Listen free for 30 days
-
The Wife's Tale
- A Personal History
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Biographies & Memoirs, Cultural & Regional
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Listen with a free trial
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Testament of Mariam
- By: Ann Swinfen
- Narrated by: Serena Scott Thomas
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Today I had word that my brother Ya'aqôb is dead." When this news reaches Mariam, living in exile in the province of Gaul, memories of her girlhood in faraway Palestine are painfully awakened. For years she has blocked them from her mind, but as illness and old age overtake her, she begins to relive the time when she defied all propriety and convention and followed her charismatic brother Yeshûa and her betrothed Yehûd'a in their daring but perilous adventure.
-
-
A wonderful story
- By Gilly on 06-12-14
-
Flesh and Bone and Water
- By: Luiza Sauma
- Narrated by: Charlie Anson, Kristin Atherton
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brazilian-born doctor André Cabral is living in London when one day he receives a letter from his home country, which he left nearly 30 years ago. A letter he keeps in his pocket for weeks but tells no one about. The letter prompts André to remember the days of his youth - torrid afternoons on Ipanema beach with his listless teenage friends, parties in elegant Rio apartments, his after-school job at his father's plastic surgery practice and, above all, his secret infatuation with the daughter of his family's maid.
-
A Woman Is No Man
- By: Etaf Rum
- Narrated by: Ariana Delawari, Dahlia Salem, Susan Nesmai
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue and courage. Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honour, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
-
-
The easiest and hardest of reads... well worth it
- By Donna France on 20-03-20
-
Mr Loverman
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: James Goode
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris. When his marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
-
-
It will take you by surprise
- By Pj on 07-08-14
-
Old Land, New Tales
- 20 Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China
- By: Chen Zhongshi, Jia Pingwa
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore, Kate Rudd
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this captivating collection from the Shaanxi region, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization, twenty disparate and unique voices come together to show a China caught between new-world advancements and old-world traditions. From the homeland of China’s first dynasty and the world-famous terra-cotta warriors, these tales show rugged rural life colliding with fast-paced city life; hollow arranged marriages juxtaposed with torrid forbidden love affairs; and the vanity of newly minted millionaires clashing with the desperation of the poor.
-
Ancestor Stones
- By: Aminatta Forna
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abie follows the arc of a letter from London back to Africa to a coffee plantation that now could be hers if she wants it. Standing among the ruined groves she strains to hear the sound of the past, but the layers of years are too many. Thus begins the gathering of her family's history through the tales of her aunts - four women born to four different wives of a wealthy plantation owner, her grandfather.
-
-
Great book
- By Mai G on 26-08-21
-
The Testament of Mariam
- By: Ann Swinfen
- Narrated by: Serena Scott Thomas
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Today I had word that my brother Ya'aqôb is dead." When this news reaches Mariam, living in exile in the province of Gaul, memories of her girlhood in faraway Palestine are painfully awakened. For years she has blocked them from her mind, but as illness and old age overtake her, she begins to relive the time when she defied all propriety and convention and followed her charismatic brother Yeshûa and her betrothed Yehûd'a in their daring but perilous adventure.
-
-
A wonderful story
- By Gilly on 06-12-14
-
Flesh and Bone and Water
- By: Luiza Sauma
- Narrated by: Charlie Anson, Kristin Atherton
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Brazilian-born doctor André Cabral is living in London when one day he receives a letter from his home country, which he left nearly 30 years ago. A letter he keeps in his pocket for weeks but tells no one about. The letter prompts André to remember the days of his youth - torrid afternoons on Ipanema beach with his listless teenage friends, parties in elegant Rio apartments, his after-school job at his father's plastic surgery practice and, above all, his secret infatuation with the daughter of his family's maid.
-
A Woman Is No Man
- By: Etaf Rum
- Narrated by: Ariana Delawari, Dahlia Salem, Susan Nesmai
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn are torn between individual desire and the strict mores of Arab culture in this heart-wrenching story of love, intrigue and courage. Set in an America at once foreign to many and staggeringly close at hand, A Woman Is No Man is a story of culture and honour, secrets and betrayals, love and violence. It is an intimate glimpse into a controlling and closed cultural world and a universal tale about family and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect.
-
-
The easiest and hardest of reads... well worth it
- By Donna France on 20-03-20
-
Mr Loverman
- By: Bernardine Evaristo
- Narrated by: James Goode
- Length: 9 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Barrington Jedidiah Walker is seventy-four and leads a double life. Born and bred in Antigua, he's lived in Hackney since the sixties. A flamboyant, wise-cracking local character, Barrington is a husband, father and grandfather - but he is also secretly lovers with his great childhood friend, Morris. When his marriage goes into meltdown, Barrington wants to divorce Carmel and live with Morris, but after a lifetime of fear and deception, will he manage to break away?
-
-
It will take you by surprise
- By Pj on 07-08-14
-
Old Land, New Tales
- 20 Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China
- By: Chen Zhongshi, Jia Pingwa
- Narrated by: Mikael Naramore, Kate Rudd
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this captivating collection from the Shaanxi region, considered the cradle of Chinese civilization, twenty disparate and unique voices come together to show a China caught between new-world advancements and old-world traditions. From the homeland of China’s first dynasty and the world-famous terra-cotta warriors, these tales show rugged rural life colliding with fast-paced city life; hollow arranged marriages juxtaposed with torrid forbidden love affairs; and the vanity of newly minted millionaires clashing with the desperation of the poor.
-
Ancestor Stones
- By: Aminatta Forna
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 12 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Abie follows the arc of a letter from London back to Africa to a coffee plantation that now could be hers if she wants it. Standing among the ruined groves she strains to hear the sound of the past, but the layers of years are too many. Thus begins the gathering of her family's history through the tales of her aunts - four women born to four different wives of a wealthy plantation owner, her grandfather.
-
-
Great book
- By Mai G on 26-08-21
-
Americanah
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As teenagers, Ifemelu and Obinze fall in love in a Nigeria under military dictatorship. The self-assured Ifemelu departs for America, where Obinze hopes to join her, but post-9/11 America will not let him in, and he plunges into a dangerous, undocumented life in London. Fifteen years later, after so long apart and so many changes, will they find the courage to meet again, face to face?
-
-
Life-changing
- By Diana John on 02-06-13
-
The Dancing Face
- Black Britain: Writing Back
- By: Mike Phillips, Bernardine Evaristo - introduction
- Narrated by: Mike Phillips
- Length: 8 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
University Lecturer Gus knows that stealing the priceless Benin mask, the Dancing Face, from a museum at the heart of the British establishment will gain an avalanche of attention. Which is exactly what he wants. But such a risky theft will also inevitably capture the attention of characters with more money, more power and fewer morals. Naively entangling his loved ones in his increasingly dangerous pursuit of righteous reparation, is Gus prepared for what it will cost him?
-
The Devil That Danced on the Water
- A Daughter's Quest
- By: Aminatta Forna
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An intimate and moving portrait of a family combined with an account of the events which swept through Africa in the postindependence period. Aminatta Forna’s intensely personal history is a passionate and vivid account of an African childhood - of an idyll that became a nightmare. As a child she witnessed the upheavals of post-colonial Africa, the bitterness of exile in Britain and the terrible consequences of her dissident father’s stand against tyranny.
-
-
Confused
- By Rachel on 11-10-18
-
House of Glass
- The Story and Secrets of a 20th-Century Jewish Family
- By: Hadley Freeman
- Narrated by: Hadley Freeman
- Length: 10 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After her grandmother died, Hadley Freeman travelled to her apartment to try and make sense of a woman she’d never really known. Sala Glass was a European expat in America – defiantly clinging to her French influences, famously reserved, fashionable to the end – yet to Hadley much of her life remained a mystery. Sala’s experience of surviving one of the most tumultuous periods in modern history was never spoken about.
-
-
Great story but better read than listened to
- By LPD on 03-06-20
-
Three Apples Fell from the Sky
- By: Narine Abgaryan
- Narrated by: Anoush NeVart
- Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In an isolated village high in the Armenian mountains, a close-knit community bickers, gossips, and laughs. Their only connection to the outside world is an ancient telegraph wire and a perilous mountain road that even goats struggle to navigate. As they go about their daily lives - harvesting crops, making baklava - the villagers sustain one another through good times and bad. But sometimes, all it takes is a spark of romance to turn life on its head, and a plot to bring two of Maran's most stubbornly single residents together soon gives the village something new to gossip about....
-
Raceless
- Exploring race, identity and the truth about where I belong
- By: Georgina Lawton
- Narrated by: Georgina Lawton
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Georgina Lawton's childhood home, her Blackness was never acknowledged; the obvious fact of her brown skin, ignored by her white parents. Over time, secrets and a complex family story became accepted as truth and Georgina found herself complicit in the erasure of her racial identity. It was only when her beloved father died that the truth began to emerge. Fleeing the shattered pieces of her family life and the comfortable, suburban home she grew up in, at age 22 Georgina went in search of answers.
-
-
Beautiful exploration of identity
- By Mary Mercy on 02-06-21
-
Conjure Women
- By: Afia Atakora
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The pale-skinned, black-eyed baby is a bad omen. That’s one thing the people on the old plantation are sure of. The other is that Miss Rue - midwife, healer, crafter of curses - will know what to do. But for once Rue doesn’t know. Times have changed since her mother, Miss May Belle, held the power to influence the life and death of her fellow slaves. Freedom has come. The master’s Big House lies in ruins. But this new world brings new dangers, and Rue’s old magic may be no match for them.
-
-
Just excellent
- By V. O'Regan on 09-04-20
-
The Butcher's Daughter
- By: Victoria Glendinning
- Narrated by: Janice McKenzie
- Length: 11 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It is 1535, and Agnes Peppin, daughter of a West Country butcher, is banished from her family home. Forced to abandon her newborn child, she is meant to live out her days cloistered behind the walls of Shaftesbury Abbey. But King Henry VIII has proclaimed himself the new head of the church. Religious houses are being suppressed, and the great Abbey is no exception to the purge. Free to be the master of her own fate, Agnes descends into a world she knows little about, using her wits and testing her moral convictions against her need to survive by any means necessary....
-
River of Ink
- By: Paul M.M. Cooper
- Narrated by: Maanuv Thiara
- Length: 10 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
All Asanka knows is poetry. From his humble village beginnings in the great island kingdom of Lanka, he has risen to the prestigious position of court poet and now delights in his life of ease: composing romantic verses for love-struck courtiers, enjoying the confidence of his king, and covertly teaching Sarasi, a beautiful and beguiling palace maid, the secrets of his art.
-
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies
- By: Deesha Philyaw
- Narrated by: Janina Edwards
- Length: 4 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are between the church's double standards and their own needs and passions.
-
-
Disappointing story and not reflective
- By Esined on 22-03-22
-
The Calligrapher's Daughter
- By: Eugenia Kim
- Narrated by: Jane McDowell
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
1915. Japanese-occupied Korea. Najin Han, the privileged daughter of a calligrapher, longs to choose her own destiny. When her traditional father seeks to marry her into an aristocratic family, her mother defies generations of obedient wives and instead sends Najin to serve in the King's court as a companion to a young princess. But the King is assassinated, and the centuries-old dynastic culture comes to an end.
-
-
memorable
- By Kari on 13-01-18
-
We, the Survivors
- By: Tash Aw
- Narrated by: Jamie Zubairi
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ah Hock is an ordinary, uneducated man born in a Malaysian fishing village and now trying to make his way in a country that promises riches and security to everyone but delivers them to only a chosen few. With Asian society changing around him, like many he remains trapped in a world of poorly paid jobs that just about allow him to keep his head above water but ultimately lead him to murder a migrant worker from Bangladesh.
-
-
Lush, dramatic
- By Shona Ghosh on 10-05-22
Summary
The extraordinary story of an indomitable 95-year-old woman - and of the most extraordinary century in Ethiopia’s history. A new Wild Swans.
Featuring exclusive archive recordings from the author and her grandmother.
A hundred years ago, a girl was born in the northern Ethiopian city of Gondar. Before she was 10 years old, Yetemegnu was married to a man two decades her senior, an ambitious poet-priest. Over the next century her world changed beyond recognition. She witnessed Fascist invasion and occupation, Allied bombardment and exile from her city, the ascent and fall of Emperor Haile Selassie, revolution and civil war. She endured all these things alongside parenthood, widowhood and the death of children.
The Wife’s Tale is an intimate memoir, both of a life and of a country. In prose steeped in Yetemegnu’s distinctive voice and point of view, Aida Edemariam retells her grandmother’s stories of a childhood surrounded by proud priests and soldiers, of her husband’s imprisonment, of her fight for justice - all of it played out against an ancient cycle of festivals and the rhythms of the seasons. She introduces us to a rich cast of characters - emperors and empresses, scholars and nuns, Marxist revolutionaries and wartime double agents. And through these encounters she takes us deep into the landscape and culture of this many-layered, often mischaracterised country - and the heart of one indomitable woman.