Book Review

Yahoo! Yahoo! – Ikenna Okehʼs Portrait of A Flawed Society – Sima Essien

Towards the end of the novel, as Chidi’s world begins to unravel, another character, Billy of Asia, surfaces as an older man who, once deep in internet fraud at its onset, gave it all up to go legit. It is through him that Okehʼs moral observations are most plainly voiced, as Billy laments the proliferation of digital fraud among Nigerian youths as a symptom of a dying society.

A Review of “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” by Kadiatu Kanneh-Mason – Akumbu Uche

However marginal Kanneh-Mason’s Britishness may be, it is an identity that confers her more than a modicum of privilege elsewhere and it is rather unfortunate that she does not probe this contradiction further. There is no mention, for instance, of the criticism her family has received in Antigua where their status as state-appointed cultural ambassadors is perceived to have come at the expense of local calypso artistes whose musical contributions are more entrenched in Antiguan society.

I.O Echeruoʼs Debut Novel Is a Dazzling Blend of Science and Spirituality – Sima Essien

But The Comfort of Distant Stars is not exclusively a novel of lofty ideas and grave philosophy. Running beneath the intellectual current is the quiet drama of Ezeani’s troubled life and its constant entanglement with Anyanwu’s contested existence, driving a turbulent dynamic that keeps the novel emotionally tethered. And at the heart of it all lies the state of Ezeaniʼs mind, and Echeruo allows us to sit with the sobering possibility of mental debilitation, of genius misunderstood, dismissed, and finally consumed by its own weight.

When Physics and Mathematics collide with Fiction – Olukorede S Yishau 

At the centre of this strange and compelling universe stands Anyanwu, the sun god, a character rendered with both mythical grandeur and startling ordinariness. He is not confined to the heavens or trapped within ancient folklore. Instead, he walks among men. He goes to the cinema in Bodija, drinks palm wine and Fanta, laughs loudly while watching Chinese films, quarrels, fights physically with men and runs to fight another day. The blending of the divine with the mundane gives the novel its peculiar energy and originality. The supernatural is domesticated without losing its mystery, collapsing the boundaries between gods and humans, spirits and flesh.

A Woman’s Life: A Review of ‘Still Waters’ by Adam Nyang – Akumbu Uche

In each of these slice-of-life stories, Nyang pays equal attention to her protagonists’ emotional lives and the decisions they make in the light of their social pressures and economic realities. In doing so, she also challenges patriarchal norms, however her critiques are measured. Take for instance, the matter of laabaan, a Wolof marital rite where proof of a bride’s virginity is presented post-consummation. While some like the scholar Marame Gueye frame the practice in sex positive terms, Nyang believes otherwise and uses her protagonist Sainabou, who questions the ceremony’s necessity, as a vehicle to remonstrate it.