Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's Season of Crimson Blossoms

Although the year is far from over, I feel pleasantly inundated to name Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s Season of Crimson Blossoms as my read of the year. Abubakar has a particular poignancy with language, a loftiness essentially associated with poetry but one which he effectively utilises for his novel. This is a story of old tales just as much as it is a tale of modern and futuristic events. It is a narrative that fuses together the disparate stories of a 55-year-old widow Binta Zubairu and that of a 25-year-old weed dealer Reza. The resultant effect is a palpable story that grips the reader from the first page to the very last but not without some blemishes or disappointments of course.

For a debut novel, Season of Crimson Blossoms is too promising, too interesting. Abubakar deftly describes in minute details the issues affecting contemporary Nigerian society and the world at large. It is a story about morality, women, liberation, crime, individuals, alienation… you could almost argue that the novel is about anything and everything. It has a haunting tale of the affair between a “mother” and a “son”. Not a biological relationship but one that deconstructs itself so since Reza, the young man that Binta has a relationship with, constantly reminds her of her dead son almost Reza’s age mate.

Reza appears to fill a void in Binta’s life since traditional dictum denied her an opportunity to show affection for her first born son. On his part, Reza has a troublesome past since he was unable to connect with his mother in the only way a son would wish to connect with his mother. Reza’s mother chose an immoral path and in her quest to cushion him from the same ended up pushing him away into an abyss of self-hatred. Binta and Reza’s meeting appears to be choreographed by fate, a budding emotional connection nourished by the emptiness in life and watered by the “undesirable” sexual tension between the two. This tension is clear at first sight when Reza breaks into Binta’s house as a common thief. The mixed feelings ensuing out of their physical touch as Reza restrains Binta from screaming is of both pain and pleasure, excitement and fear.

Season of Crimson Blossoms has numerous memorable lines. One of these serves as the narrative hook of the novel. Indeed, the novel opens in the most unorthodox of ways: “Hajiya Binta Zubairu was finally born at fifty-five when a dark-lipped rogue with short, spiky hair, like a field of minuscule anthills, scaled her fence and landed, boots and all, in the puddle that was her heart.” Both comic and serious is the tone that the reader discovers in the opening pages of the text. Much later, the story is characterised by humour and tragedy with almost equal measure when Binta and Reza’s relationship blossoms into unfathomable greats and bursts into a death most memorable: Reza accidentally kills Binta’s only remaining son when the latter, Binta’s wealthy son, accosts him after realising that he has been having an affair with his mother.

I love the way the narrative explores Binta’s sexuality, explicitly demonstrating how tradition can at times gang up with religious beliefs to repress individual feelings, desires and aspirations. Binta is cast as a woman who despises the mundane ritualistic nature of marital sex. Her subtle abhorrence of the same is clearly captured by her pain and trauma whilst she resorts to counting as a way to numb her pain and disgust as her husband “beastly” does his thing without a second thought to her feelings and her view of their sex life. Binta’s desire for sexual liberation is frustrated by her chauvinistic husband who appears stuck in the traditions he has been socialised into:

“She wanted it to be different. She had always wanted it to be different. And so when he nudged her that night, instead of rolling on her back and throwing her legs apart, she rolled into him and reached for his groin. He instinctively moaned when she caressed his hardness and they both feared their first son, lying on a mattress would stir.

What the hell are you doing? The words, half-barked, half whispered, struck her like a blow. He pinned her down and, without further rituals, lifted her wrapper. She turned her face to the wall and started counting. The tears slipped down the side of her closed eyes before she got to twenty.” (pg. 54)

In this excerpt, it is vividly clear that Binta and many other women of her ilk wish for a redefinition of the sexual act. She desires to be heard and not projected as a sexual object that is the butt of a man’s sexual passions and escapades. Indeed, Reza seems to fill the emptiness that widowhood has created in her heart and it is no wonder she appears to ironically come to life at the twilight of her life.

The text harshly castigates men especially concerning matters sexual. The narrative avers that all that men do is fuck and all that a woman must do is submit: “When he’s done, always put your legs up so his seed will run into your womb.” (pg. 51) It is a diminishing of the woman’s individuality, a reduction to a procreation tool. However, the men appear to enjoy the process oblivious of what devastation their sexual moves is wreaking on the women. Binta narrates that: “…when he was tossing and turning on the bed next to her, she knew he would nudge her with his knee and she would have to throw her legs open. He would lift her wrapper, spit into her crotch and mount her…She would count slowly under her breath, her eyes closed…And somewhere between sixty and seventy – always between sixty and seventy – he would grunt, empty himself and roll off her until he was ready to go again.” (pg. 53-54). It is not a mutual consenting sexual experience that anyone can relish but a lopsided one informed by ignorance, tradition and religious practices devoid of consideration for a woman’s sexual choices/preferences. In this context, Abubakar comes across as strongly disposed towards the liberation of women and their sexuality.

However, Season of Crimson Blossoms also explores the trauma and devastation of the civil wars in Nigeria. This is aptly captured in the traumatised soul of Binta’s granddaughter, Fa’iza, who cannot stand the sight of blood since it rekindles memories of her butchered family members. The cruel slaughter of her father appears permanently etched at the back of her mind: “…he raised his machete and brought it down. Bright, red blood, warm and sticky, splashed across Fa’iza’s face and dotted, in a fine spray, the shell-pink nightdress that her father had bought her” (pg. 84). In her troubling thoughts, the reader glimpses at the devastating effects of war when families are destroyed through death, separation or socio-economic after effects.

Binta’s strong personality enables her to express scorn at Mallam Haruna’s proposition to her. She appears able to dismantle the ideals of patriarchy, to make her on decisions, like where and when to meet Reza for their sexual escapades. On his part, Reza appears caught in the maze of crime and by extension political evils that threaten to destroy him. Although his conscience depicts a desire to change when he strives to please Binta, he also sadly comes across as unable to extricate himself from the web of an evil dance he has choreographed with the help of fate by his side.

Reza’s human side redeems him and endears him to the reader. Also, Binta’s fate as a lonely widow condemned to die lonely and without relishing the thrills of life accords her the sympathy of the reader. Both characters thereafter invite the empathetic eye of the reader as we discover how small happenings in our lives can devastatingly turn out for the best or the worst. Reza is the hero of San Siro, the hellhole of criminals but his criminality thaws out as he rediscovers his humanity in his relationship with Binta. On her part, Binta rediscovers the beauty of life and how troubling the human conscience can be when she develops feelings and gets entangled with Reza. Unfortunately, for Reza it is ironic that he has to die when he begins to discover redemption thereby according the reader an anticlimactic cathartic moment.

The catastrophe that is their lives is best captured and relived throughout the narrative. Although some bits read a bit off as Reza strives to become a better man or the fact that it reads weird for Binta to be romantically involved with a young man who only reminds her of her son, the story thrives as a strong reflection of our times, our fears, our desires, our frustrations and the general aura that is the world that we are living in. Season of Crimson Blossoms gruesomely reminds us that we all need to blossom in one way or the other, to punctuate life with different scents: provide an opportune aperture through which we can conceive of such possibilities through which we can blossom.

Blackass: Identity, Prejudice & Discrimination in Contemporary Literature

Furo Wariboko, a 33-year-old, unemployed Nigerian man, wakes up on the morning of his job interview day to find that he has experienced a physical metamorphosis: he is an oyibo, a white man. Shocked and worried what his family will think, he sneaks away from home without their noticing and starts his efforts to efface his former identity. This starts off the journey motif of the narrative which ends up being characterised by satire once the reader discovers that a small matter has been left unresolved: Furo’s ass has remained irresolutely black and it defies all efforts to be whitened!

However, Blackass is more than just a physical transformation of Furo’s physique. It is a story about contemporary Nigeria, the terrain of the city of Lagos and the numerous challenges facing the job seekers in a society increasingly faced by socio-political and economic problems. Furo’s desertion of his family marks an interesting twist of his life as he seeks to reconstruct his identity as a white man. Indeed he discovers that although being a white man has its own share of problems like fellow Lagosians seeking to exploit every opportunity to make money out of him: A white man in Lagos has no voice louder than the dollar sign branded onto his forehead, he also finds it easy to land job opportunities.

It seems that Africans in a 21^st century are still plagued by the ghost of racism and its attendant discriminative values. In his first job interview, Furo is immediately given the job just because he is white even though he comes across as inexperienced and unprepared for the job. The upturn of things is that he discovers his voice and determines to carve an identity for himself. Thus begins the process of metamorphosing from Furo Wariboko to Frank Whyte. Although at the beginning of the novel Furo comes across as shy, easily intimidated, withdrawn and unsure of his footing, the change of his skin colour accords him a different perspective towards life.

Furo becomes a more decisive man who can exploit others economically, sexually and personally. His relationship with Syreeta is symbiotic because she seeks to get even with her philandering male friend who has a family and keeps her for his selfish sexual exploits. For his part, Furo benefits from this arrangement because he gets free shelter, food clothing and other benefits which he would never have dreamt about if he were still a black Nigerian. Even though things appear better for him, the reader soon discovers the shallowness of human beings when Furo begins his job, orders the driver around and avoids getting too close with fellow Nigerians.

The language of the novel is humorous even as Barrett pokes fun of Furo’s useless attempts to bleach his ass. It becomes a symbol of his essence, his being, his identity. The stubbornness with which it sticks (no pun intended) with him is a lesson to humankind that we cannot wish away our identity, our history or our origin so to speak. Furo comes to the realisation that to be is easier than to become. In addition, this is a narrative about gender issues as the writer incorporates the aspect of transgender into the twist of the plot. In fact, this is one of the occasions through which the writer teases Furo for his shallowness when he appears surprised by Igoni’s transformation yet he himself has undergone a similar experience. The first time Furo meets Igoni he is a male writer but the next time they meet she comes across as a woman to whom Furo is attracted only to find that she has a penis.  

One can also arguably say that the text concerns itself with questions of masculinity. Furo’s father is cast as a disillusioned man broken by a corrupt system when his efforts to establish a chicken business fails. Having been socialised into a tradition that expects him to “behave like a man”, Furo’s father would rather pretend that all is well even when he knows that he is incapable of providing for his family and that his wife would have to shoulder the burden of doing so. It is no wonder that Furo’s sister is moulded after her mother, strong-willed and determined as opposed to Furo who appears to have been emasculated by the father’s inability to live up to societal expectations of his manliness.

The writer also experiments with social media in this story when he infuses the story line with twitter messages. Tekena, Furo’s sister uses social media to ventilate about her fears concerning her brother’s disappearance. Although it is not the best of my reads this year, I like the text for letting the reader think through unanswered questions like what would happen when Furo eventually confronts his family with an altered skin colour. Some of us might find the text’s confrontation with questions of identity shallow, others might even find the story a bit flat but each one of us will have to read and judge for themselves.

Penny Busetto’s The Story of Anna P as Told by Herself

The winning Book

For a long time I have not laid my hands on a haunting psychological story. However this has since changed as a result of my rendezvous with Busetto’s The Story of Anna P as Told by Herself. It is a dark story characterised by dark secrets and haunting memories that the protagonist is both willing to remember and forget at the same time. A daunting task of course since I returned a verdict of madness for this beautiful story!

Although the story can pass for a “normal” autobiography through which the protagonists recollects events and bits of information about her past, it is much more than just that. It is a traumatising story tracing the dreadful childhood of Anna P. She has become mute in her adulthood. Enveloped in her silence the persona is unable to speak out, to resist, to show emotion or any connectedness to humanity. Anna P has to repair this fragmented life if she wants to remain sane.

Anna P’s narrative helps her to relive the abusive sexual life she had whilst growing up part of which was at the hands of her biological father and her cousin Luke. It appears that these events at a tender age, especially the fact that she plays a hand in the death of her father, pushes her into the deep abyss of self-loathing thereby withdrawing from any meaningful human interactions. Her mother assumes that she needs psychiatric help and subjects her to a series of treatments. Sadly, the doctors return a verdict of unimproved and discharge her since they are unable to get to the bottom of her psychological issues.

In this story, the reader discovers the depths of trauma and how devastating traumatic events can be to the individual and the society at large. Anna comes across as a ticking time bomb. Indeed, the reader does not gather this at the beginning of the autobiography. It is only much later when the pieces of different events begin to fall in place does the reader patch the puzzles together. Anna P has a split personality, she does things that she is not in control of. Although she comes across as devoid of any emotional connection, it is possible to argue that there is a part of her psychic that retains a sense of the conscious. She, albeit remotely, begins to resist the sexual exploitations she is subjected to by killing the men who victimise her.

Her deep wounds cannot best be understood by anyone else other than herself. Not even Ispettore Lupo who appears to take advantage of her vulnerability because of immigration-related issues. In fact, the policeman only makes Anna P more mentally unstable as a character. She begins to read sinister motives in his unbearable summons when he keeps demanding that she should go back to the station to clear her name from certain allegations that he does not reveal. Lupo’s sexual advances, however subtle, do not go unnoticed by Anna. It is no surprise that when he eventually makes his move she murders him in a similar way to what she has done to other men who have inflicted emotional suffering to her delicate self.

Anna connects emotionally with one of her students, Ugo, who seems to be going through a painful emotional childhood stage occasioned by the physical abuse of her Uncle. Indeed, Anna eventually runs away with Ugo after killing Ispettore Lupo. They rediscover refuge and the beauty of humanity with a couple who live in some farmland outside the perimeter of urbanisation. This could easily be interpreted as reaching out on the part of Anna – an effort to relive the healthy life of a mother-to-child relationship which she never had with her mother. In a way, she feels compelled to mother Ugo even when part of her psychic appears to resist the relationship.

Although she never opens up verbally to the Psychiatrist, Anna’s sessions with him allow her to delve into the recesses of her mind and to begin to relive her problems and hopefully to heal. Indeed, the text’s narrative stance is quite intriguing: it opens somehow in the omniscient narration, moves to the second person point of view and then ends in the I-narrative, that is, Anna’s ability to speak and be in touch with her subjectivity through the first person point of view.

Her sense of identity, human dignity and self-worth can only be fully grasped by the self if the memories of her life can be recollected, analysed, sorted and safeguarded against any other possible loss. Unless and until this is done, Anna P remains a hollow character doomed to die a lonely life abandoned in the abyss of her emotional suffering and turmoil. It is a story one needs to connect with in order to come to terms with the skeletons of the past and their immense significance to the present and the future.