Style and Technique
“In the Shadow of War,” like much of Okri’s work, contains a good deal of surrealist imagery and phantasmagoric happenings, which has led some critics to compare his works to those of Latin American writers Jorge Luis Borges, Isabel Allende, and Gabriel García Márquez, all known for their use of Magical Realism, which mingles realistic and fantastic details. This melding of worlds also defines Okri’s work. However, Okri argues that his stories realistically represent people’s consciousness of life in Nigeria, a country that is inhabited by three hundred different tribal groups and therefore at least this many belief systems. What seems surreal or fantastic to one group, Okri insists, will not seem so to another group.
The art of storytelling comes naturally to Nigerian people, Okri explains. As a child growing up in postcolonial Nigeria, stories were an intricate part of daily life and every aspect of culture. Parents and other authority figures, he remembers, would tell their children stories as parables to teach a moral or to manipulate them to do what they wanted. Likewise, children were encouraged to let their imaginations run wild and to invent stories.
Okri shifts between the material world and the world of spirits with seamless grace. Although the protagonist, Omovo, is grounded in reality in his solid village world—the radio plays; people shave, leave for work, carry briefcases, and catch buses—the boundaries between the real world and the ever-present spirit world remain blurred. In the otherworldly forest, Omovo fades in and out of wakefulness, sleep, delirium, and unconsciousness and, for a while, blindness. The faceless mysterious woman hidden behind a black veil, whom the village children believe to be a ghost, appears every afternoon and reputedly has no shadow, and her feet seem to glide, never touching the ground. This character and the wraithlike starving women in rags and their malnourished children in the forest contrast vividly with the real-world, fleshy soldiers, bursting out of their clothes and concerned with drinking palm wine.
Okri uses the setting to dissolve the solid world. Waves of heat permeate the village, and heat mists, the canopy of leaves, the half-light of the cave, the muddied river, and the darkening of the Moon constantly blur Omovo’s surroundings, so that nothing remains clear. The boy cannot tell the real world from the spirit realm. Flaking signboards, collapsing fences, and the skeletal remains of animals decry a worn, war-ravished world coming apart at the seams.
Okri also uses foreshadowing as a literary device to enable the reader to enter this shadowy otherworld without question or hesitation. At the beginning, the radio, covered with a cloth so it looks like a household fetish, takes on the role of mythic oracle when it presages an impending eclipse of the Moon. Because his father warns Omovo that the dead will walk and that the world will turn black, it is hardly surprising when the child happens across the ghostlike mysterious walking woman, who brings food to the starving refugees, and after he mistakenly believes he is blinded, the world turns black during Omovo’s sojourn into the forest.
Okri adds a touch of Christian symbolism to define Omovo’s character. The rooster’s crowing signals the betrayal of Christ by Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane, and Omovo’s refusal of money from the soldiers to spy on the mysterious woman casts him in a positive light, unlike the biblical Judas who took the Roman’s bribe of silver.
Historical Context
Okri and Nigeria
Okri was born in Nigeria but spent much of his childhood and...
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adult life in England. Despite living predominantly in the West, his writing is profoundly influenced by his experiences in Nigeria during the three-year civil war and the turbulent postwar period. Writing for theSouth African Literary Review in September 1992, Carolyn Newton states that Okri’s novel The Famished Road “could not have been born of England’s green and pleasant land; his is a heady cocktail of African legend and western classicism.” This sentiment also applies to his short stories, which served as a testing ground for the writing style he popularized in The Famished Road.
From 1967 to 1970, Nigeria was engulfed in a brutal civil war, also known as the Nigerian-Biafran War, which resulted in an estimated 1 million deaths. Okri lived in Nigeria throughout the violent war and the unstable postwar years until 1978. Even after leaving, he maintained a strong connection to his country's ongoing political and social issues.
Okri has been deeply engaged with the challenges and injustices faced by his fellow Nigerians. In 1985, after a visit home, he published several essays addressing Nigerian political concerns and the state of the nation. A decade later, he remained active in Nigerian affairs, notably advocating for Nigerian author Ken Saro-Wiwa during his imprisonment and trial for treason. Despite global pleas, including those from Okri and South African President Nelson Mandela, Saro-Wiwa was ultimately executed along with several others.
The Civil War Years and Beyond
The Nigerian Civil War began in 1967, but the roots of discontent trace back to 1963 when Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the first premier of the newly created Mid-Western Region of Nigeria, was accused and imprisoned for opposing the national leadership. In 1966, Nigeria lost civilian control following two military coups in January and July. The latter coup brought Lieutenant-General (later General) Yakubu Gowon to power. He swiftly divided the country into twelve states, prompting Lieutenant-Colonel (later General) Odumegwu Ojukwu to declare the secession of the three easternmost states, creating the Republic of Biafra and igniting the war. Literary figures like Christopher Okigbo, one of Nigeria’s esteemed poets and someone Okri admired, joined the fight for Biafra. Others, like Wole Soyinka, a renowned novelist and playwright, opposed the war. By 1970, Biafran resistance had significantly weakened, and on January 15, 1970, Biafran representatives surrendered, bringing the war to an end.
Although the war had ended, Nigeria’s political scene remained tumultuous with numerous leadership assassinations, frequent military coups, and the continuous division of the country into various states. In 1979, hopes for stability rose when civilian leader Sheu Shagari was elected president of the Second Republic. However, in 1983, Major-General Mohammed Butari ousted Shagari in a military coup, seizing control of the nation. Butari established the Supreme Military Council, which aimed to suppress all democratic rights.
In 1985, General Ibrahim Babangida overthrew Butari and promised to return the country to civilian rule within a decade. Economically, the 1980s were difficult years for Nigeria. The nation’s real gross national product (GNP) declined so sharply that the World Bank reclassified Nigeria as a low-income country for the first time since 1978. Amidst a deteriorating economy, internal ethnic tensions continued to escalate. Despite forming a transitional government in 1993, which included a military National Defense and Security Council and a council of civilian ministers, Babangida failed to keep his promise. He eventually resigned, but it wasn’t until 1999 that Nigeria experienced its first peaceful transition to civilian leadership.
Literary Style
African Literature
Okri’s work is part of the continually expanding body of African literature, which in the United States and Europe refers to works written in English or French by African authors. Africa boasts a rich tradition of oral literature and writings in native languages. However, as African nations began gaining independence in the 1950s and 1960s, a new wave of literature emerged, written in the languages of former colonial powers. West Africans, particularly Nigerian authors, have been notably prolific. Pioneering African writers like Chinua Achebe wrote to counter the stereotypes propagated by colonial powers. While these early works were successful in redefining Africa and its diverse cultures, they have been critiqued for not adequately representing women. Consequently, from the 1960s onward, female African writers such as Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta, and Ama Ata Aidoo began to address not only colonial oppression but also the subjugation of African women by African men. Okri represents the second generation of African writers, who focus on the social, cultural, and political consequences of colonization, as well as the post-independence challenges and opportunities for transformation across the continent.
Magic Realism
As the name implies, magic realism is a literary genre that blends realistic and magical elements. Unlike pure fantasy, stories in this genre present a world that is both fantastical and real. The term “magic realism” was first coined by German art critic Franz Roh in 1925, but it became widely associated with literature from the 1980s onwards. Magic realism is most commonly linked with Latin American authors, particularly Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, who popularized the style. However, this genre appears in literature beyond Latin America. An example is “In the Shadow of War,” where Okri integrates seemingly other-worldly elements like the veiled woman whom children say walks without touching the ground.
Setting
When authors embark on writing a novel, short story, or play, they must choose the location where their story unfolds, known as the setting. Sometimes, writers deliberately keep the setting ambiguous or unspecified. In other instances, the setting is crucial to developing the author’s themes. This is the case with “In the Shadow of War.” The story is set during Nigeria’s civil war, which lasted from 1967 to 1970. By choosing this setting, Okri explores the profound impact of war on individuals and the moral dilemmas they face during times of civil conflict.
Compare and Contrast
Late 1960s: Fewer than ten Nigerian novels are published annually.
1980s: Around fifty Nigerian novels are published each year.
Today: Approximately twenty Nigerian novels are published annually.
Late 1960s: Civilian governance in Nigeria ends after two military coups d'état.
1980s: General Ibrahim Babangida topples Major General Mohammed Butari, promising a return to civilian rule in the 1990s.
Today: Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo issues a statement asserting his refusal to tolerate any actions that could destabilize his democratically elected government.
Late 1960s: Renowned Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo leaves his position at Cambridge University Press to join the Biafran army as a major.
1980s: Due to political changes in Nigeria, Okri's government-sponsored scholarship at the University of Essex is terminated. Okri moves to London, where he experiences homelessness before securing an apartment in Seven Sisters.
Today: Author Ken Saro-Wiwa is arrested by the government, accused of treason, and executed despite appeals from Okri and South African President Nelson Mandela.
Media Adaptations
The BBC hosts a webpage dedicated to Okri (http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/books/author/okri/index.shtml), offering a concise summary of his life and literary contributions. The site also features a link to an article discussing one of Okri’s poems. Additionally, it provides information about other postcolonial writers, such as Chinua Achebe.
Bibliography and Further Reading
Sources
Bissoondath, Neil, “Rage and Sadness in Nigeria,” in New York Times Book Review, August 13, 1989, p. 12.
Fraser, Robert, “Incantatory Beauty,” in Third World Quarterly, Vol. 11, No. 2, April 1989, pp. 181–83.
King, Bruce, “Okri, Ben,” in Encyclopedia of Post-Colonial Literatures in English, Vol. 2, edited by Eugene Benson and L. W. Conolly, Routledge, 1994, p. 1178.
Moh, Felicia, Ben Okri: An Introduction to His Early Fiction, Fourth Dimension Publishers, 2002.
Newton, Carolyn, “An Interview with Ben Okri,” in South African Literary Review, Vol. 2, No. 3, September 1992, pp. 5–6.
Okri, Ben, “In the Shadow of War,” in The Art of the Story: An International Anthology of Contemporary Short Stories, edited by Daniel Halpern, Penguin Books, 1999, pp. 477–80.
———, “The True Issue of This Century Is Not Terrorism, or Religion. It Is Freedom. We Need to De-censor Our Minds,” in the Herald (Glasgow, UK), August 11, 2003, p. 9.
Onwordi, Sylvester Ike, “Beneath the Waves,” in Times Literary Supplement, August 5–11, 1988, p. 857.
Parekh, Pushpa Naidu, and Siga Fatima Jagne, eds., Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, 1998, pp. 367–70.
Thorpe, Michael, “Nigeria,” in World Literature Today, Vol. 64, No. 2, Spring 1990, p. 349.
Further Reading
Boehmer, Elleke, ed., Colonial and Postcolonial Literature: Migrant Metaphors, Oxford Press, 1995. This collection examines colonial and postcolonial literature in English from 1770 to the present, tracing its evolution and comparing it to Western literature.
Martin, Phyllis M., and Patrick O’Meara, eds., Africa, Indiana University Press, 1995. This anthology includes numerous articles about the continent’s history, art, music, social customs, economics, and politics. Noteworthy articles include “African Literature” by Eileen Julien; “The Colonial Era” by Sheldon Gellar; and “Decolonization, Independence, and the Failure of Politics” by Edmond J. Keller.
Oliver, Roland, and J. D. Fage, A Short History of Africa, Penguin Books, 1990. This book by Oliver and Fage offers a concise overview of Africa’s history, with chapters covering the colonial period and the early years of independence.
Parekh, Pushpa Naidu, and Siga Fatima Jagne, eds., Postcolonial African Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, Greenwood Press, 1998. This resource provides an overview of Okri’s life, his works, major themes, and the critical reception his work has garnered over the years.
Soyinka, Wole, The Open Sore of a Continent: A Personal Narrative of the Nigerian Crisis, Oxford University Press, 1996. In this collection of his past speeches, Nobel Prize winner and renowned Nigerian playwright and novelist Wole Soyinka offers a critical analysis of Nigeria’s political history and its future.
