Song for Night is a powerful and graceful narrative despite the brutality and stark scenes within it. It was so powerful that it took me a couple of months before I could even write this review. While not overtly stated, the battlegrounds within this narrative may be historically situated during the time of the Nigeria-Biafra war. The protagonist is a voiceless boy, part of a landmine-cleaning unit; he is separated from his platoon in the first part of the novella, and spends the rest of his time traveling through both the physical spaces of the battlefield as well as the temporal location found within his recollection of events and atrocities which led him to where he was.

The novella deals with themes of conflict and hybridity which I am particularly fascinated by re: Nigerian novels, it is also a powerful look at how war creates adults out of children, and a very personal look at the events on the battlefields of Biafra. While voiceless, the sign language used by the protagonist and the rest of his comrades (who had their vocal chords cut out to stop them from screaming) is full of the eloquence contained by both internal and folk-narrative. In style, the narrative approaches surreal, the quality of the language is such that I gave in to the temptation to read passages aloud more than once. While it is quite different from Amos Tutuola’s style, something about the loose nature of temporality in this narrative as well as the very powerful, implicit orality despite the silence of the protagonist reminds me of The Palm-wine Drinkard. There are definite differences, Tutuola’s style is more overtly idiomatic;The Palm-wine Drinkard is certainly an adventure in reading, containing strong elements of Yoruba narrative. Abani’s Igbo protagonist is more hybrid, references to American popular culture are evident and the story is set within a different time-frame. However, both contain the haunting sense of traveling between this reality and the other-world.

I was particularly affected by the ending of this novella; perhaps it was because I read and finished it during a ferry ride home, underneath a gloaming sky and it had me meditating on the transience of existence and how everything is connected to our temporality. Or perhaps it was just that I read it during a rather emotional part of the year, for me. But it’s hard not to have moments like these when your research is focused on diaspora and the state of exile; and you are undergoing that same state of being. And thus, the last bit of sign-language found in the last bit of the novella says everything: Home is a palm fisted to the heart.

Note: Reviewed as part of the Africa Reading Challenge. My list of books to be read for this challenge is here.

Mariama Bâ was a writer, a feminist and an educator; in So Long A Letter she deals with the myriad tensions caused by lives caught in between modern/French values and those carried by the Senegalese Muslims. Bâ’s slim novel is a powerful testament to the inner strength of women in challenging situations which are inevitable when one world gives way to another. Bâ’s protagonist is Ramatoulaye, whom, along with her friend, Aissatou are amongst the early group of educated Senegalese women – considered oddities but also desired for those qualities. Both of them suffer the pain and betrayal of polygamy and both deal with it in different ways; this ultimately allows them to be independent women and observers of their own country and loved ones.

I found So Long a Letter to be a powerful and compelling read, particularly because the writer is not condemning her culture so much as critically examining power and the age-old problem of how the colonial parceling of Africa into different nations led to various problems which exist up till today, particularly in the oft-overlooked problems which affect women. It also provides, from a historical and cultural perspective, a good glimpse at the hybrid world which evolved after Senegal gained independence, from the music to the clothing and the nightlife. These are the things which interest me the most about reading African fiction.

So Long a Letter is a complex novel despite its slender size and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in African literature; particularly feminist African literature. Bâ explores not just the problem of polygamy and what it does to the protagonist and her children but also how positive outcomes can still be achieved with non-conformist thinking. One of the things I liked best about Ramatoulaye was her strength in making decisions that could not have been easy, and doing it without being overly emotional. Some of my favourite passages were about her going to the cinema on her own or being matter-of-fact in the way she handled the possible scandal caused by her daughter’s indiscretion.

The hopeful ending of Bâ’s story is telling; in it she speaks not just of her hope for her protagonist, but of her hope for the future of her country and her people. As such, while So Long a Letter is a powerful novel, it is not accurate (as some reviews like to refer to it) to refer to it as merely being a condemnation or an indictment. One of the reasons why it is powerful is because it carries a strong message of hope and empowerment despite the odds caused by the confines of one culture which overlaps into another.

Note: Reviewed as part of the Africa Reading Challenge. My list of books to be read for this challenge is here.

Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga is a book that is deceptively simple in its narration, but which is complex and sophisticated in its message. Set in Rhodesia before it became Zimbabwe, the tale is told from the point-of-view of a bright young Shona girl, Tambudzai, who is taken to live with her more affluent uncle, a headmaster in a missionary school. From the narrative and the detailed descriptions, one gets a witty and ironic look at the difference in the lifestyles on the homestead and in the mission. Dangarembga’s narration is sophisticated and embedded, we are made aware from the first that the tale is being told from an undetermined point in the future of our protagonist’s life. And so we get to see the events unfold though both the innocent eyes of a village girl and the more sophisticated views of a woman, influenced by European education.

This isn’t a book that sets out to answer all the questions raised by the influence of colonization in a simplistic dialectic; it does highlight the struggle on many levels, in competing values, and lifestyles, particularly what it means to be hybrid. The much-talked about disorder which is at the heart of the book is really a symptom for other things. I found the reading particularly significant because food is a part of so many communities, is tied in so significantly to what we attribute as culture and comfort. In this manner, food can become a weapon when forced upon a person or when withheld.

One of the most striking parts of the book for me was when Nyasha was at first turned down for psychiatric help because, of course “Africans do not suffer” such things as psychiatric problems. Which to me just brought home the fundamental misunderstanding that persists thanks to texts such as Hegel’s with regards to Africa. For such a slim book, the novel deals a hefty message; I appreciated the understated way in which events unfolded and yet with an uncompromising feeling of foreboding that paid off well with the plot’s resolution. A book that I will definitely read again so I can pick through the layers. And I can’t pay it a stronger compliment than that, really.

Note: Reviewed as part of the Africa Reading Challenge. My list of books to be read for this challenge is here.

The degree of embedding Vandermeer has achieved in this novel puts many other “chinese-boxes” types of fictive narrative to shame. It is so meta- that even the “About the Author” page segues effortlessly into the storytelling. Artwork, typography, short fiction, bibliographies and indices that in themselves are stories – it does seem indeed like some kind of fictive saint OR inspired madman put this collection together.

The city of Ambergris, in fact, the whole world is so acutely visualized and created in the reader’s mind’s eye that it is easy to forget that they are there to be a background to the stories. The stories are both classic and unique. My favorite pieces within this collection were: Dradin in Love, The Transformation of Martin Lake, the intriguing The Exchange, The Cage and Learning to Leave the Flesh. Most of the tales cross the line between fantasy and horror and references of Poe and Lovecraft hovered in my brain. And yes, of course, the Borges reference goes without saying. I can truthfully say that I was delighted by this stupendous endeavor and the degree of intersection achieved effortlessly by Vandermeer. Although I was dubious about some parts of it, once I reached the end, the pay-off for the work I had to do as a reader was satisfactory. It’s really not the kind of book that one could “warm up” to, but who cares, it’s a classic and as far as I am concerned, it takes fantasy fiction to a different level of literature as well as art. In fact, it does its job with such cunning one has to choose whether one thinks this is fantasy or postmodernist fiction at its best. I’m going to sit on that fence on this one. I suspect that is where the author is, as well.