The Bride Price - Critical Reception

Critical Reception

The Bride Price was favourably reviewed on both sides of the Atlantic. Peter Tinniswood, writing in The Times, called the novel "highly impressive", concluding: "In the last decade or so there has been some exciting literature coming from Black Africa, and this book is in the very top rank of the movement. I recommend it warmly and without reservation." Anthony Thwaite wrote in The Observer: "Buchi Emecheta is an unstrivingly poignant writer, who convinces through plain narrative authenticity and a feeling for character." Hilary Bailey remarked in Tribune that the novel "manages to pull off the trick of bringing the reader through to the realities common to us all", while the review in The New Yorker commented: "The clash of Christian and African cultures, of generations, of ancient and modern pieties, and of group custom and the individual will are all vividly portrayed in this pure, fluid novel.... The author has a plain, engaging style and manages to convey all the lushness, poverty, superstition, and casual cruelty of a still exotic (to Western readers) culture while keeping her tale as sharp as a folk ballad."