Stay with Me

Yejide and Akin met and fell in love at university in Nigeria, and both grew up in polygamous households they swore not to repeat. Though many expected Akin to take several wives, the two agreed that polygamy was not for them. But four years into the marriage, after fertility doctors, healers, strange teas and unlikely cures, Yejide is still not pregnant. She assumes she still has time, until Akin's family arrives on her doorstep with a young woman they introduce as his second wife.

Furious, shocked and consumed by jealousy, Yejide decides the only way to save her marriage is to have a child. She does become pregnant, but at a cost far greater than she could have imagined.

Told in alternating chapters by wife and husband across several decades, Stay with Me is Ayobami Adebayo's debut novel, a story of love, secrets and betrayal that asks how much a person can sacrifice for the sake of family. It was shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction in 2017 and won the 9mobile Prize for Literature.