Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941–1995)

Another read from my Human Rights literature class, except not a very enjoyable one. Our main protagonist is Mene, a young and naïve man who wants to enlist in the army to protect his woman (Agnes), stand up for his hometown, Dukana, along with many other reasons. Mene is tempted by the glory of war, but doesn't really understand how it functions, and how brutal it really is.

In Sozaboy, we aren't given a lot of background information as readers so it's confusing to how some characters get to be the way they are. We also don't get too much explanation of locations and war sides, the word "enemy" seems to be used interchangeably. Perhaps this is on purpose? And the main character chooses to omit things that he doesn't understand or think is significant which also adds to the confusion.

I had a hard time reading this. One of the reasons was the use of "rotten English"/vernacular that used in the book (even though it provides the glossary in the back). I have read many books with a vernacular/dialect, but none were as difficult as this! It was definitely a challenge. I also didn't connect with the book very well because the text prevents the reader from placing themselves in the story.
… (more)

I jumped at this book when I saw the author. I recognised his name from Amnesty International articles I read years ago. Ken Saro Wiwa was a tireless environmental campaigner in Nigeria. He advocated for non violent protest against the Nigerian government and petroleum company Shell, who had polluted the land of the Ogoni people and refused to compensate or clean up the mess. He was arrested for some laughable crime, and hanged in 1995 at the hands of the military government. It was an international outrage and prompted a wave of support for local regions fighting against military-backed multi-nationals who were pillaging the land and moving on.

So, the book.

Lemona is a beautiful Nigerian woman, she is in jail, sentenced to death for the murder of a married couple. She has served over 20 years so far for another murder, never to speak of her crime or to receive visitors. So when someone visits her on her last day, it creates a stir for both her and the prison staff. The person is able to extract from her her life story, and the book is the tale that was told.

I forgave the book its basic language as was able to read it as if it was being spoken by Lemona to her visitor. She was jaded after so long imprisoned, abandoned and grief-stricken from the events leading up to her incarceration. Her account was believable and very sad, even if it wasnt fleshed out by pages of descriptive wadding. Lemona seems to have been a victim of her beauty, sought after by many, but always unsure for what reasons. Her life is interesting and plausible, and her story terribly foreboding of the authors fate.… (more)

Difficult and poetic, this text reads more like poetry than fiction. It is, in the end, a very sad book when given thought, but I think the emotion is somewhat lightened by the difficulty of the language and the distance we seem to keep from the main characters. I've got little to say about it because I do have mixed feelings. At parts, I enjoyed it very much, but at others, I wanted much more. Certainly, though, if you're interested in innovative narrative language or in first person coming of age stories, this might be for you.… (more)

The challenge on beginning this book for me was getting into the rhythm of Saro-Wiwa's prose . His use of a kind of invented bastardized Nigerian pidgin English mixed in with healthy dollops of satire to tell the story of a hapless young man's experiences before, during and after the Nigerian/Biafran civil war. It's not just a comedy by a long shot--it was a serious look at an awful situation which I remember quite well from my youth in the late 60's being all over the newspapers and news television at that time. Of course we only saw then what those mediums would show us and when you're bordering on teenage or so there is only so much you take from events so far away--so much you can construct with it. But even not understanding it very well there was no denying the magnitude of the disaster.

Reading Saro-Wiwa's book almost 40 years after those events--many of the mental pictures of death and starvation come back to mind. That he chose an unique colloquial way of expressing this serious satire through this hapless young soldiers eyes actually at least in my case drew me into the story. In a sense a comparison could be made to James Kelman's booker prize winning 'How late it was, how late'--which used a heavy Scots spoken language dialect to narrate the grim experiences of an ex-con beaten into blindness by policemen. In the right hands this approach can be a very effective way to convey your story. And Saro-Wiwa's hands in this regard are just fine. Like Kelman's book the humor only accentuates the grimness of the story. In 'Sozaboy's case however that story came from an actual dark reality. Anyway this is well recommended.

On a side note: Ken Saro-Wiwa as it happens was executed by his own government in 1995. Convicted in a kangaroo court for murders he had no part in. He was an activist for his Ogoni people and wanted Nigerians to control their own wealth--particularly their oil wealth. His activism went further than that but as happens he ran up against oil interests (Dutch Shell Company) and the Military dictatorship then running his country he was convicted despite being innocent and hung.… (more)