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.