Reading time: About 1 minute
I like to share interesting pieces of figurative language I encounter in my reading. I write today about similes from Abi Daré.
Abi Daré is a Nigerian author who now lives in Essex, England. She has a degree in law from the University of Wolverhampton, a Master’s in International project management, and a Master’s with distinction in creative writing from Birkbeck, University of London.
Daré has said she began writing fiction on a blog and was the editor of her church magazine. Her debut novel The Girl with the Louding Voice was published in 2020 to critical acclaim.
The book tells the story of a teenage Nigerian girl called Adunni, who becomes a maid and struggles with many issues growing up, including her limited education, poverty and her ability to speak up for herself. The book is written to represent the teenager’s limited fluency in English so it includes many errors and malapropisms. Daré manages this in such a way that does not feel disrespectful. Nor is the book difficult to read.
Here are my favourite examples of her figurative language:
- I can see it inside his eyes; his eyesballs have the dull of a brown stone that been sitting inside hot sun for too long.
- It [a TV] is looking good, sitting like a handsome prince inside our parlor, in the corner beside the front door. We are even putting a small flower vase on top it; be like a crown on the prince head.
- Outside, the moon is red, hanging too low to the sky, be as if God pluck out His angry eye and throw it inside our compound.
- Is a rich man own, this car, black and shining with big tires and front light like the eyes of a sleeping fish.
- Outside, the sun is starting to climb down from the sky, the color is changing to the red of Papa’s eyes when he is drinking too much.
Photo: Cropped. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
