James’s protagonist weathers abuse, loss, and grief, and discovers a unique gift that allows her to stand against a tide of misogyny and political terrorism. Sogolon—the name she adopts in lieu of any other option—knows little but oppression in her formative years. Her abusive brothers blame her for their mother’s death and relegate her to a “termite pit”; in Miss Azora’s brothel, she experiences sexual trauma at the hands of much older predatory men; she is “given” as a gift to the royal court of Fasisi and nearly killed by the Aesi’s Sangomin; perhaps the most lasting trauma is the death of her son, Ehede.

Sogolon is driven by loss and rage against the institutional forces that regard her either as fodder for men’s sexual whims or as some kind of flesh-eating, sexual demon who deserves to be impaled. She refuses both roles, and in doing so, she serves as the novel’s feminist icon as well as a tribute to the revered wise women—shamans, healers, and witches—of African culture. Her long life is not an easy one, and it takes a hard toll. Her arc suggests that a life of moral righteousness will inevitably grind a person down and that the forces arrayed against such a life are formidable and unrelenting.