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This debut novel from the author of the powerful, universally acclaimed Foreign Gods, Inc. looks at a woman’s drowning and the ensuing investigation in an emerging African nation.
In the country of Madia (based in part on Ndibe’s native Nigeria) a young prostitute runs into the sea and drowns. The last man who spoke to her, the “madman” Bukuru, is asked to account for her last moments. When his testimony implicates the Madian armed forces, Bukuru is arrested and charged with her death. At the first day of trial, Bukuru, acting as his own attorney, counters these charges with allegations of his own, speaking not only of government complicity in a series of violent assaults and killings, but telling the court that the president of Madia himself is guilty of rape and murder. The incident is hushed up, and Bukuru is sent back to prison, where he will likely meet his end. But a young journalist manages to visit him, and together they journey through decades of history that illuminate Bukuru’s life, and that of the entire nation. A brave and powerful work of fiction, Arrows of Rain is a brilliant dramatization of the complex factors behind the near-collapse of a nation from one of the most exciting novelists writing today.
- Sales Rank: #299116 in Books
- Published on: 2015-01-06
- Released on: 2015-01-06
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.18" h x .80" w x 5.50" l, .81 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 304 pages
Review
Praise for Arrows of Rain
"Highly evocative."
—Nobel Prize Laureate Wole Soyinka
"The greatest villain in Okey Ndibe's Arrows of Rain is silence."
—Vanity Fair
"Smart and often deftly written, a parable of power and the humanity it strips away . . . Arrows of Rain remains a novel of resistance—if not political resistance, exactly, then resistance at the level of the soul."
—David L. Ulin, The Los Angeles Times
"Ndibe is a gifted writer and an adept storyteller, who clearly exults in the telling."
—Essence Magazine
"A heart-wrenching portrait of Femi Adero, a young journalist who comes face to face with the extremes of political dictatorship and the dangers of pursuing unlikely truths."
—Daily Nation (Kenya)
"This novel does what great novels are supposed to do. It creates a new world that, bigger than ours, closer than ours, more intense than ours, brings us back to where we live with a better understanding of just what our lives mean to those we will never see, touch or know."
—Rick Kleffel, KQED Public Radio
"Arrows of Rain is Greek tragedy . . . It serves as a powerful reminder that the imprint of history—its machinations and cultural usurpations, its elevations and denigrations—is not merely on the subsequent chronicle, but on subsequent individual souls as well."
—The Cleveland Plain-Dealer
"A moving and compelling novel."
—Brooklyn Bugle
"A fascinating and important story—one that truly must be told."
—New York Journal of Books
"This haunting work about the costs of silence shows that Nbide, who was mentored by the towering Chinua Achebe, belongs in the pantheon of contemporary African-born writers such as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nuruddin Farah, Dinaw Mengestu, and Ishmael Beah, whose powerful stories must be told."
—Library Journal
"What do you do, Ndibe asks, when you are faced with injustice and total corruption? When to speak will very likely mean your end? A Kafkaesque, imaginative novel of great necessity and power."
—Kirkus Reviews
"An ambitious and brave first novel . . . [that] could jump start the moral political mission of serious African literature begun so well by Ousmane, Ngugi, and the immortal Achebe."
—Michael Ekwueme Thelwell, author of The Harder They Come
"Arrows of Rain is a brooding and powerful first novel from Nigerian Okey Ndibe . . . a gritty political thriller with real emotional depth which poses vital questions about our responsibility to bear witness; to be the custodian of ‘stories which must be told.’"
—New Internationalist
"Alluring, crisp and lucid . . . [Ndibe] is a novelist who portrays his characters, whether poor or rich, weak or powerful, with great complexity."
—Sahara Reporters
"Arrows of Rain is an eloquent, engaging story. The novel makes evil repellingly ugly by taking off its mask . . . Yes, indeed, 'speech is the mouth's debt to the story'; Ndibe has paid that debt with a telling that sparkles with felicity and insight."
—Niyi Osundare, author of Pages from the Book of the Sun
"First rate fiction."
—John Edgar Wideman, author of Philadelphia Fire
"A blueprint for the second generation of African novelists."
—Ernest Emenyonu, author of Tales of Our Motherland
Praise for Foreign Gods, Inc.
"Razor-sharp . . . Mr. Ndibe invests his story with enough dark comedy to make Ngene an odoriferous presence in his own right, and certainly not the kind of polite exotic rarity that art collectors are used to . . . In Mr. Ndibe’s agile hands, he’s both a source of satire and an embodiment of pure terror."
—The New York Times Book Review
"Unforgettable . . . Ndibe seems to have a boundless ear for the lyrical turns of phrase of the working people of rural Nigeria . . . The wooden deity 'has character, an audacious personality,' says one non-African who sees it. So does Ndibe's novel, a page-turning allegory about the globalized world."
—Los Angeles Times
“We clearly have a fresh talent at work here. It is quite a while since I sensed creative promise on this level.”
—Wole Soyinka, Winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature
"Dazzling . . . It's already obvious that 2014 is going to be a big year for African novels . . . but Okey Ndibe is bound to set himself apart from the pack. Who doesn't want to read a novel about a good god heist?"
—The Guardian
"This original [novel] is packed with darkly humorous reflections on Africa’s obsession with the West, and the West’s obsession with all things exotic."
—Daily Mail (UK)
"Okey Ndibe’s Foreign Gods, Inc is one of the most impressive African novels that I have read in years. Comic, sad—even tragic—Ndibe is a master craftsman, weaving his narrative with ethnic materials (and surprises) and a profundity that will startle you by the end of the story . . . Ikechukwu Uzondu’s journey into his past is as moving and frightful as Brutus Jones’ fate in Eugene O’Neill’s masterpiece, The Emperor Jones. Clearly, this is one writer to watch. Moreover, his insights into both America and Nigeria will take your breath away."
—CounterPunch
"Foreign Gods, Inc. reads like the narrative of a taxi-driving Faust in modern Nigeria and America. With Moliere-like humorous debunking of religious hypocrisy and rancid materialism, it teems with characters and situations that make you laugh in order not to cry."
—Ngugi wa Thiong'o, author of Wizard of the Crow
"Foreign Gods, Inc. is a blistering exploration of the contemporary African immigrant experience in America. Ndibe tackles tough questions: from the shifting notions of home and identity to the nature of greed. In prose which is fresh and often funny, Ndibe draws the reader into the heartbreaking story of Ike Uzondu's attempt to survive in a world which seems determined to crush him."
—Chika Unigwe, author of On Black Sisters Street
“Ndibe takes his readers on a transfixing and revelatory journey from bitter bad faith to hard won, deeply moving and adult redemption.”
—Francisco Goldman, Say Her Name
"A challenging romp of gods and styles."
—John Edgar Wideman, author of Philadelphia Fire
"If you’ve ever sat in the back of a cab silently—or not so silently—wondering where your cab driver is from and what his life is like (and really hasn’t everyone?) then you will be captivated by Nigerian writer Okey Ndibe’s new novel."
—Metro New York
"The best-laid plans often go awry. But they can certainly make for an entertaining read."
—The New York Post
"Ndibe writes of cultural clash in a moving way that makes Ike’s march toward disaster inexorable and ineffably sad."
—Kirkus, STARRED Review
"Neither fable nor melodrama, nor what's crudely niched as 'world literature,' the novel traces the story of a painstakingly-crafted protagonist and his community caught up in the inescapable allure of success defined in Western terms."
—Publishers Weekly, STARRED Review
"Unsuppressible, Okey Ndibe’s Foreign Gods, Inc. is a splendid work of art that belongs in every reader’s collection. In a masterful manner, Ndibe manages to blend the traditional belief of his Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria with the challenges that face many young and ambitious African immigrants in the USA. The social benefit of the book is immense."
—Sahara Reporters
"Ndibe writes with a folksy inclusiveness. The village humor, the greetings and teasing, lend the Utonki sequences a lyrical magic . . . Into this richly stocked brew of characters, Ndibe skillfully introduces suspense in the final stretch, guiding readers through the tension of getting through customs Nigerian-style . . . As an author with a foot in Nigeria and the U.S., he expertly brings both worlds to life.
—Shelf Awareness
"A freshly and heartbreakingly recast tale of American immigration, with all its longings, disappointments, effacements and reclamations."
—The Cleveland Plain Dealer
"Wonderfully colorful . . . There's more than a touch of Poe, or perhaps The Twilight Zone, in the surreal conclusion of this story."
—Hartford Courant
"This is a heist story like no other . . . Ndibe unfurls his rich narrative gradually, allowing room for plenty of character interaction while painting a revealing portrait of contemporary Nigeria. With piercing psychological insight and biting commentary on the challenges faced by immigrants, the novel is as full-blooded and fierce as the war deity who drives the story."
—BookList
"On the surface, Foreign Gods, Inc. is a heist book about a Nigerian cab driver in New York trying to steal an ancient statue from his village in Nigeria. But Okey Ndibe’s novel delivers far more than that description suggests, tackling everything from tradition to trying to make it in America, and the way Western countries view the rest of the world."
—Flavorwire
"A close associate of the late, great Chinua Achebe, Okey Ndibe adds his voice to a new generation of writers . . . Foreign Gods, Inc. features New York-based Nigerian Ike . . . [whose] picaresque journey, gently but incisively told, shows us the vagaries of both American and Africa culture."
—Library Journal
"Ndibe’s novel takes on serious themes of cultural exchange, but it does so in a decidedly comic fashion. All the characters Ike encounters, in New York and in Nigeria, inject their own brands of humor into the story."
—Chapter16, Tennessee
About the Author
Okey Ndibe first came to the US to act as founding editor of African Commentary, a magazine published by Chinua Achebe. He has taught at Brown University, Connecticut College, Simon’s Rock College, Trinity College, and the University of Lagos (as a Fulbright scholar). His award-winning journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Hartford Courant, where he served on the editorial board. He earned his MFA and PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. His second novel, Foreign Gods, Inc., was selected by New York Times critic Janet Maslin as one of her 10 favorite books of 2014. Mr. Ndibe lives in West Hartford, CT, with his wife, Sheri, and their three children.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
CHAPTER ONE
The young woman lay on the sands, her mouth frozen in a smile, as if nothing in the whole world surpassed the sweetness of death. Her face was hardy, but death made her seem older and sadder than twenty. Her eyes bulged glassy, like a grasshopper’s. Her bright blue shirt and skimpy flamingo skirt hung loosely about her, rent. A large copper earring dangled from her left ear. Patterned into the circle was the image of an eagle in the attitude of flight. Her right ear was bare, bloody.
Eyes stared at the sprawled body. For a moment I was tempted to maneuver my way to the front, to ask questions and take notes. But a force from within me restrained this urge. The scene was too stark, the crowd’s voyeurism too unnerving. Sweat ran in streaks under my shirt, cold and tingly. I put my notebook under my arm and clasped it tight. This was my first sight of a dead body, and I seemed paralyzed. In quick succession, my emotion changed from shame to anger to fear. The dry cold wind of harmattan blew lazily into my ear, soft like the hum of a lover’s breath. I began to move my toes in small circles against the grains of sand in my shoes. The sand’s coarse tactility gradually restored my calm.
Near the corpse stood a lifeguard named Lanky, a man with an athlete’s body, taut muscles, and veins that crisscrossed the length of his arms. The crowd formed a semi-circle around him, listening enrapt to his story, told with the fervor of an unlikely raconteur surprised with a captive audience. His hands chopped the air and pointed, conjuring up emotions and events that seemed beyond the reach of his words.
Whenever more people joined the crowd, Lanky retold the story for their benefit. He rendered each telling slightly differently, modulating his voice, mixing in pidgin, altering details, padding events, adding new insights, conjectures, rhetorical questions, sprinkling in proverbs for flavoring, his hands all the while deft in the air, kneading their own tales.
He had just concluded when a group of Europeans who knew him strolled onto the scene. One of them, a pudgy man with a wrestler’s body and freckles on his shoulders and face, spoke first.
“Gosh! It’s rather early to have a drowning customer, isn’t it, Lanky?”
The rest of his party, two men and a blonde woman, laughed with the freedom of people who had spent much of the night drinking. The crowd fixed the revelers with shocked glares, but the Europeans were not in the least perturbed. Instead, the blonde, high-shouldered, amplebreasted but lean in a nearfamished, weight-loss fanatic sort of way, became so titillated she began to cough.
“Obviously not, Dan! Obviously not,” she said between spasms. “It’s never too early for a lifeguard to have a customer. I mean, Lanky here has to earn his living!”
“Hear! Hear!” exclaimed one of the men. Another, his head bald and bony and his chest covered with white hair, spoke in a contrived tone of sympathy.
“Bloody awful to die on New Year’s Day. How did this calamity come about?”
The lifeguard’s lips quivered with a quick smile and his eyes became radiant as he mounted the orator’s platform once again. “My mouth cannot tell everything my eyes saw today. To God!” he swore, dipping his index finger lightly on his tongue and lifting it skyward. “I got here at seven sharp.” He raised his left wrist half-way to his face and with his right hand tapped where he might have worn a watch had he owned one. “Seven sharp. Next year will make it six years since I started this job. Six good years,” he stressed, raising the requisite number of fingers. “A few months ago the corpses of prostitutes began to appear on beaches like poisoned fish. I never thought that one day I would see one with my two eyes. But this morning I saw this one.” He paused, pointing to the corpse.
“True true, it was a big shock. Imagine it: a black woman drowning at seven sharp! If it had been an oyibo woman, no surprise at all. Many many oyibo who work at the embassies like to swim early in the morning. Like you people,” he said, indicating the four Europeans. “Some American businessmen and tourists who stay at Hotel Meridian also come out for early morning swims. I used to wonder why oyibo people don’t fear cold water. But an American tourist told me about a weather in their country that’s as cold as the inside of a fridge. I think they call it . . .”
“Winter!” shouted the blonde.
“Aha, winter!” Lanky echoed. “I even heard it can be colder than a fridge. Imagine that! That’s how I knew that what we call cold here is like a joke to oyibo people. As for us, cold can make us panic. Before we come out to swim, we make sure the sun has woken up well well and cleared the clouds from its eye. When the sun has warmed the water fine fine, that’s when we come out to swim.”
He paused again, as though searching for an appropriate tone.
“I came to work at seven sharp and heard a terrible sound. It was the sound of a drowning person. My spirit-voice told me there was no hope. The harmattan was heavy: I could not even see my hand in front of my face. The sound came again, sharper and louder. Then my spirit somersaulted and told me to do my job, whether there was hope or not. I wiped my eyes and looked in front, no blinking. Still, I saw nothing. That’s when my spirit told me to trust my ears. I was about to dive into the water when I saw a ghost rising out of the waves. I nearly peed on myself. To God! But the ghost took a man’s shape and even spoke words I was too afraid to hear. Then I saw it was Bukuru the madman. I began to shiver. Everybody knows he’s the boyfriend of Mammy Water, the water spirit. True true, I wanted to run away. But the drowning woman cried out again and my spirit-voice reminded me of my duty. I stepped into the water.
“I swam madly to shake away fear. The waves played tricks on me, moving the woman from place to place. I went fim this way and her cry came from another direction, so I swam fam that way. Fim, fam, fim, fam, like fish. By the time I found her she had swallowed so much salt water she was as heavy as a cow. Imagine the likeness!
“You see that spot where a wave is rising?” Lanky thrust out his hand towards the ocean, as though expecting his concentration to freeze the spot. “Yes, right there! That’s where I found her. Her belly was like this,” he said, clasping his hands in front of his belly. “Like a woman pregnant with twins. Yet I managed to bring her out. As I pressed her belly softly softly, horrible sounds came from her mouth and nose. Death had already entered her body and taken a seat.”
Lanky paused again, to let his audience absorb the details. Some of them seemed to despair of his long-winded style, but were in no hurry to move on; nothing on the beach that New Year morning rivalled the spectacle of a smiling corpse. Others seemed entranced by Lanky’s strange commingling of ocean tales with the story of the drowned woman.
Lanky looked up at the sea of clouds, then spoke in a mournful tone. “God who lives in the sky. God knows I did my best. But it was not easy to fight death alone. If there had been anybody to help me, we would be telling a happier story now.” He shook his head, slowly, sadly, seeming to fight back tears.
“When I looked around, do you know who I saw? Bukuru the madman! He stood close to us, sharply watching the woman. The woman turned towards Bukuru. They looked at each other like ghosts sharing silent secrets. The woman opened her mouth to laugh, I swear! Something choked her, so she only smiled. Then she began to shiver: jijijiji. The madman turned and walked away, saying something I did not understand. The woman became quiet. Still smiling, but dead.”
The spectators remained silent, their gaze on the corpse. In the quiet, the roar of the ocean became buoyant, a belch from an old, far-away world. A young girl’s cry pierced the silence. She and her mother had just arrived at the scene.
“Mummy! Mummy!” she shouted, her eyes wide with bewitchment .
“Ssssh! Sssh!” the embarrassed woman hushed in vain .
“Will this dead woman . . .”
“Ssh!”
“. . . go to hell?”
“Ssh!”
“Didn’t you say . . .”
“Ssh!”
“that bad people . . .” “Ssh!”
“. . . go to hell?”
“Shut up!”
The girl trembled, then burst into tears.
“Wait till we get home, silly weaverbird!” thundered her mother, pulling her away.
The new silence was brief. Lanky said, “Why would a dying woman smile? Perhaps she saw the home of the dead and liked it more than this wretched life.”
There was a confused chatter, then an old man with a dome of grey hair gained ascendancy over the contending voices.
“She’s an ogbanje. Only an ogbanje would smile at death. I’m certain of that.”
“What’s an og . . . og . . . o-g?” asked a man in a husky American accent, stumbling on the word. “What does it mean, the word you used?”
“Ogbanje. They can die and return to life over and over again.
To them, death is a game, that’s why they can laugh at it.
Death only means a brief visit to the land of spirits. Then
they return to this life.”
“How does a dead person return to life?” asked the American.
“It’s a secret known only to ogbanje,” asserted the old man. “And most prostitutes are ogbanje. That’s why they live the way they do. Their bodies are like borrowed things, so they use them anyhow, without regret. To come and to go is the way of ogbanje. It’s the music they dance to.”
“Good for them,” said one of the Europeans. “Wouldn’t mind being one of these ogbanje characters, myself.”
“Not much hope of that,” the blonde woman said. “I’m afraid when the curtain comes down on you it’ll be for good—in more than one sense.” She laughed tipsily at her own witticism, and others in her party joined in.
Perhaps it was the facetiousness in their attitude that provoked the outburst from someone just behind me in the crowd. “The dead don’t envy the living!” rang the powerful voice. Everybody turned to look. It was Bukuru the madman! He stood, unmoved by the eyes that rained on him. His hair was knotted into long gritty locks that dropped like a Rastafarian’s to the small of his back. His eyes were deep-set, the color of an old lake. Wisps of hair sprouted from his nose above his matted moustache. His toes, long estranged from shoes, strained apart from one another. A strand of cloth held up his trousers . His grimy shirt fluttered lightly in the wind . His stink was musty and doughy, like the sea’s smell.
He was one of the monsters in my childhood dreams, dreams in which a figure much like him chased me across wide veldts and over jagged hills to the edge of precipices; dreams in which I felt myself tripping, slipping, falling—only to awake to the shame of having peed again in bed, the piss still warm, quickly turning cold.
“He knows something about the woman’s death,” Lanky said, pointing at Bukuru. “Otherwise, what was he doing around where she drowned?”
A din of voices tried to answer, but they were drowned out by the shrill commotion of an ambulance as it hurtled into view, flashing its bloody lights. Bukuru took in the scene with the passivity of a statue, as if his mind were focused on more lasting things: the rays of the sun, the wind’s song, the waves which continued to rise and fall, making eternal love to the shore.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Arrows of Rain, an outstanding debut
By Dauda Handan
Arrows of Rain published by Heinemann in the year 2000, is Okey Ndibe's first novel. Having read it, one is inclined to agree with Ekwueme Mike Thelwell that Arrows of Rain is 'an ambitious and brave first novel...(that) could jump start the moral political mission of serious African literature begun so well by Ousmane, Ngugi, and the immortal Achebe.' It deals with the degeneration of a contemporary African Nation, Madia, and the betrayal of its people by a corrupt political dictatorship.
Ndibe uses investigative journalistic and memoir techniques to closely examine and expose the disintegration of values and ethos in both public and private life; and how the lack of moral vision is leading the post-independent African society and its people at a hurtling pace towards destruction. The corruption, decadence and violence Ndibe vividly depicts in this novel are reminiscent of earlier writings by other African writers. A Man of the People and Anthills of the Savannah by Achebe, The Interpreters and The Man Died (prison memoirs) by Soyinka, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Armah, Petals of Blood by Ngugi and Dangerous Love by Ben Okri, are few such examples. To his credit, Ndibe is able to tackle this 'old' theme in African literature with refreshing insight and a unique approach, which lend his novel a contemporary application to the African experience.
Ndibe also demonstrates a skillful handling of not only his subject matter, but also the manner and technique in which it is conveyed and delivered. Listen to Ogugua's grandmother speaking to him shortly after the death of his father: 'Your father spoke to you before he went on his journey. You did not hear him. Do you know why? Because young men of today have lost the things of old. You no longer hear the language of things not said with words. 'Your father did not follow death like a lame man. He first wanted to know that you can stand in the world like a man. You must always remember that you come from a line of speakers. Your grandfather was the town crier for all of Amawbia. Your own father...went to the whiteman's country and learned to become a new kind of voice, one that was heard far beyond Amawbia. Now you, a child of yesterday, have joined the line. You have begun to do what your father did and his father before him. What you scratch on paper can go and give a headache to a big man... 'Don't fear any man, but fear lying. Remember this: a story that must be told never forgives silence. Speech is the mouths's debt to a story...' (97) In this passage we can clearly see the rhythm and structure of the original native language captured in the English rendition of the old woman's speech. Her character is one of the best realized in the novel, even though we met her in just a couple of pages. However, I quoted this passage for yet another and more significant reason. I believe it holds the master key to our understanding of the central message of Arrows of Rain. Ogugua's grandmother is renown for her clairvoyance, she has foreseen the death of her own husband and has warned him not to climb a certain palm tree to tap wine. He ignores her entreaties and falls to his death. The sections I italicized from the passage above are sounding a similar warning to her grandson. It was as though she could foresee his future.
The tragedy of Ogugua is that of a man who succumbs to fear and allows himself to be driven into silence. One rainy Saturday, in February! (such rain could only portend bad news, since the planting season in Madia starts in late May) Ogugua finds his lover, a prostitute named Emilia, brutally hacked to death by Major Isa Palat Bello in a fit of rage and jealousy. Several months earlier the same Bello, has raped and mutilated the same prostitute, and instead of exposing him, Ogugua chooses to remain silent out fear of the ruthless young army officer, who is also the son of an emir (a traditional ruling dynasty). A few years later, the same Isa Palat Bello emerges at the head of a military coup that has toppled the corrupt government of Prime Minister Askia Amin, as the new leader of Madia! Out of fear for his life, Ogugua goes into hiding, abandoning his career as a journalist. It is significant to note that, for twenty years in which General Bello waxes stronger and his stranglehold on the national life of the people of Madia becomes tighter and more repressive, Ogugua increasingly looses his identity, drifting and eking a living on the beaches of Langa. He ceases to be Ogugua, the name his late mother has given him, 'the wiper of tears.' People have come to consider him mad, and is known only as Bukuru (one who is learned or educated.) His refusal to acknowledge his birth name, is not just out of self-preservation any longer. Indeed, he realizes that his silence is tantamount to death; for a journalist who has chosen not to speak up has betrayed his calling. He has become nothing, in the real sense of it. He has betrayed his lineage, his profession, his lover, his son, and above all, he has betrayed his responsibility to the nation.
Ironically, he is arrested and charged with the rape and murder of a prostitute by some overzealous detectives at the opening of the novel. During his trial, in which he is identified as Mr. X -the significance of this is not lost to the reader- he tries to speak up accusing His Excellency, the Head of State, of a crime twenty years ago but is denounced as insane. Ndibe uses Bukuru's wrongful arrest and trial to satirize the law enforcement agency and the judicial system in Madia. Actually, the dead prostitute and several others found on the beaches of Langa have been raped by soldiers, members of a vice task force, mandated by General Bello to rid the city of prostitution. The detectives make no attempt to investigate these crimes, and are only eager to find a scapegoat, in an 'insane man' who dares to besmear the 'good name' of the Head of State.
While in detention, still awaiting trial, Bukuru decides to write his story. He sends his memoir to a promising young journalist, Femi Adero, the primary narrator of the novel, and who coincidentally is very likely the wounded son Bukuru has abandoned several years ago in the embrace of his dead mother. When Femi confronts him asking: "Could you be my father?" Bukuru cannot give him an answer. Finally, he realizes the futility of his belated action. He has hoped to find redemption in having his story finally told; however the complex web of events that have unfolded soon overwhelms him, transcending his individual predicament. In a suicide note he leaves Femi, he writes:
I know I am a man who ran away from duty and love. A man who must point a finger at fear and say: this is what drove me to do what I did, the dreadful god in whose name I slayed my voice. My grandmother was right: stories never forgive silence. My silence has no hope of redemption. It is too late in the day for me to look for grand insights... I know - as a man accused of rapes and murders I didn't commit - that a voiceless man is as good as dead. (248) Aware of the atrocities perpetrated by numerous leaders on the continent, Ndibe believes that speaking up against such should be a primary mission. This is especially true of those whose duty it is to inform the populace, those with the means and ability of reaching others, through the media, the information network and the literary world. In Arrows of Rain, Ndibe has taken a bold and courageous first step in that direction.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Stories that must be told
By A Customer
A friend who teaches a course in modern fiction told me about Okey Ndibe's novel. I went to a local bookstore and ordered it. Turned out to be the best book I've read in years!
This guy can tell a story, and tell it in a lyrical, compelling style. Often, when I read some highly touted novel, I pray for the book to come to an end. In the case of Arrows of Rain, I read it in one breathless go, and felt saddened when I turned to the last pages.
Ndibe's story is set in Madia, a fictional African nation, but the story resonates with the human experience. As somebody who's lived in two African nations, I found his evocation of the African atmosphere quite peerless in any novel I've read that's set in Africa. But the greater power of this novel lies in Mr. Ndibe's probing of the nature of power, stories and memory. The absolutely most stunning line in this beautiful novel is a statement by one of the female characters: "A story that must be told never forgives silence."
In a sense, the whole novel revolves around that idea: the consequences of silence when we should speak; the way in which the powerful dread stories, and the absolute need to reinforce memories.
Arrows of Rain is that rare novel--at once a love story, a psychological and political thriller, and a story engaged with ideas.
No discerning reader who encounters this book is going to emerge from reading it without having his sensibility transformed. The story stays with you long after you've closed the book. And it is a book that, as I found out, richly rewards re-reading.
I thought to attempt a summary of the book's plot, but no! It's too engaging a book to be reduced to a quick plot summary.
I've been looking for more stuff by this guy, but can't find any. I hope he continues to write--and write powerfully. There are more stories that must be told!
Bill Curtis
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Obi Enweze's Review ofArrows of Rain By Okey Ndibe
By Obi Enweze
Arrows of Rain is a fascinating satirical allegory that reveals in gory details the terrible effect of military rule in a country named Madia in the novel, but which is, in fact, a thinly disguised Nigeria. The book opens in captivating fashion with the story of the dead body of a woman sprawled on the sandy shores of B. Beach on New Year Day. The police arrive but do a terribly patched-up work under the guise of investigation. The only person who can give a credible eyewitness account is a maverick vagrant named Bukuru; he is a highly educated former journalist, but presumed mentally unstable. As he reveals that soldiers caused the unknown woman's death and discloses that a highly decorated Army officer has done unspeakable violence to women, the police begin to hatch a cover-up, discounting Bukuru's account - and accusing him of multiple homicides.
The novel's opening pages limn the poignantly detailed story of oppression, corruption, egregious human right abuses, brutal killings and other ills visited on the Madian populace by the higher echelon of the military. After reading it, one is left with nightmares of the total evil called militarism in Nigeria, and governance in general.
A book filled with spectacular intrigues Arrows of Rain is, in my view, a book for everyone's library. I read the book by pure accident. I was ordering the much-talked about memoir of Professor Chinua Achebe, There Was A Country: A Personal History of Biafra, and saw this book listed. Being a great fan of Ndibe's erudite weekly commentaries on the litany of Nigeria's social issues, I ordered a copy. I am rather surprised that the existence of such an important book, rich in the history of class struggle in Nigeria, was unknown to me.
The plot of Ndibe's novel sounds at once prophetic and realistic. Some of the book's dramatic events will be familiar to most Nigerians, but Ndibe's flair as a novelist enables him to avoid the trap of recreating the staid realities of Nigeria's political history. Yes, the novel offers an all too familiar canvas of corruption and massive looting by politicians, which occasion military intervention in a coup d'état. The military regime offers lots of promises that keep the expectant populace relieved and happy. However, the military soon becomes dictatorial, triggering once again a yearning for the corrupt elected politicians. The cycle continues again.
This book will be of immense interest to a variety of ideologically driven minds. From the women's rights advocate, who wants the world to understand the plight of women under a military dictatorship, to the historian who wants to grasp the nature of military rule in Nigeria, to a law student who wishes to gain an insight into the real drama of cross-examination, rules of evidence and expert testimony - there's a treasure trove in this fine novel.
The beauty of the book is that many readers will finish it and then spend days discussing many of the social issues that the author has adroitly embedded in a short book of 247 pages. If you haven't read the book yet, but want to debate which is better - a very corrupt civilian democracy (in the case of Nigeria, government by looters) or an equally corrupt military regime - you should probably stop the debate, run out and order a copy of the book first. Part of the story centers around the unspeakable crimes committed by General Isa Palat Bello (IPB), a very powerful and dreaded military ruler of Madia.
Elected but rather corrupt civilians, who squandered the wealth of Madia in a most reckless manner, are at first Madia's rulers. The elected president, Askia Amin, is both clueless and indulges excessively in sexual liaisons with women as well as hedonistic consumption of alcohol. The massive looting and lavish lifestyle of these elected officials leads to the country being ranked as sixth on the list of countries rated as "disasters in waiting" by a world organization. Dr. Bato, a brash Ivy League economist who heads Madia's Economic and Planning Ministry, dismisses the report as "misleading" and actually puts a spin by calling the rating as "good news." In total disregard to the true state of Madia, Dr. Bato swears that nobody in the country is dying of hunger. He also justifies needless death in Madia, arguing in Malthusian terms that people need to die and be replaced by newborns. Dr. Bato is summoned by Madia's legislators to explain his statement; he talks down to the lawmakers. His insolent manner triggers a huge parliamentary row. All bets are off, and pockets of protests erupt all over Madia. University students take to the streets to demand the firing of Dr. Bato. Instead, security agents slaughter hundreds of the defenseless demonstrators, triggering more and wider protests.
The disruptive atmosphere enables General Isa Palat Bello, an emir's son, to sack the elected government and assume office. The corruption-ridden administration of Askia Amin is consigned to the rubbish heap. Bukuru's already difficult life takes a turn for the worse with this development. He knows too much about the new dictator. He knows about the general's rape and murder of Iyese, a former teacher turned prostitute who once got entangled in a three-way relationship with Isa Palat Bello and Bukuru. When Iyese got pregnant and bore a son, Isa Palat Bello, who has a long history of unspeakable violence against women, wrongly assumes that the male child is his (he has no male child with his wife and badly wants one). When Iyese insists that the child is Bukuru's, IPB kills her, leaving the new-born baby an orphan.
Terrified, Bukuru never accepts responsibility for the child. When General Isa Palat Bello becomes president, Bukuru fears that his days - as someone who knows too much about the new military ruler - are numbered. He develops a deep paranoia and even starts hallucinating. His terror gets worse when two men show up at the newspaper where he was a member of the editorial staff, and demand to see him. The fear of IBP literally drives him to the brink. He calls off work, and then starts a long but sad journey that sees him take refuge on B. Beach. In the end, he makes a home on the beach. And it is there, years later, that he witnesses more violent rapes and the killing of prostitutes by Isa Palat Bello's soldiers.
Life eventually takes a more terrible turn for Bukuru when he testifies in court about the death of the young woman who dies on B. Beach at the outset of the novel. His revelations in court about the heinous crimes committed both by soldiers and the dictator, General Bello, create an international sensation. He becomes the victim of a conspiracy featuring a corrupt high court judge, dishonest police officers, and a terrified psychiatrist. The machinery of state power is mobilized to provide false testimonies implicating Bukuru for the murder. Since Bukuru's truth is all too frightening, the judiciary as well as other officials conspire to portray him as a mad man and to depict his own indictment of General Bello and soldiers as figments of his deranged imagination. Reading this novel, I recalled a statement by Karl Max and Engels in their slim book, The Communist Manifesto: "the bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, and the man of science, into its paid wage laborers. The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation."
The best part of Arrows of Rain is that, despite the seriousness of the issues in the book, Ndibe uses his great gifts as a writer to weave in stories that illustrate the richness of Igbo culture as well as relationships and funny tales. There are such vignettes as traditional marriage rites as well as a sampling of the type of advice given to young women about to enter into marriage. A grandmother advises her bride-to-be-granddaughter: "a wise woman can take any man and mould him into the husband she wants." The title of the book, Arrows of Rain, is also taken from an enthralling folklore, which holds that rain brings life to things and people, but its arrows can also create such problems as floods and death.
I think Ndibe's portrayal of the manipulation of power jives with an already-established mythology of extreme corruption and careless attitude towards the plight of "the masses." The point he makes in the novel is as compelling as the techniques presented are accessible. His style of writing is alluring, crisp and lucid. Even when he uses unfamiliar words, the context always lends them clarity, rendering the words easy to understand.
Ndibe's views are stacked heavily against the ruling class, and in favor of the downtrodden in society. This is likely to make him a target of right-wing apologists who argue that he is too egalitarian, even socialistic in outlook. But he is a novelist who portrays his characters, whether poor or rich, weak or powerful, with great complexity.
Book link: http://www.amazon.com/Arrows-Rain-Heinemann-African-Writers/dp/0435906577
Obi Enweze
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