Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by rosseroo
Welcome to Lagos by Chibundu Onuzo
3.0
Opening outside the oil-rich Niger Delta city of Port Harcourt, this story follows five Nigerians who are fleeing the region for Lagos. The ostensible leader is Chike, an Army officer fed up with carrying our arbitrary acts of brutality in the never-ending war against those in the Delta seeking justice in the face of multinational oil companies. He deserts along with his deputy, Yemi, and as they flee through the jungle, they stumble across a young militant named Fineboy, who follows along. By the time they get off the bus in Lagos, the cast of characters includes a young woman who survived losing her family and being sexually assaulted, as well as a middle-class woman fleeing her abusive marriage. With little money and the daunting logistics of the teeming city, the five band uneasily together to survive.
The tension between living moral and ethical lives, and the need to hustle and do what it takes to stay alive, drives the story for a while, as the group has to pay a gang for the right to sleep under a particular bridge. Eventually, Fineboy locates a furnished space for them to squat in, and life gets a little better. Without spoiling things, a new character comes on the scene, with enough money to make things really interesting. The seventh character added to the group is a journalist, whose story gradually starts to take over the second half of the book. Indeed, it gets significantly derailed he ends up in England, where he went to university, and embarks on a low-key courtship of a BBC reporter.
There are plenty of picaresque twists and turns, but the omnipresence of corruption and violence blanket the lives of the characters. And while it's an affectionate picture of the country, significant warts and all -- to a certain degree, I was a bit surprised that in broad terms it didn't challenge many of the stereotypes of Nigeria. In that sense, I suppose I would recommend it primarily to those planning on reading a broad range of Nigerian fiction that might help lend some depth and context to this ensemble piece.
The tension between living moral and ethical lives, and the need to hustle and do what it takes to stay alive, drives the story for a while, as the group has to pay a gang for the right to sleep under a particular bridge. Eventually, Fineboy locates a furnished space for them to squat in, and life gets a little better. Without spoiling things, a new character comes on the scene, with enough money to make things really interesting. The seventh character added to the group is a journalist, whose story gradually starts to take over the second half of the book. Indeed, it gets significantly derailed he ends up in England, where he went to university, and embarks on a low-key courtship of a BBC reporter.
There are plenty of picaresque twists and turns, but the omnipresence of corruption and violence blanket the lives of the characters. And while it's an affectionate picture of the country, significant warts and all -- to a certain degree, I was a bit surprised that in broad terms it didn't challenge many of the stereotypes of Nigeria. In that sense, I suppose I would recommend it primarily to those planning on reading a broad range of Nigerian fiction that might help lend some depth and context to this ensemble piece.