates the many interesting, fictional stories of Safia, her extended family, and her community, and how they react to and initiate change in their lives. The novel starts off with Safia's memory of a potentially deadly situation involving her grandfather Mededu, the town's Chief. The reader is presented with an interesting story of the traditional way of handling things then is immediately exposed to the ever-present theme of change as we learn that this very likeable character is constantly under siege by Safia's mother to convert to Christianity. As Safia grows, her personal tragedies and triumphs are told alongside those of many other characters and situations resulting in a book packed full of interesting vignettes. An interesting fictional story, it's also a sociological comment on a small town in Ghana, and is written with as much detail as an anthropological text.

It's also a lovely, professional looking book both inside and out. From its topics of societal ethics and the price of unacceptable behaviour, to the more mundane ones of schooling, spanking, and what's being made for supper, a lot is covered with its very relaxed pace of writing. Lovely language such as "...a long hug, one that expressed the fulfillment of a need for human touch more than just greetings..." help to keep the novel grounded as a piece of fiction. Occasional tense changes and switches in the style of writing interrupt some of the flow, with emotional situations often being followed by long descriptive passages or chapters before returning to the story, but I was kept continually curious about what was going to happen to Safia next, right up to the extremely satisfy ing ending.

To many North American readers, the title will seem a bit risque, but anything scandalous has been kept to the end of the novel where an explanation of polygamous marriage arrangements are given a matter of fact, rational explanation revealing the normalcy of it in this society. If there's any darker excitement to be had it's in a chapter involving incest. I'm not entirely sure why this universal taboo was included as the book seems to generally present daily or reoccurring situations, but the episode is handled thoughtfully and its consequences used to support a different situation and the collective demand for change.

Most readers would be hard-pressed to point out Ghana on a map without some thought, and I believe even more would know little of its history or present day situation. This book will leave the reader surprised at how much knowledge they have gained about this one group of African people, and more importantly, it shows how little effort i s made in North America to present the everyday lives of Africans to us. Although the information in "Child of Polygamy" is now thirty years old, there is clearly much more for us to be told about the countries and peoples of Africa than what our newscasts present, and our schools neglect to teach.

Customer Reviews:
I have just finished reading the book. It’s a masterpiece, very captivating from beginning to end. The narrative is beautiful and portrays the Ewe culture and legend so vividly.

This book is going to be a hit - a best seller. It’s going to beat most, if not all, the popular African Writers (and I have read almost all of them). In fact, it is a must read. 

 It’s a great book. I truly enjoyed reading it - the first book I have read in a long time without sleeping it out. 

By: Constant Kojo Wuabu,  Worcester, MA 

Done!, August 6, 2006

intriguing look at folklore, history, spirituality, and culture of West Africa from the perspective of a young African girl torn from her home after her mother succumbs to mental illness, a smooth read, enjoyable and engrossing

Purchase Child of Polygamy via the web at any of these web sites:
Cushcity.com
Amazon.com
Authorhouse.com 
BarnesandNoble.com
Books-a-million.com

Purchase How Do You Get People To Help You? via the web at any of these web sites:
Amazon.com
BarnesandNoble.com
Books-a-million.com
Publish America.com