They describe her childhood in Lagos; her 1960 marriage to Sylvester Onwordi, a student to whom she had been betrothed since she was eleven; and their subsequent move to England. The novels concentrate on her struggle to support and bring up her five children in London. (She and Onwordi separated in 1966.)
In the Ditch begins at the point when she has left her husband and is living on her own with her children in a slum, supporting them by working in the library at the British Museum. The book is a collection of "observations" that Emecheta sent to the
New Statesman, which published them and thereby effectively launched her writing career.
The story follows Emecheta's slightly fictionalized self, Adah, in her descent into the "Ditch," which is living on the dole on a council housing estate set aside for problem families. Despite the predictably negative framework of appalling conditions, the book hovers between acceptance and rejection of the slum world. Problem families are defined by officialdom as single parent and possibly colored families; the estate named Pussy Cat Mansions is very much a world of women. With as much dignity as they can salvage, they scratch around for whatever warmth life might offer.
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