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Waiting for an Angel
Lomba is a young journalist living in Lagos under Nigeria's brutal military regime. His mind is full of soul music and girls and the novel he's writing. Yet when his room-mate goes mad and is beaten up by soldiers, his first love is forced to marry a man she doesn't want, and his neighbours decide to hold a demo that is bound to lead to a riot, Lomba realizes that he can no longer bury his head in the sand. It's time to write the truth about this reign of terror ...
227 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
34 people are currently reading
1065 people want to read
About the author
Helon Habila
24 books201 followersHelon Habila was born in Nigeria in 1967. He studied literature at the University of Jos and taught at the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, before moving to Lagos to work as a journalist. In Lagos he wrote his first novel, Waiting for an Angel, which won the Caine Prize in 2001. Waiting for an Angel has been translated into many languages including Dutch, Italian, Swedish, and French.
In 2002, he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. After his fellowship he enrolled for a PhD in Creative Writing. His writing has won many prizes including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003. In 2005-2006 he was the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College in New York. He is a contributing editor to the Virginia Quarterly Review, and in 2006 he co-edited the British Council's anthology, NW14: The Anthology of New Writing, Volume 14. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published in February 2007.
He currently teaches Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and children.
In 2002, he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. After his fellowship he enrolled for a PhD in Creative Writing. His writing has won many prizes including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003. In 2005-2006 he was the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College in New York. He is a contributing editor to the Virginia Quarterly Review, and in 2006 he co-edited the British Council's anthology, NW14: The Anthology of New Writing, Volume 14. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published in February 2007.
He currently teaches Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 55 reviews
January 18, 2013
With the words,"everything is politics in this country..." Lomba, a young aspiring novelist and poet, is hired for a local newspaper's arts page. Set in Lagos, the time the latter part of the nineteen nineties when Nigeria is controlled, yet again, by a brutal military regime, Helon Habila has created a powerful, moving portrait of life at the time. "It was a terrible time to be alive", explains Habila in his book's Afterword, "especially when you were young, talented and ambitious - and patriotic." The author describes his work as a kind of historical novel, intended to "capture the mood of those years, [...] the despair, the frenzy, the stubborn hope, but above all the airless prison-like atmosphere that characterized them."
Habila tells his story episodically, in a series of linked stories focusing on well-drawn and believable characters and their daily lives. He writes with great compassion and empathy, bringing to the fore not only the place and its atmopshere but also emphasizing the individuals' capacity for hope and courage, friendship and love, beauty and poetry, despite the disturbing circumstances they have to cope with. First published in 2000 in Nigeria as a story collection, one of the stories, "Love Poems", won Habila the 2001 Caine Prize for African Writing. The collection was published in its revised format as "Waiting for an Angel" in 2002. Without doubt did the Caine Prize and this debut novel launch Habila's international writing career. In his two more recent novels, Measuring Time and Oil on Water, he has built on his strengths both as an exquisite story teller with great poetic expressiveness, and astute observer of people and events in his home country. Not surprisingly, ten years after publication this novel has lost nothing of its literary power, emotional strength and thematic relevance.
In "Lomba", the opening story, based on the earlier "Love Poems", we meet the young writer and journalist while he suffers in appalling conditions through his second year in prison. It is a despicable and hopeless place, where mistreatment and torture are the rule, where release, if at all, is arbitrary and often not more than a distant hope. With daydreaming and writing a diary on any scrap of paper and pencil he can find Lomba struggles to keep sane. Then one day one of his poems falls into the hands of the Superintendent... From then on, time moves backwards, more or less, and while Lomba's story weaves through the whole novel, we meet various individuals - friends, lovers, neighbours and others - that cross Lonba's path during the preceding years. The events that landed Lomba in prison will come into view as the stories unfold.
Bringing different perspectives and authentic voices to the fore, Habila in fact creates a colourful collage of persuasive human interest stories that take us close up and personal into the grim realities in Nigeria under military rule: extreme poverty of is pervasive among the civil population, censorship an every day and arbitrary arrests a common occurrence for educated people. Rather than addressing these issues with broad strokes, the author focuses his attention on one neighbourhood in Lagos: Morgan Street and its surroundings. It is a poor area with tenement buildings without any of the basic amenities. Madame Godwill's restaurant, a sort of greasy spoon, attracts and feeds the locals, students, ex-veterans, abandoned women and other marginalized people. They share their stories; they cry together, laugh together and are alive as a community. Eventually they will rename the street into "Poverty Street". Apart from Lomba himself, several characters stand out for me: Kela, the observant fifteen-year old nephew of Madame Godwill, sent to Lagos to get his life back on track and his teacher, Joshua who, despite his young age speaks with great wisdom. They both may well reflect some of the character traits and experiences of a young Helon Habila.
Habila tells his story episodically, in a series of linked stories focusing on well-drawn and believable characters and their daily lives. He writes with great compassion and empathy, bringing to the fore not only the place and its atmopshere but also emphasizing the individuals' capacity for hope and courage, friendship and love, beauty and poetry, despite the disturbing circumstances they have to cope with. First published in 2000 in Nigeria as a story collection, one of the stories, "Love Poems", won Habila the 2001 Caine Prize for African Writing. The collection was published in its revised format as "Waiting for an Angel" in 2002. Without doubt did the Caine Prize and this debut novel launch Habila's international writing career. In his two more recent novels, Measuring Time and Oil on Water, he has built on his strengths both as an exquisite story teller with great poetic expressiveness, and astute observer of people and events in his home country. Not surprisingly, ten years after publication this novel has lost nothing of its literary power, emotional strength and thematic relevance.
In "Lomba", the opening story, based on the earlier "Love Poems", we meet the young writer and journalist while he suffers in appalling conditions through his second year in prison. It is a despicable and hopeless place, where mistreatment and torture are the rule, where release, if at all, is arbitrary and often not more than a distant hope. With daydreaming and writing a diary on any scrap of paper and pencil he can find Lomba struggles to keep sane. Then one day one of his poems falls into the hands of the Superintendent... From then on, time moves backwards, more or less, and while Lomba's story weaves through the whole novel, we meet various individuals - friends, lovers, neighbours and others - that cross Lonba's path during the preceding years. The events that landed Lomba in prison will come into view as the stories unfold.
Bringing different perspectives and authentic voices to the fore, Habila in fact creates a colourful collage of persuasive human interest stories that take us close up and personal into the grim realities in Nigeria under military rule: extreme poverty of is pervasive among the civil population, censorship an every day and arbitrary arrests a common occurrence for educated people. Rather than addressing these issues with broad strokes, the author focuses his attention on one neighbourhood in Lagos: Morgan Street and its surroundings. It is a poor area with tenement buildings without any of the basic amenities. Madame Godwill's restaurant, a sort of greasy spoon, attracts and feeds the locals, students, ex-veterans, abandoned women and other marginalized people. They share their stories; they cry together, laugh together and are alive as a community. Eventually they will rename the street into "Poverty Street". Apart from Lomba himself, several characters stand out for me: Kela, the observant fifteen-year old nephew of Madame Godwill, sent to Lagos to get his life back on track and his teacher, Joshua who, despite his young age speaks with great wisdom. They both may well reflect some of the character traits and experiences of a young Helon Habila.
January 16, 2013
“It was a terrible time to be alive,” writes Helon Habila in his aftermath.
And indeed, the first story in this book of seven interconnected stories hits the reader with a wallop. Lomba – a writer – is one of many political prisoners, whose life has been upended and whose humanity is on the way to being extinguished by a corrupt system. But who is Lomba, really, and what brought him to the prison?
The answer isn’t revealed until the last story. In the interim, we learn much about him through narratives: the love of his life married a benefactor to pay for her dying mother’s care, his close friend lost his entire family and went mad with grief as the army moved in on student protests. In the longest of the stories, Poverty Street, Lomba lives among others who are struggling to get by: a young boy who was exiled to his aunt’s because of a misdemeanor and his teacher Joshua who loves a former pupil – Hagar – who was forced to turn to prostitution.
It’s a bleak picture of the “despair, the frenzy, the stubborn hope, but above all the airless prison-like atmosphere” of Nigeria, a land gone mad during the Babangida and Abacha years and most readers – me among them – will likely not know the background history and repressive military regimes that rocked Nigeria to its core.
But this book is not about historicity; Habila states, “My concern was for the story, that above everything else.” In this, the author succeeds brilliantly. When Lomba visits a slave museum at Badagry, his mentor tells him that two slaves who spoke the same language were never kept together. He ends the tale by saying,“…every oppressor knows wherever one word is joined to another to form a sentence, there’ll be revolt.” At another point, he considers, “…there is so much more we can’t understand because we are only characters in a story and our horizon is so narrow and so dark.”
It will be words, Habila suggests, that offer the power to set us free, whether it’s within a prison or in the chaos of a brutal military coup. The eponymous “angel” that Lomba awaits is the angel of death but Habila celebrates not death but life: hope, the possibility of love, the beauty of connections, the power of journalism and other writing. In the end, the sentence of imprisonment pales next to the sentence that can offer liberty. Now – as of in times of slavery – words can unlock the locks and chains.
And indeed, the first story in this book of seven interconnected stories hits the reader with a wallop. Lomba – a writer – is one of many political prisoners, whose life has been upended and whose humanity is on the way to being extinguished by a corrupt system. But who is Lomba, really, and what brought him to the prison?
The answer isn’t revealed until the last story. In the interim, we learn much about him through narratives: the love of his life married a benefactor to pay for her dying mother’s care, his close friend lost his entire family and went mad with grief as the army moved in on student protests. In the longest of the stories, Poverty Street, Lomba lives among others who are struggling to get by: a young boy who was exiled to his aunt’s because of a misdemeanor and his teacher Joshua who loves a former pupil – Hagar – who was forced to turn to prostitution.
It’s a bleak picture of the “despair, the frenzy, the stubborn hope, but above all the airless prison-like atmosphere” of Nigeria, a land gone mad during the Babangida and Abacha years and most readers – me among them – will likely not know the background history and repressive military regimes that rocked Nigeria to its core.
But this book is not about historicity; Habila states, “My concern was for the story, that above everything else.” In this, the author succeeds brilliantly. When Lomba visits a slave museum at Badagry, his mentor tells him that two slaves who spoke the same language were never kept together. He ends the tale by saying,“…every oppressor knows wherever one word is joined to another to form a sentence, there’ll be revolt.” At another point, he considers, “…there is so much more we can’t understand because we are only characters in a story and our horizon is so narrow and so dark.”
It will be words, Habila suggests, that offer the power to set us free, whether it’s within a prison or in the chaos of a brutal military coup. The eponymous “angel” that Lomba awaits is the angel of death but Habila celebrates not death but life: hope, the possibility of love, the beauty of connections, the power of journalism and other writing. In the end, the sentence of imprisonment pales next to the sentence that can offer liberty. Now – as of in times of slavery – words can unlock the locks and chains.
August 26, 2024
3,5 ⭐
La novela transcurre en Lagos, Nigeria; el tiempo es el de la dictadura atroz del General Sani Abacha (1993-1998) y a diferencia de la recientemente leída La muerte de Vivek Oji, en la que es mencionado lateralmente, en este caso es un factor importante, ya que el trasfondo (y a veces el centro) de la narración lo ocupan una sensación opresiva, un malestar general, las manifestaciones y la represión.
Es interesante el planteo del dilema sobre el modo de resistencia civil contra un gobierno tiránico e injusto, y en particular, al papel que desempeña la violencia en el proceso. Algún historiador, cuyo nombre no recuerdo, señaló que la lucha pacífica de Gandhi fue eficaz porque enfrente tenía el poder británico, relativamente civilizado y caballeresco, pero no lo hubiera sido frente a los panzer de Hitler.
La historia está contada a través de capítulos que llevan el nombre de alguno de sus protagonistas, aunque siempre en torno al joven estudiante y periodista Lomba, narrados en primera o tercera persona, y en los que no se sigue necesariamente un orden cronológico; de hecho, el primer capítulo pareciera ser el final de la historia.
La historia está muy bien armada, aunque he sentido un cambio de ritmo y estilo en el capítulo Kela; pienso que tal vez hubiera sido mejor ubicar este capítulo en la primera parte del libro.
Una novela atrapante, y por momentos con una narración de gran valor poético y dramático, y aunque pueda presentar alguna carencia en la ilación, una buena obra.
La novela transcurre en Lagos, Nigeria; el tiempo es el de la dictadura atroz del General Sani Abacha (1993-1998) y a diferencia de la recientemente leída La muerte de Vivek Oji, en la que es mencionado lateralmente, en este caso es un factor importante, ya que el trasfondo (y a veces el centro) de la narración lo ocupan una sensación opresiva, un malestar general, las manifestaciones y la represión.
Es interesante el planteo del dilema sobre el modo de resistencia civil contra un gobierno tiránico e injusto, y en particular, al papel que desempeña la violencia en el proceso. Algún historiador, cuyo nombre no recuerdo, señaló que la lucha pacífica de Gandhi fue eficaz porque enfrente tenía el poder británico, relativamente civilizado y caballeresco, pero no lo hubiera sido frente a los panzer de Hitler.
La historia está contada a través de capítulos que llevan el nombre de alguno de sus protagonistas, aunque siempre en torno al joven estudiante y periodista Lomba, narrados en primera o tercera persona, y en los que no se sigue necesariamente un orden cronológico; de hecho, el primer capítulo pareciera ser el final de la historia.
La historia está muy bien armada, aunque he sentido un cambio de ritmo y estilo en el capítulo Kela; pienso que tal vez hubiera sido mejor ubicar este capítulo en la primera parte del libro.
Una novela atrapante, y por momentos con una narración de gran valor poético y dramático, y aunque pueda presentar alguna carencia en la ilación, una buena obra.
September 22, 2021
“The angel of death is in the neighborhood, and soon it will be my turn. But not in such an ignoble fashion. I want to go in a way that a hundred years from now, people will look back at with awe and say ‘His death had meaning’.
- Helon Habila, Waiting for an angel.
.
.
This novel is ultimately a work of social commentary. From military rule, coup after coup in order to install transparent government, false promises made by politicians , abuse of power, civil wars and torture/murder of people who dare raised their voice against kleptocracy - all of these is described in the book. Helon Habila did explain that this book transpired of what has been happening across Nigeria Post 1990. The book followed the narration of Lomba, a political dissident that has been in a prison for 2 years. He was not given a right to get a lawyer and he did not know when the court hearing will be held. Most will just told him to wait for his punishment patiently. Being a talented writer and journalist, he was then approached by a warden to write a poems/ love letters so that the warden can passed it to his lover. Lomba decided to leave few clues in his work, hoping that the prison warden picked up on it and came for his rescue. The following chapters, it jumped to this nameless person narration. He is a friend of Lomba and Bola - that all 3 of them went to the fortune tellers to ask something that they are curious of. This nameless person decided to ask about his death - the details of it. The next chapter proceeded with Bola losing his parents in a tragic accident and undoubtedly , it brought trauma to him so much that he lose his sanity. In this particular chapter, we saw how Lomba described the friendship that he has with Bola and how he met him during first day of colleged and eventually, Bola’s family welcomed lomba into their family. Then, we shift to Alice - another chapter in Lomba’s wife. He saw she got married and the picture was being printed in the newspaper. She left him not because she doest love him but she choose stability and practicality over passion and love. The chapters might be disjointed - here and there but you know that at the end of the day that these chapters has the same link which is Lomba. Overall, this is a great book if you already familiar with Nigeria history. If not, you might not be able to capture the nuances of the situation that most of the characters in the book went through. A short and concise reading yet impactful as some of the issues highlighted are still relevant until now.
- Helon Habila, Waiting for an angel.
.
.
This novel is ultimately a work of social commentary. From military rule, coup after coup in order to install transparent government, false promises made by politicians , abuse of power, civil wars and torture/murder of people who dare raised their voice against kleptocracy - all of these is described in the book. Helon Habila did explain that this book transpired of what has been happening across Nigeria Post 1990. The book followed the narration of Lomba, a political dissident that has been in a prison for 2 years. He was not given a right to get a lawyer and he did not know when the court hearing will be held. Most will just told him to wait for his punishment patiently. Being a talented writer and journalist, he was then approached by a warden to write a poems/ love letters so that the warden can passed it to his lover. Lomba decided to leave few clues in his work, hoping that the prison warden picked up on it and came for his rescue. The following chapters, it jumped to this nameless person narration. He is a friend of Lomba and Bola - that all 3 of them went to the fortune tellers to ask something that they are curious of. This nameless person decided to ask about his death - the details of it. The next chapter proceeded with Bola losing his parents in a tragic accident and undoubtedly , it brought trauma to him so much that he lose his sanity. In this particular chapter, we saw how Lomba described the friendship that he has with Bola and how he met him during first day of colleged and eventually, Bola’s family welcomed lomba into their family. Then, we shift to Alice - another chapter in Lomba’s wife. He saw she got married and the picture was being printed in the newspaper. She left him not because she doest love him but she choose stability and practicality over passion and love. The chapters might be disjointed - here and there but you know that at the end of the day that these chapters has the same link which is Lomba. Overall, this is a great book if you already familiar with Nigeria history. If not, you might not be able to capture the nuances of the situation that most of the characters in the book went through. A short and concise reading yet impactful as some of the issues highlighted are still relevant until now.
July 15, 2018
Set in Nigeria during the brutal military regime of Sani Abacha, this novel switches back and forth in time and is made up of interconnected stories revolving around the main character of Lomba, an aspiring author and active journalist.
The book overall was very informative about the time it is set, however it lacked real punch for it to effectively portray the brutality of this period.
The book overall was very informative about the time it is set, however it lacked real punch for it to effectively portray the brutality of this period.
December 31, 2020
Habila's writing is deeply evocative. Waiting for an Angel starts with the protagonist in a jail cell for political 'crimes', and although we trace back to more naïve times, the sense of injustice brought about by terse, constrained writing never leaves us.
It's not all oppressive gloom. In one of the darkest sections, we follow Loomba trapped in a jail cell in disgusting conditions, his own love having left him, forced to write love poems for his jailer's romantic fancy. Despite these poems being written for a facsimile of love, or perhaps because of the paradox of conditions in which they're written, they're beautiful and heart-wrenching. I immediately purchased a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets after finishing the chapter.
Not everything adds up - towards the end the book blurs the fourth walls in confusing ways. However the main message hits home: no one will 'publish a novel which nobody would buy, because the people are too poor, too illiterate, and too busy trying to stay out of the way of the police and army to read'.
It's not all oppressive gloom. In one of the darkest sections, we follow Loomba trapped in a jail cell in disgusting conditions, his own love having left him, forced to write love poems for his jailer's romantic fancy. Despite these poems being written for a facsimile of love, or perhaps because of the paradox of conditions in which they're written, they're beautiful and heart-wrenching. I immediately purchased a copy of Shakespeare's sonnets after finishing the chapter.
Not everything adds up - towards the end the book blurs the fourth walls in confusing ways. However the main message hits home: no one will 'publish a novel which nobody would buy, because the people are too poor, too illiterate, and too busy trying to stay out of the way of the police and army to read'.
December 17, 2017
Waiting for An Angel is about Lomba, a journalist in Nigeria. It shows the disruption caused by the military rule of Nigeria. It is very informative, especially since I did not know much before about the situation in Nigeria. It gives a personal perspective of the effects of military rule on individuals: students, teachers, restaurant owners, etc. It is written very beautifully, almost poetically, but I did not like this book for the writing style but for the information it provided about life in Nigeria.
At times, this book was very confusing. It has different sections which are about different times in Lomba's life, but there aren't really transitions between the sections. Also, the book is so full of poetic and figurative language that it sometimes seems that Helon Habila was trying to use as many similes and metaphors as he could, like a high schooler writing a poem for class. At times the writing was beautiful, but sometimes it just seemed like too much to me. My favorite thing about this book was that it highlighted the significance of the media. Habila emphasized that the media's job was to make the public aware of what was going on in the country. I think this is very important, especially for Americans to recognize right now, with the new president. The message was very powerful, and this book made me rethink the role of the press as I recognized the differences between Nigerian and American media.
This novel has many mature themes, but it is very informative, so I recommend it for adults who want to learn more about living in Nigeria or living under military rule. It is not one of my favorite books I've read, nor would it be at the top of my recommendations list, but it does include some very important themes and it is a reminder of the current political struggles in the world.
July 21, 2008
This is a novel of interconnected stories, set in Nigeria during the brutal military regime of Sani Abacha. The main character, Lomba, is a would-be novelist and journalist who runs afoul of Abacha's thugs, and he appears in most of the stories, loosely based on Habila himself. The book proceeds almost in a circular fashion, starting with Lomba when he is in jail and is asked to write love letters for the warden to the woman he hopes to win over. In other chapters, you see Lomba when he is a young student, caught up in his first romance and devastated by the mental breakdown of a friend, then when he struggles unsuccessfully for two years to write his first novel, before joining a newspaper so he can "live again," as he puts it, and finally, making an oblique appearance in a riveting finale that recounts the demonstrations that are put down violently by the junta and that also affect the lives of a young student, his mentor, the charismatic Joshua, and Joshua's love, the prostitute and former student Hagar. Some of the stories are stronger than others, but the power of the situations Lomba and the others find themselves in -- political repression, grinding poverty, loves sought and lost, and flashes of nobility -- help this first novel to rise about its sometimes disjointed prose.
March 30, 2008
A very disappointing read. The book fails to capture the brutality of Sani Abacha's dictatorship as promised. What it does is capture the everyday insanity and contradictions of life in Nigeria - whole families dying on the inter city highways; young people going insane; universities closing down due to student protests or lecturers strikes; young women marrying older men for survival and to maintain their extended family; the sordid and brutal life of a Nigerian prison. This is the Nigeria of the last 30 / 40 years. The novel is dry and passionless told in a matter of fact way that fails to capture any sense of the insanity - unless of course you are familiar with that insanity.
July 26, 2012
In my humble opinion, "Waiting For An Angel" is as close to genius as a writer can get; at least, that's the way I view any novel which can hold me spellbound for twenty-four hours without a single thought about life-sustaining necessities. As one who lived in Nigeria at the time the novel was set, it stirred bittersweet memories of the life under military dictatorships. The simple writing belies the sophisticated, well-observed presentation of the lives of ordinary folks who were, by and large, the victims of those aberrant days of Nigeria's post-colonial history.
May 9, 2011
awesome!! Helon writes with so much passion about that dark time in Nigeria...the millitary era. i'm proud to be a countrywoman of such talent.
January 7, 2024
Affecting look at life living under brutal dictatorship in 1990s Lagos. The main protagonist is a journalist and aspiring writer but his story is partially told through the prism of a number of other characters including his best friend and editor and this helps to give a wider perspective of society. When it’s done well interlinked short stories are one of my favourite mediums - this was certainly done well and a good reminder of the consequences for individuals when governments turn to corruption and repression.
July 17, 2019
Lomba’s heart-breaking ending lingers throughout the book as seven short stories skate around different elements of his imprisonment. Each story stands alone and, without annoying repetition or gratuitous cross over, one story seamlessly answers the mystery of another. The multiple perspectives work together to build up a strong sense of Nigeria in the late 1990's under military dictatorship.
Fiction and historical fact intertwine effortlessly as the political situation isn’t the main focus, the consequences of it are. The consequences for those in the media, students and the poor. There isn’t a single villain and there is very little anger in the book. Instead there is an overarching sense of hopelessness and a wall of impossibility as beautifully drawn, likeable characters have to face how far their current reality is from their dreams.
Fiction and historical fact intertwine effortlessly as the political situation isn’t the main focus, the consequences of it are. The consequences for those in the media, students and the poor. There isn’t a single villain and there is very little anger in the book. Instead there is an overarching sense of hopelessness and a wall of impossibility as beautifully drawn, likeable characters have to face how far their current reality is from their dreams.
April 1, 2015
Ì generally don`t enjoy linked short stories but this actually turned out to be more than that: the stories combined to create a novel, seamless and powerful. Flap copy: "Lomba is a young journalist living under military rule in Lagos, Nigeria, the most dangerous city in the world. His mind is full of soul music and girls and the lyric novel he is writing. But his roommate is brutally attacked by soldiers; his first love is forced to marry a wealthy general; and his neighbors on Poverty Street are planning a demonstration that is bound to incite riot and arrests. Lomba can no longer bury his head in the sand...."
May 30, 2019
This got off to a tricky start, maybe that was me expecting a novel when it’s more a linked collection of short stories. By the end I liked it, it all comes together in the end, it is a clever read about Nigeria and it’s political unrest.
May 15, 2007
one of my favorite african author reads. it was good but confusing for me because he goes back and forth in the book. although this doesn't make the book bad. it was an okay book
May 15, 2008
Beautifully written insight into life in Nigeria's modern dictatorship. The atmosphere of tension and fear is almost tangible
May 14, 2013
Gripping story of love and journalistic integrity. Beautifully drawn characters and a heartbreaking ending.
August 2, 2023
How would one best write about a volatile time period in a nation's history in which uncertainty, loss, and grief were persistently prevalent themes? Helon Habila does a masterful job of it by writing a story about Nigeria's past in which he creates an amazing tapestry of intersecting plotlines that steer the reader between time frames and characters to build a palpable sense of uncertainty and suspense. As the story abruptly zigzags back-and-forth between what-happened and what-led-to-what-happened, characters are introduced and then disappear, usually tragically, and often with scant explanation, leaving the reader guessing ...A little like people must have felt in the time period Habila was writing about. But the over-arcing story of one character, Lomba, ties it all together so that there is someone the reader can feel engaged with, and invested in, and for whom one wants a good outcome. But true to the days Lomba lived in, one can only wonder what came of him in the end, as well as of various people around him. In this way, I loved how Habila's story-writing style mimicked the unstable context he has written about. And while I've read some authors who've attempted this style of writing quite clumsily, I found this story both compelling and illuminating as I caught a glimpse of Nigeria's history.
December 1, 2022
The hell with governments in 3rd world country’s In the 20th century is quite simply described as crazy. In this book it was clear that the government of the people in Nigeria was mistreating them. It’s so sad that there was no freedom of speech like in the USA. Bola was silences.... Joshua was beat down by police, and Hager’s was hit by a car when running away with Joshua. It’s amazing how one can relate to the characters and feel what it would be like to live In A country like that. Lombo was the renascence man in this book. It’s beautiful how he was always talking about the book he wanted to write which would win literature awards in Nigeria if only Nigeria had a commonwealth . I was very sad when Alice left Lombo for a rich guy. She had a good reason but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him. The chronological path of the story ending with Lombo missing made me very angry. The book was beautifully written. Helton Habila I give u a solid A. U should have got more recognition for this book.
December 6, 2024
...It's been a minute...
I'm normally not a fan of novels that take place during the time of war in Nigeria, but I read this cause it's a compulsory read in my University for Freshmen.
It's about a journalist whose life we get to experience through the chapters of the book. The first chapter tells us about his life in prison, it's harsh and cruel. But he manages it by writing diary entries in separate sheets of paper, that is, until he gets caught by the Super Intendent.
But the question is "How did he end up in prison?"
As you read the chapters, his story is explained backwards. We encounter different characters and their pov's, each one trying to live in the harsh regime of the military and some way or the other, they're interconnected through Poverty Street- a town renamed by its occupants because of the rough state they live in. There were moments of laughter and tears as we walk through Poverty Street through the eyes of its people.
I guess I'll be rereading it, for the sake of my exams. But other than that, it's pretty enjoyable
I'm normally not a fan of novels that take place during the time of war in Nigeria, but I read this cause it's a compulsory read in my University for Freshmen.
It's about a journalist whose life we get to experience through the chapters of the book. The first chapter tells us about his life in prison, it's harsh and cruel. But he manages it by writing diary entries in separate sheets of paper, that is, until he gets caught by the Super Intendent.
But the question is "How did he end up in prison?"
As you read the chapters, his story is explained backwards. We encounter different characters and their pov's, each one trying to live in the harsh regime of the military and some way or the other, they're interconnected through Poverty Street- a town renamed by its occupants because of the rough state they live in. There were moments of laughter and tears as we walk through Poverty Street through the eyes of its people.
I guess I'll be rereading it, for the sake of my exams. But other than that, it's pretty enjoyable
June 15, 2020
Fantastic book!
As a Nigerian who has been well fed with stories of the terrors of Abacha's military regime, this novel resonated well with me.
By allowing readers understand the lives of Lambo (a drop-out university student turned journalist and aspiring novelist turned a political prisoner), Kela, Joshua, Bola and many other minor characters, this novel offers insights into the Nigeria's brutal military regime of 90's.
I find the account of the visit to the slave trade museum particularly symbolic.
"You see, every oppressor knows that wherever one word is joined to another word to form a sentence, there'll be revolt"; this quote from the visit sheds light on the similarity between slave trade and the military regime.
As a Nigerian who has been well fed with stories of the terrors of Abacha's military regime, this novel resonated well with me.
By allowing readers understand the lives of Lambo (a drop-out university student turned journalist and aspiring novelist turned a political prisoner), Kela, Joshua, Bola and many other minor characters, this novel offers insights into the Nigeria's brutal military regime of 90's.
I find the account of the visit to the slave trade museum particularly symbolic.
"You see, every oppressor knows that wherever one word is joined to another word to form a sentence, there'll be revolt"; this quote from the visit sheds light on the similarity between slave trade and the military regime.
January 27, 2020
This is an exceptionally good first novel and easily one of my more memorable recent reads. As a novel-in-stories it exhibits a still not typical structure compared to most novels. As with any novel-in-stories you can appreciate each chapter as its own individual piece or as something that contributes to the larger whole. And it is a devastating larger whole. What a picture of a chaotic, fear-driven society, dominated by a paranoid and oppressive regime. That saddest part of it is that it drawn from the historical facts of Nigeria in the early 1990s. Makes me want to go out and immediately buy whatever else Habila has written.
November 13, 2017
I read this book (or collection of short stories) very disjointedly, so I think I have missed quite a number of underlying messages. However, that didn't make this book any less impactful. Despite being a quick read I found it to be impactful and thought-provoking, an interesting mix of despair, hope, courage, and futility.
I am certain that I would gain a lot from re-reading this in the future, so maybe I will. This book feels like one of those books that get better the more you read it.
I am certain that I would gain a lot from re-reading this in the future, so maybe I will. This book feels like one of those books that get better the more you read it.
February 2, 2020
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 Such a beautifully written book. I’m giving it 4.5 stars because I wish that the book was more structurally consistent. Switching points of view in this case made it seem like separate short stories as opposed to one fluid narrative. Although I really enjoyed how Habila weaved Nigerian history with the individual experience of the Abacha years. Overall, I highly recommend for anyone studying West African politics.
January 14, 2019
A set of short stories woven around a central character and event that explores the everyday life of Nigerians under successive military regimes. Felt cohesive and compelling throughout--though not as strong as some of Habila's later works.
June 17, 2017
A stunning read.
July 22, 2017
I am very fond of African literature. This book is a look at the horrors of the 90's in Nigeria. It is excellent, informative, and not overly graphic.
December 30, 2021
مجموعة من القصص تقوم على مبدأ الخطف خلفا تجمعها شخصية لومبا.. تتحول هذه القصص بإبداع الكاتب إلى رواية تصور وضع نيجيريا إبان حكم العسكر. ترجمة أحمد سعود حسن ناجحة ومريحة للقارئ.
May 9, 2022
Great connections with history, and the author used a creative way of switching narrators between characters-ending the book by tying characters and events back together.
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