HELON HABILA

Keep going with this novel, for it is the stuff of hope. Waiting For an Angel begins placidly with Lomba, a poet and journalist, biding his time as an untried political prisoner. curiously unbitter, Lomba floats through prison routines until a cell search reveals his collect of poetry. The Governor, in a cringing overture of affability, restores to Lomba his precious indite and paper but has him write proxy poems for him to give to his chubby fiancee. This darkly comic vignette feels like the opening of a collection of poignant but calm short stories.

accent begins to increase in the third chapter. Lombas clubbable university room-mate Bola responds to the experimental extinction of his parents in a car crash by in public ranting anti-government slogans aped from the ongoing student riots. Both the riots, and Bolas swift mauling by security thugs, persuade Lomba to drop his studies and drift away. The longest chapter, Kela, once more opens with desultory detail, then escalates into a homegrown demonstration that ignites the wildness which flares through the latter third of this novel. Lomba is talked into covering the demo by his editor but, before it occurs, the journals offices are torched and a warrant issued for the editors arrest.





These unchronological chapters, the olfactory perception of drift in the first half of this book, and Lombas rather stilted, unimpassioned demeanour, gradually cement into a compressed core of finis to be counted, to resist oppression. Lombas dissident editor, showing him the gewgaws of slavery in a coastal museum, explains the mouth chains that were used to tranquillize slaves: Every oppressor knows that where one intelligence service is joined to another word to form a sentence, therell be a revolt. Habilas novel fuels that fire, adding but unhysterical but alarming words to the cacophony of criticism levelled internationally at Nigerias craven junta.


In an afterword, Habila explains his desire to convey the curb atmosphere of hatred and fear...If you want to get a full moon essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com



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