Ekene Onuorah reviews Americanah by Chimamanda Adichie

“Fearless. A towering achievement…From the place of Africans in the race politics in America, to love across continents, AMERICANAH dares to bring us a world of a confident and self-made woman making her way in these complicated times. This is the Africa of our future. Sublime, powerful and the most political of Chimamanda’s novels. She continues to blaze the way forward.”
This review was written by BINYAVANGA WAINAINA, AUTHOR OF ONE DAY I WILL WRITE ABOUT THIS PLACE

In a far future, post-nuclear-holocaust Africa, genocide plagues one region. The aggressors, the Nuru, have decided to follow the Great Book and exterminate the Okeke. But when the only surviving member of a slain Okeke village is brutally raped, she manages to escape, wandering farther into the desert. She gives birth to a baby girl with hair and skin the color of sand and instinctively knows that her daughter is different. She names her daughter Onyesonwu, which means Who Fears Death? in an ancient African tongue.

Reared under the tutelage of a mysterious and traditional shaman, Onyesonwu discovers her magical destiny-to end the genocide of her people. The journey to fulfill her destiny will force her to grapple with nature, tradition, history, true love, the spiritual mysteries of her culture-and eventually death itself

Satirist and chronicler of the many-faceted world of education in Nigeria, the author is one of Nigeria's foremost writers. In this novel, he tells of Obuechina, the only brother of six older sisters, prize pupil in the village school, apple of his doting mother's eye, eight years old and hopelessly spoilt. In a vain attempt to salvage his character, his father decides he must be sent away as a servant to a schoolmaster with a dragon of a wife. Obu goes - and comes back very different

Whether children's or adult's, I think everyone enjoyed reading the story. The Hobbit both as a creature and as a classic novel is genuine. While reading, you can't think of having read something like this, unless you have read something copied from it. I particularly loved the theme of Bilbo not caring what others may think of him going for an adventure. It happens in the world today. And I was glad that he came back very rich, even though I was sad that Thorin died. That's why it's fiction. An Enchanting prelude to the Lord of The Rings series. Very interesting.

I think I'm a testimony too
to this book. So many have
been said about it and
I've read some prayers in
it, especially the Prayer for
our nation Nigeria. It
worths reading for every
Christian.

After the Juju-man is a classic -- a story of life in West-Africa before the arrival of the Whites. It tells of the struggles of a man named Okafor whom at last died of injustice. Not only was it a tragedy that he died, his sincere In-law died too to bring out the truth and to cleanse the village of Izagu. Okafor disobeyed his father to become a palm-wine tapper, instead of the farmer his father prepared him for. It was later that Okafor revealed to his son Ikenna that his refusal was to stop trouble since his father’s second wife, along with children meant evil for him if he walked into the land.
As an unsuccessful palm wine tapper, he fell from the tree and broke his leg. His brother-In-law Okoye meant well for him by taking him to a distant village, Umuoru, because the healer they had in Izagu was powerless and fake. This almost caused trouble but the elders believed Okoye since his son and wife were victims of fake healers.
At Umuoru, Nweke did wonders with the cock he handed back to them. Okafor was healed when this cock began to walk and many were happy. But Okafor wanted to do more. He believed he needed to appease his late father by becoming a farmer, but his half-brothers were an obstacle to giving him the land which was rightfully his. Ekene convinced Ukaegbu to give him the land, citing that he would still fail.
But the brothers were disappointed. With help from Okoye, Okafor became one of the wealthiest at the next harvest that he decided to take an “Ozo” title. Ukaegbu did all to stop him, even by claiming his land and by beating his wife. This made Okafor fight Ukaegbu which attracted the public; it wasn’t good for a man about to be given an Ozo title. The case was to be settled at the shrine but no one knew that Ojiugo has been bribed to poison Okafor, except the planners. Okafor and Ukaegbu took the oath by drinking poisons, but Ukaegbu had the anti-dote.
Okafor died and was given a burial fit for a dog. Okoye knew that there was a problem so travelled to invite a stronger deity Aligome to come and cleanse their land. This deity would go with the person who invited it after it had done its work. Okoye knew this and was ready to make the sacrifice. He knew that it would still cost innocent lives if evil prevailed.
Aligome was invited and the village purged. Those who did evil were punished and the village became a place worth living. But it was time for Okoye to go. From his death bed, he heard the news of Whites coming to trade slaves. He told his nephew Ikenna, the son of Okafor, that evil sometimes brings something good, and urged him to ask them to give him the message if he ever meets them. The boy was really confused but agreed while Okoye died in his hands. He was given a befitting burial.
I am guessing this message would be Christianity or Technology or Civilisation.

A masterly, haunting new novel from a writer heralded by The Washington Post Book World as “the 21st-century daughter of Chinua Achebe,” Half of a Yellow Sun re-creates a seminal moment in modern African history: Biafra’s impassioned struggle to establish an independent republic in Nigeria in the 1960s, and the chilling violence that followed.

With astonishing empathy and the effortless grace of a natural storyteller, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie weaves together the lives of three characters swept up in the turbulence of the decade. Thirteen-year-old Ugwu is employed as a houseboy for a university professor full of revolutionary zeal. Olanna is the professor’s beautiful mistress, who has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos for a dusty university town and the charisma of her new lover. And Richard is a shy young Englishman in thrall to Olanna’s twin sister, an enigmatic figure who refuses to belong to anyone. As Nigerian troops advance and the three must run for their lives, their ideals are severely tested, as are their loyalties to one another.