Reviewed by Rachel Finn
“When they ask you,” she says sternly, without looking at me, “say you’re one of them, OK?”
“Who?”
“Anybody. You have to learn to take care of Jean, Monique. You just have to, huh?” (p. 327)
These are the haunting words uttered by the Tutsi mother to her ten-year-old, multiethnic daughter (Hutu-Tutsi) living in the time of the Rwandan genocide of 1994 from which Nigerian author Uwem Akpan’s collection of five short stories draws its title. Set in Kenya, Benin, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Ethiopia, the various stories depict the tenderness and cruelty that seem to exist in tandem in the lives of the characters, giving the reader a child’s eye view of the chaos that greed, mismanagement, and indifference have wreaked on lives throughout the continent.
In the story, “Fattening for Gabon,” a brother and sister in Benin cope with the consequences of their uncle’s indecision about selling them into slavery. The story starts with the startling opening lines: “Selling your child or nephew could be more difficult than selling other kids. You had to keep a calm head or be as ruthless as the Badagry-Seme immigration people. If not, it could bring trouble to the family. What kept our family-secret from the world in the three months Fofo Kpee planned to sell us were his sense of humor and the smuggler’s instinct he had developed as an abero, a tout, at the border. My sister Yewa was five and I was ten.” (p. 39)
Akpan’s storytelling leaves the reader breathless as he moves slowly through the days and nights in the stifling heat of the shack they call home. Slowly, both the reader and the oldest child Kotchikpa begin to understand the horrifying truth: Fofo Kepe, their uncle, plans to sell them into slavery in Gabon.
Three of the other stories are set against the backdrop of violent religious and ethnic conflict. “Luxurious Hearses” follows sixteen-year-old Jubril as he comes to terms with his faith, Islam, and learns the value and meaning of tolerance during the course of a fateful bus ride across Nigeria. “My Parents’ Bedroom” set in Rwanda offers a heartbreaking glimpse of a family shattered by the violent ethnic strife and genocide of the 1994 war, giving a human face to the incomprehensible crime of genocide. In “What Language Is That?”, perhaps the most touching story, is also the shortest in the book. Set in Ethiopia, it is the tale of two young girls, one Christian and one Muslim who have become best friends. It is told from the point of view of an outsider recounting the girls’ close friendship. The story poignantly shows the absurd nature of conflict based on religious differences—from the opening scene where the girls are having lunch in a local café, to its sad yet hopeful ending. Finally there is the bleak “An Ex-Mas Feast,” the tale of an abjectly poor family living in the slums of Nairobi. The parents of twelve-year-old Maisha rely on her earnings as a prostitute to keep the family afloat while forcing their other children out into the streets as beggars. In one scene, while waiting for Maisha to return with Christmas dinner, the mother offers her son Jigana, a bottle filled with glue to sniff in order to kill his hunger pangs after breathing in the fumes herself and passing it to other family members.
Akpan’s exquisitely written stories enkindle the reader’s emotions and allow space for us to reflect upon the whys and wherefores of his characters’ lives. The legacy of colonialism haunts these stories and as moving as it is to view these worlds through the eyes of children, it is even more fascinating to consider what drives the adults whose careless actions set the tragic events of the five tales in motion and put these children at risk. The book also begs the questions: who bears responsibility and who must be held accountable for the turmoil, self-hate, and vicious inhumanity that plague Africa today? And while one would be remiss in giving an overly simplistic answer to that question, Say You’re One Of Them helps make it clear that there is no one who can change Africa but Africans themselves.