Nigerian / US author Chigozie Obioma first had me enthralled with his stunning debut The Fishermen, followed by the extraordinary An Orchestra of Minorities. His third novel, just released, is The Road to the Country (Penguin Random House 2024), yet another allegorical and timeless saga that focuses on the lives of individual characters whilst also commentating on social and cultural issues in a highly engaging and readable way. Obioma’s writing is assured and confident, dazzling in its lyric beauty, gritty and raw in dialogue and description, and thought-provoking in content and themes. There is a reason he has been twice listed for the Booker Prize.
The Road to the Country depicts in exhaustive detail the Nigerian civil war which took place in the late 1960’s to early in 1970, when the area of Biafra declared its independence from Nigeria. My earliest memory of hearing the word ‘Biafra’ was when I was a young child in the 70’s and was urged to eat all my dinner because of ‘the starving Biafrans’. At that time, I had no idea what that meant, although I vaguely remember seeing pictures on television of African children with extended bellies and festering sores. Obioma’s novel has taken that memory and embellished it with knowledge, detail, and the gruesome reality of this civil war which took such an enormous toll on the people of Biafra and Nigeria, both in terms of military loss of life, and the terrible suffering inflicted on innocent Biafran civilians. It was not until reading this book that I fully understood the words and images I had heard 50 years ago, and comprehended the scale of the grief, carnage, rape, death, pillage and torture that was enacted on innocents caught up in the ambitions for power and independence of the leaders involved.
At the centre of the novel is Kunle, a young Nigerian man haunted by what he believes to be his fault / role in the accident of his younger brother some years earlier, which resulted in his brother losing the use of his legs, his wheelchair a constant reminder of Kunle’s failings and the irreparable hurt he has caused. Kunle’s guilt leads him on a journey to find his brother (who has mysteriously gone missing), which amounts to him ‘accidentally’ becoming conscripted into the army to fight a war just beginning, one that he doesn’t understand, one in which he has no skin in the game, a war that is entirely theoretical to him, until it isn’t.
Once in a uniform, with a gun, and a first-hand witness to the atrocities befalling his fellow Nigerians (or rather, his Biafran brothers, who until now he thought were all on the same side), Kunle cannot help but be appalled, and motivated to help. The longer he stays and fights, the more friendships he makes, and the more devoted he becomes to the cause and the principles at stake. The entire novel is an internal conflict between Kunle’s desire to find his brother and return him to his parents, his conscience (which urges him to continue to be part of the ‘good fight’), and the woman he meets, a fellow soldier, who will change the course of his life.
These individual conflicts are reflected in the larger scale social and cultural happenings around him – the horrific war, the trauma and injuries and injustices it inflicts, and the political and nationalistic fervour it represents.
It is rare to read a book that is so completely visceral, raw and honest about the traumatic effects of war. Injuries are described in bloody detail. Deaths and those left unburied and rotting become the norm. Illnesses are rampant. And the starvation of civilians (not so much the army, as they at least have some supplies, although often not plentiful), but the innocent countrymen and women, and the children, who are literally being starved to death slowly and tortuously, is depicted in a way I will never forget. Certainly after reading this book, I have a whole new understanding of Biafra that has been absent my whole life and made me realise how ignorant I am about many international historical wars and conflicts.
But while the book is acutely traumatic and realistic, it is also woven through with threads of what might be called magical realism but the author might call ancient wisdom or mythology (as with Obioma’s other works). Inserted throughout are chapters from the perspective of the Seer, or Igbala, who in 1947 peers into a silver bowl and experiences visions from the future, of the unborn. These beautiful, haunting sections establish a dual narrative deeply embedded in local custom and stories. The Seer is unable to share his visions, or allow himself to be seen by those he witnesses, but occasionally there is a universe time slip that results in Kunle glimpsing Igbala (without really understanding what or who he senses) and risks the ire of the one who has made it possible for Igbala to experience these galactic astral divinations, which he has been practising for over 25 years. His Master, long dead, is unable now to guide him, and the Seer must decide for himself how much he sees and whether or not he intervenes in future events.
The most fantastic aspect of this novel is of course the magical, haunting, literary prose, which sings and dances from each page with breathtaking detail, accuracy and meaning. Obioma’s words are threaded together like pearls on a string of gold. His ability to find joy, wonder, hope and love in the midst of such terrible suffering is incandescent. How does he do it? The situation is so overwhelmingly negative and full of suffering, and yet his depiction of the relationship dynamics between characters, Kunle’s internal soul-searching and conflicted desires, and the overarching commentary about the entire social and political situation is humbling, empathetic, compassionate and relentlessly hopeful.
If I didn’t recognise the author’s name, I might not have picked up this novel – grisly war stories are not something I necessarily gravitate towards. But the backdrop of war is tempered with the love, friendship, loyalty, bravery and sacrifice of the characters, and I came away feeling I now have a much better understanding of what happened to those Biafran children half a century ago.
And that is what truly great writing does – it immerses the reader so fully in the story that we come out the other side with increased knowledge, compassion and hopefully a better understanding of historical events. As some of our own skilled First Nations’ writers achieve when communicating the massacres and atrocities of this country, Obioma succeeds in offering a much more insightful understanding of Biafran and Nigerian history, the long road to freedom and democracy, and the background for conflicts that still resonate today.