with moving simplicity this first novel tells the story of Ihuoma, good, respected of great beauty and dignity, who brings suffering and death to all her lovers. there are no white men, no European values, to disturb the old truths. Human society is orderly and predictable except when the gods are wronged. ‘ Ihave me many students who frankly admitted that of all the African Novels they have read. The Concubine was the only one they could respond to because it presented an exact copy of village life as they knew it