The Wives of Coconut Island: A Novella

What happens when a man gives two wives everything equally-except the one thing neither woman can live without?Pa Francis Njie Mbua has spent thirty-one years becoming one of the most respected men on Coconut Island. He organizes weddings, attends funerals, settles problems, and understands the complicated arithmetic of community life.At fifty-one, he decides it is finally time to build a family of his own.His solution is characteristically precise: marry two women at the same time and treat them exactly equally.Esther and Ursula arrive on the same boat.They enter the same gate.They receive rooms of equal size, beds from the same carpenter, equal allowances, identical pots, and an exact schedule determining their time with their husband.Pa Francis believes he has eliminated jealousy.Instead, he has created a competition.When children, inheritance, money, old relationships, and unspoken resentments enter the equation, the carefully ordered household begins to unravel.And Coconut Island is watching.The Wives of Coconut Island is a provocative African novella about marriage, polygamy, women, power, cultural expectations, betrayal, responsibility, and forgiveness.It asks a deceptively simple question: Can everything in a marriage be divided equally-and still leave everyone with less?