From Publishers Weekly
Habila's first novel captures the chaos and brutality of Nigeria in the 1990s under the rule of despotic military dictator Gen. Sani Abacha. The story follows Lomba, a quixotic, apolitical student in the capital city of Lagos, who is trying to write a novel in his shabby tenement on Morgan Street (better known as Poverty Street) and covering arts for a city newspaper, the Dial. Soon, Lomba's roommate is attacked by soldiers, journalists are arrested all over the city and the Dial offices are set on fire. Lomba decides to take part in a prodemocracy demonstration. There, he is arrested and imprisoned for three years. The novel's narrative moves back and forth in time, beginning with Lomba's life in prison and ending with the climactic events leading up to the arrest. Some chapters are written in the third person, others narrated by Lomba himself and still others by a high school student named Kela, who lives near Lomba on Poverty Street and crosses paths with him just before the fateful demonstration. Through their eyes, Habila paints an extraordinary tableau of Poverty Street ("one of the many decrepit, disease-ridden quarters that dotted the city of Lagos like ringworm on a beggar's body"), bringing their sounds, sights and smells to life with his spare prose and flair for metaphor. Kela's aunt runs the Godwill Food Centre Restaurant; through his encounters with the patrons, as well as his activist English teacher, Kela (and readers) learn about Nigeria's bloody postcolonial history. Though somewhat marred by the abrupt, disorienting shifts among narrators and time periods, this is a powerful, startlingly vivid novel.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Habila's novel opens in a Nigerian prison where Lomba, a young reporter, secretly writes poetry with a pencil and paper he's forbidden to have. When the superintendent discovers Lomba's writing supplies, he has an odd request: he wants Lomba to write love poems to his sweetheart. From Lomba's imprisonment, the story moves backward and in a series of closely connected stories shows Lomba's life before his incarceration and the fateful choice--to report on a demonstration on Poverty Street--that leads to his arrest. Violence and abject poverty surround Lomba; his university roommate loses his grip on reality after the death of his family and falls victim to some brutal police officers, while his first love, Alice, forces herself to marry a rich man who pays her mother's hospital bills. Lomba tries to hide from the reality of the world he lives in until an activist named Joshua begs him to cover a demonstration he is leading. The oppressive atmosphere of Nigeria in the 1990s drives Habila's powerful novel.
Kristine HuntleyCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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