Sozaboy

It is always nice to stumble upon and find good novels without getting recommended from someone. Sozaboy is one such novel. Written by Ken Saro-Wiwa, one of the guys from the Ogoni tribe in Nigeria and founder of the MOSOP movement (Movement for Survival of Ogoni People). Incidentally, my company Shell faced an international litigation in relation to human rights violation against the Ogoni tribe, which at one point also allegedly caused hanging of Saro-Wiwa on false claims and without a fair trial.

Anyway, Sozaboy isn’t about oil companies. It is about war and its futility. Sozaboy translates to soldier and apparently the novel is written in the backdrop of Nigerian Civil War of the late 1960s.

The protagonist Mene is a naïve man-boy. He comes from a village called Dukana where most people are naïve like him. They believe blindly in their chief, pastor and the superstitions of the traditions. Life is set by unwritten rules and they just follow them. Despite all this, it is still a good and slow-but-happening place to live (like villages are). Mene becomes an unlicensed driver – a rarity in Dukana and starts to earn a good living. He also comes across a beautiful girl Agnes [with JJC – you have to read the novel to know what JJC is ;-)]. Life is all very good until war knocks at the door.

While war hasn’t reached Dukana yet, the occasional arrival of Sozaboys and the war-news-cum-gossip become the talk of the town. Under the pressure of a liar ex-soldier who went to Burma and killed Hitla (Hitler), his wife who wants a man who can protect her and his own ideas about the courage and respect of a soza’s life, our unlicensed driver pays a good sum of money to become a soza! His mother constantly advises him against it but the nefarious noises overpower the whispered wisdom.

The story is then all about the downhill life of Mene and how at every point, he escapes death but loses all that is important to him.

All basic stuff, isn’t it? I haven’t read many anti-war novels and one doesn’t need to read novels to know that war is futile. The beauty of the novel is in what Saro-Wiwa calls as rotten English. If an Afro-American actor/character has amused you with his garbled words, unique accent and clear character, this novel will roll lurches in your stomach. While the proceedings of the war and loss of all one has are fully felt and are one of the saddest I have ever read, the Nigerian English coming from a naïve villager’s mind lets you escape the agony one would feel (what I felt after reading Requiem for a Dream) and maintains humour and energy in the novel.

Another important aspect is looking at the war through the naïveté of Mene’s eyes and that despite his ignorance of the power game of war, he can still see how useless it is to common man. Another very apt and interesting point that he asks himself during the war is: who is the enemy, and this is so true for war as it is for life.

Check it out – fast read and full time ROTFL. Full respect and tribute to Ken Saro-Wiwa. Available on StackYourRack and FlipKart.