Azaro is an abiku, a spirit child that sneaks his way into his mother’s womb only to enjoy a brief stay into our world and then die. They’re considered malign spirits and the grief they cause is immense, hence the tradition of scarring the faces of their corpses before burying them. If another child is born with the same scars, you’ll know it’s another abiku. You’ll know not to get attached.
Azaro is different: he likes it here, he loves his parents, and he wants to stay. This means his life is a life in between our world and a spirit world that’s constantly pushing the boundaries of our, and extends its claws to grab him.
Do I think this is an important book to read? Absolutely, yes.
Would I recommend it to a friend? Definitely no.
If you’ll allow me to elaborate, I think this is a beautiful and yet very difficult book, difficult for many reasons that of course have to do with the cultural barrier it’s bridging and yet cannot be reduced to that.
One of the main criticism I saw, beside people not liking magical realism in itself, it’s about the length and many repetitions you’ll encounter in the book. Visions, the father going crazy, a crisis involving the house, more vision, spirits, more spirits, the father fixating on something new, more crisis and repeat. And yet. “The typical native African Ekano or legend is marked by repetition. The same incidents occur to a succession of individuals; monotony being prevented by a variation in the conduct of those individuals, as they reveal their weakness or stupidity, artifice or treachery.” (Where Animals Talk: West Africa folklore)
Repetition, as unbearable as it sometimes feels, it’s a part of the narrative. The same things repeat over and over again as a curse, as an inescapable trap that’s about poverty, superstitions and a seemingly superior power playing with people’s hopes and giving them impossible tasks like building a road that’s forever hungry, that will never be finishes. This is an astonishing accomplishment in storytelling.
The second accomplishment of the book is the narrating voice: Azaro, the abiku child, the spirit-child who was born to die and decided to defy the spirits and stay, is one of the most marvellous examples of an author being able to blend a credible child’s perspective into complex scenarios such as popular culture’s ableism, people’s irrational behavior, the pretence of greed and so much more.
It took me years to finish this. I wouldn’t recommend it. But I’m very glad I finally found the strength to push through the second half and grasp the significance of the whole book as a project. A splendid project, that is. Just very heavy to approach. But who said it had to be easy?
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