BOOK REVIEW
REVIEWER: Olayinka Oyegbile
All war is a symptom of man’s failure as a thinking animal – John Steinbeck
“From his escape from a pro-Biafra Igbo assault in an Atlanta restaurant to his meeting with those who shed tears and could not continue with giving him stories of their experiences despite the long years that had passed. It is a most emotional aspect to read and get to know how people have bottled up their grievances and yet the country behaves as if nothing had happened and that the wounds have been healed”
The Nigerian Civil War (1967-70) ended 53 years ago when the then Head of State, Gen Yakubu Gowon declared the philosophy of “No victor, no vanquished”. That war and its aftermath, is, without doubt, one of the issues that have more than dominated our literature to date, and would continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Those who witnessed its advent, the grim period, and those who were born well after the war ended all have their stories to tell.
The varied narratives have enriched our literature so much so that it is an aspect of it that cannot be glossed over. From the first generation of writers, the young, new and even the Internet generation.
A walk into bookshops across the country and the world would present to a curious reader tonnes and tonnes of pages that deal with this issue. In fact, it would be impossible for a three football fields sized bookshop or library to accommodate all that have been written about this unfortunate phase of our national life!
Plays have been published, uncountable novels too, poems, memoirs, eye witness accounts, and in fact all genres of our literature have in their various moods and manners captured this (war) experience. Many of these contributions have excited lots of controversies and recriminations that in their own ways occupy a veritable space in our lives.
It is gratifying that some of the engrossing books of literature that have emanated from the experience are even written by those who were born after the cessation of the war! This has not in any way taken away the fact of the matter nor made their stories less traumatising.
Uwen Akpan has, through his New York, My Village added his voice to the babel about this unfortunate chapter of our nation’s history, a phase of our life that many have tried to gloss over and which many don’t even want us to talk about. Akpan’s voice is a fresh addition that points us in the direction which many have either failed to look at, neglected or tried to suppress.
A casual look at the title of the book might make one think it is a story about New York City and perhaps Akpan’s village. However, the blurb gives a little hint of the direction of the story. Picking a copy of the book and reading it opens the reader to the world of the story.
Many Nigerians who have had to go to the American Consulate in search of visas would be familiar with the scenarios painted by the writer in the opening pages about the travails of Ekong Udousoro and others in the hands of consular officers. This familiar story kicks one in into an exciting read and the world of Akapn and his power of storytelling.
Ekong, an editor with a publishing firm in Nigeria, travels to the United States of America on a Fellowship on which he is to edit a collection of short stories on the Nigerian Civil War. This perhaps simple act opens him up to a gamut of experiences that he begins to question the validity of the claim of America being a free society that promotes equality and equity.
However, under the belly of all this is to expose to the larger world through the collection of the stories he is to edit, the ‘one-sided’ narrative of the Nigerian civil war experience that had almost neglected or swept underground the harrowing experiences of the minorities in the unfortunate three-year long internecine war.
Through various accounts of many who had hitherto been unheard, Akpan has pointed us in that direction.
His narrative, though not the first, other writers, notably Festus Iyayi (Heroes), Isidore Okpewho (The Last Duty), and a host of others have pointed us in that direction that the war was not only that of the majority ethnic groups but also that of the minorities, too.
While the other writers may have focussed on what it was like for the other minority ethnic groups vis-a-vis the majority, what Akpan has done is to tell the story of the minorities, especially his Anang people of Akwa Ibom State, in the hands of the Igbo ‘majority’ in the ill-fated Biafra Republic.
Through his sojourn on his fellowship programme in New York, his encounters with other humans and the ubiquitous bedbugs of New York (of all places), the reader is able to feel the power of the story Akpan tells through his characters.
If you have read his first book, a collection of short stories, Say You’re One of Them, and you agree that he is a good storyteller, by the time you read this his first novel, you will know that the shine in those short stories has come full-blown in this rather big and exciting first novel. Akpan is surely a fantastic weaver of tales told in moving and enchanting prose. He has brought to the fore some of the pains that the minorities of Biafra have borne for many long years.
And, of course, the way he tackled what he calls the “slaughter and colonisation of minorities by Biafra” and his regrets that most major writers of Igbo extraction glossed over the issues without highlighting them; he who feels it knows it.
Akpan’s strength and true reflection on the war are perhaps captured beyond fiction in his powerful long Acknowledgments (almost 40 pages long).
In this section, he gave some background to how long it took him to bring himself to tell the story and his encounters while on the research. From his escape from a pro-Biafra Igbo assault in an Atlanta restaurant to his meeting with those who shed tears and could not continue with giving him stories of their experiences despite the long years that had passed. It is a most emotional aspect to read and get to know how people have bottled up their grievances and yet the country behaves as if nothing had happened and that the wounds have been healed.
On the low side, however, is that the book editor in Nigeria has a few things to do whenever a reprint is done (since I do not have access to the American (or international) edition, I may not be able to say if the errors I am pointing out are a carryover from that edition).
Ekong came across some books which his editor Molly had bought to give out as gifts. Among the books, which were mainly about Nigeria, was said to be Fola Olewole’s Reluctant Rebel. The Nigerian editor should have been able to spot that error. The correct name of the writer is Fola Oyewole (Not OLEWOLE, p.381).
Oyewole was a Nigerian army officer who was arrested and detained over alleged involvement in the 1966 coup and was imprisoned in the East. Ojukwu set him free at the start of the war and he had to fight on the side of the Biafran forces reluctantly. Hence the title of his memoir.
Also, some paragraphs are repeated (p.453) thus interfering with the flow of the story. Not only that, Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State was referred to as Samuel “Artom” (p.461). I am not aware the governor has advertised a change of name!
The book editor in Nigeria (if any) has to ensure that it is not enough to republish a book simply because it has been published in America.
* Dr Olayinka Oyegbile is a writer based in Lagos. E-mail: yinka2005@gmail.com
