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Tag: Oyin Olugbile

  • Behold Oyin Olugbile’s $100,000-winning novel

    Behold Oyin Olugbile’s $100,000-winning novel

    In the beginning, Ajoke suddenly wakes up and thoughts of an impending journey to a seer occupy her mind. When they eventually see the seer, he tells them their next child will be a warrior. 

    When the child arrives, she turns out a girl and Aganju, her father, is disappointed. He is convinced the seer’s forecast has not been fulfilled. To him, there is almost no chance that a woman will be a warrior. 

    Aganju and Ajoke are characters in Sanya, Oyin Olugbile’s debut novel, and Sanya is their daughter, the one who defies death and serves as the protector of her elder brother, Dada. Her mother, the beautiful Ajoke, is from a family of no known pedigree. Aganju, on the other hand, is not just from a lineage of warriors but also a blue blood. Their love conquers initial family objections and husband and wife they become. Their first child, Dada, arrives with dreadlocks. Ill-health robs him of vigour and their attempts to have another child keeps ending in stillbirths until the ninth one a seer claims will be a warrior. She turns out a girl and Aganju wonders how a girl can be a warrior. But before he gets an answer, Ajoke dies shortly after giving birth to their daughter, Sanya. 

    Her death shakes Aganju and he becomes a drunk and is found dead one day. It is at this point it becomes clear that the author only uses them as tools to where she is going.

    In this tale steeped in myth, culture, tradition, fantasy and more, Olugbile takes us on an adventure, a roller-coaster on the lives of the couple’s children, but with a special slot for Sanya, the special one, the warrior. 

    Sanya is just different. Almost everything that interests a girl makes her uncomfortable. She hates menstrual cycles. She despises the idea of marriage. And she hates wrapper. She likes almost everything the world claims belongs to men.

    “Who says every woman must marry and give birth?” She queries her unmarried aunt who is matchmaking her with a chief’s son.

    The gods play a fast one when a great tragedy compels her to leave home and from then on, her growth becomes astonishing, even to her. Things happen at a dizzying pace thereafter and Sanya realises she is a tool in a drama sketched long before she was formed in her mother’s womb. Her new fate leads to a new identity and the identity involves taking on roles she ordinarily wouldn’t be considered for. But, she is in already and she has to find a way to keep pace with the crazy speed events in her life are taking. 

    In Dada’s life, transformation is also taking place and he find himself attaining feats he had seen through visions but thought impossible. 

    The unexpected turn of events adds to the suspense and pacing of the narrative and fuels a reader’s curiosity and the result is to keep turning the pages to find out where next Olugbile is using words to transport us. 

    Told in third person and from multiple points of views, this novel, which brings to mind Tomi Adeyemi’s Children of Blood and Bone, is rich in proverbs, Yoruba wise sayings. Like Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Olugbile’s prose is peppered with proverbs. 

    Parts of the book, especially relating to Dada’s visions, bring to mind Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Yarima Lalo in his sophomore novel, ‘When We Were Fireflies’ because of both characters’ gifts of seeing tomorrow. Parts also bring to mind Ben Okri’s Booker-winning Famished Road. 

    The setting of the book at a period far removed from modernity gives the author the latitude to explore her fantastical beliefs. 

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    The novel subtly screams that women should not be looked down on, that strength and greatness have little to do with gender and that women should not be hampered from reaching the zenith. 

    It is a story of love, love between a couple, love between siblings and love for the society. It is also a story about the role of powers beyond our control in our affairs. 

    One message that is likely to stay with a reader is captured in these words: “If they did not feel that her deeds were more important than her gender, then it was their own failing rather than her problem.”

    Olugbile tells this tale of love lost, regained and then lost again in prose that hums, breathes and shouts purposefully. 

    This gem of a book will take you on a path only few mortals have treaded and you will see, hear and feel things beyond this world and your soul will hum tunes of joy for being led to such a path. 

    Powerful. Magnificent. Page-turning. Epic. Fascinating. Brilliant. And unforgettable. These are words that aptly capture Olugbile’s achievement with this joy of a read. 

  • The Shortlist

    The Shortlist

    The three finalists for this year’s The Nigeria Prize for Literature have been unveiled. Oyin Olugbile made the list with ‘Sanya’, her debut novel. Two-time Booker Prize finalist Chigozie Obioma is in contention with his third novel, ‘The Road to the Country’. Nikki May completes the list with ‘This Motherless Land’.

    I have read the three books. When I reviewed ‘Sanya’, I described it in these words: Powerful. Magnificent. Page-turning. Epic. Fascinating. Brilliant. Unforgettable. I added: “She is one writer to look out for and the sky seems not enough for her to soar.”

    Olugbile opens her novel with Ajoke, a woman preoccupied with a journey to consult a seer. She and her husband, Aganju, are told their next child will be a warrior. When the baby arrives and turns out to be a girl, Aganju is disappointed. He believes the prophecy has failed, since in his world women cannot be warriors. They name the child Sanya. She grows into the protector of her fragile elder brother, Dada.

    Ajoke comes from a family of no renown. Aganju is heir to a lineage of warriors and royalty. Despite family objections, their love prevails and they marry. Their first child, Dada, is born with dreadlocks but poor health weakens him. After several stillbirths, Ajoke gives birth to Sanya, the supposed warrior child. She dies soon after, and Aganju, devastated, takes to drink until he is found dead. From this point, it becomes clear Olugbile has only used the parents as a bridge to the children’s tale.

    The novel is steeped in myth, tradition, fantasy and Yoruba cosmology. Olugbile focuses on Sanya, the different one. She hates menstrual cycles, despises marriage, dislikes the wrapper, and embraces the things society reserves for men. “Who says every woman must marry and give birth?” she asks her unmarried aunt, who tries to match her with a chief’s son.

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    Tragedy forces Sanya from home. Her growth from then on astonishes even her. She discovers she is part of a cosmic drama written before her birth, one that demands she step into roles meant for men. Meanwhile, Dada undergoes his own transformation, fulfilling visions he once dismissed as impossible.

    The story unfolds with suspense and speed, the reader compelled to keep turning pages. Told in the third person with multiple perspectives, the novel is rich in proverbs and Yoruba wisdom. Olugbile uses proverbs to anchor the narrative. The historical setting, distant from modernity, gives her the space to explore a fantastical world where gender roles are constantly questioned.

    At its heart, Sanya declares that strength and greatness are not limited by gender. It is a tale of love between a couple, between siblings, and for community. It also explores the power of forces beyond human control. One of its most enduring messages is captured in these words: “If they did not feel that her deeds were more important than her gender, then it was their own failing rather than her problem.”

    In my review of Obioma’s The Road to the Country, I described it as “a hard-hitting triumph of a novel.” Its characters, shaped by the author’s elegant voice, sing and compel us to dance along in this story of brotherhood, grief, guilt, love, friendship and redemption.

    Like in The Fishermen and An Orchestra of Minorities, Obioma ends this book with a flourish, drawing on a 2015 poem of the same title he published in the Virginia Quarterly Review. I wrote: “By ending the novel with a metaphor where the road is compared to seen and unseen things, Obioma is sure again to leave readers closing the book and screaming, ‘Chigozie has done it again!’”

    I believed the novel had the makings of a Booker Prize winner. That recognition did not come, but now it competes for Africa’s biggest literary prize, with a cash award larger than Booker’s.

    The book tells of two men burdened by guilt, making decisions with life-changing consequences. Obioma adds a second layer of complexity by telling one man’s story through the “mirror” (opon Ifa) of the other, initially blurred but eventually clear. The vision includes glimpses of the city of the dead, giving the novel a cosmic depth.

    One of the men, the seer Igbala Oludamisi, foresees his wife’s death but cannot prevent it. Wracked with guilt, he seeks her fate in the afterlife through a ritual that allows him to witness the life of the second man, Kunle Aromire. Igbala follows Kunle from birth in 1947, through his fraught relationship with his younger brother Tunde, and into the maelstrom of the Biafran War.

    Kunle, a 19-year-old University of Lagos student, believes he can atone for Tunde’s misfortune by going after him in the East. With the Red Cross, he enters Biafra only to find a land full of obstacles. Soon, he is reciting oaths of loyalty: “I pledge to Biafra, my country… to fight as part of the Biafran Armed Forces with all my strength… knowing that the cost of desertion will be with my life.”

    Igbala watches as Kunle befriends Agnes, a female soldier, and discovers that even in war, love and friendship offer redemption.

    Obioma brings back history we try to bury: the 1953 Kano riots, the 1966 coup and its reprisals, the murder of Head of State Aguiyi Ironsi, and the bloody civil war. He shows how tribalism, lies, and violence continue to shape us. In his words, it feels as though “we killed our tomorrow yesterday.”

    The tension begins on page one and builds steadily. Through Tunde’s accident and disappearance into a war zone, the reader is pulled along in search of resolution.

    The novel is set in Akure, Obioma’s hometown, as well as Lagos and parts of Eastern Nigeria. Nigerian words appear naturally, without distracting explanations. Igbo and Yoruba blend seamlessly with English, creating prose that flows with authenticity. Grounded in Nigerian worldviews, the book captures both the ugliness of war and the healing balm of language.

    Nikki May’s ‘This Motherless Land’, which I have just read, comes across as an unflinching coming-of-age tale. It explores the challenges and peculiarities of being both Nigerian and English.

    It spans continents and generations. Moving between England and Nigeria, it follows two extraordinary cousins, one half-Nigerian-and-half-English and the other fully English, whose bond sustains and destroys them in equal measure.

    At the centre is Funke, a gentle Nigerian girl nurtured by her parents’ intellectual warmth and her own creativity. Her life is upended when tragedy sends her to England to live with her White mother’s family,  a family whose patriach disowned her mother for marrying a black man. The reality she meets there is a dilapidated estate, unfamiliar food, and cold relatives, softened only by Liv, her spirited cousin.

    Liv, raised in a joyless home called The Ring, finds in Funke the companion she has long craved. Their bond deepens into sisterhood, and for a while, it shields them from family fractures. But history and tragedy resurface, tearing them apart through ambition, geography, and betrayal.

    Spanning two decades between Somerset and Lagos, May crafts a sweeping narrative about culture, race, and the legacy of family choices. Her prose lingers on grey skies, strained meals, and the vibrant rhythms of Lagos while probing deeper questions: How do we find home when caught between worlds? Can love bridge divides carved by a history so unpleasant?

    My final take: With these three remarkable works, the judges have a difficult task ahead. Is this Chigozie Obioma’s year to take home the $100,000 Nigeria Prize for Literature? Or is it the turn of debut novelist Oyin Olugbile? Or will Nikki May, published by Narrative Landscape, triumph over the Masobe Books duo? We will know in October. For now, congratulations to the trio, whose heartbeats will only quicken as the countdown begins.