[In the Ditch is] derived from a diary Emecheta had kept for years, it depicts life at Pussy Cat Mansions, a public housing project, where Adah and her cockney neighbors develop a transient sense of community….

The "ditch" of the title is a metaphor for poverty. The book is sad, sonorous, occasionally hilarious: an extraordinary first novel….

Emecheta tells [the story of The Joys of Motherhood] in a plain style, denuding it of exoticism, displaying an impressive, embracing compassion. Like any village storyteller whose tale is sad and meaningful, she laces it with humor. Her three generations of unlettered Africans can be as ornery and individualistic as any California voter.

Expatriate writers often dwell in a fertile country of the mind and body, but are denied the soil…. Exceptionally, Emecheta writes compellingly and utterly without condescension of agrarian African modes she personally rejected. Hers is an urbane sensibility...