And After Many Days

The author uses dramatic, insistent tones to draw the listener into the Utu family's story of love and loss. The vividness of Chukwudi Iwuji's narration enlivens the imagery at the heart of this novel, set in modern-day Nigeria. When golden boy Paul Utu inexplicably disappears, the mystery wrenches the family into chaos. This personal drama provides the backdrop against which larger national politics unfold. Listeners discover that Nigeria's economic development comes at the expense of the majority of its citizens--and Paul's inability to overlook corruption. Iwuji's cadence creates an African-sounding English that is central to the characterizations in this story. His talent comes through in his capable treatment of male and female characters. M.R. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine

December 21, 2015
Set in southern Nigeria, Ile’s debut novel pits the personal against the political in a slow-burning family drama. The year is 1995: university students take to the streets to agitate for better funding; NEPA, the country’s electric utility, can’t keep the grid juiced; the military government hangs nine dissidents. Yet in the swirl of postcolonial struggle, the Utu family has built a stable life of bourgeois respectability in metropolitan Port Harcourt, while keeping close ties to their ancestral village of Ogibah. One day, 17-year-old Paul Utu disappears. The novel rewinds to Ajie’s childhood, eventually finishing in the present day. It is through precocious Ajie, the youngest sibling, that we learn the Utu family history, from their tribe’s origin story and grandfather’s Christianization through the horrors of the Biafran War and into the mid-’90s. As quick-tempered Ajie comes of age, the novel depicts the contradictions of his mother’s Christianity, his father’s indefatigable liberalism, and their family bonds—all of which, already stretched thin between the old world and the new, are further strained by Paul’s disappearance. Though he occasionally burdens young Ajie with adult concerns that seem implausibly heavy, Ile hits the emotional register of childhood experiences, like the all-or-nothing satisfaction of following older kids in climbing a tree, or the searing heat of school humiliations. Agent: Sarah Chalfant, Wylie Agency.