Book: The Fishermen
Author: Chigozie Obioma
ISBN: 9780-0-316-33836-3
Year of Publication: 2015
Reviewer: Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola
Often referred to as ‘The Heir to Chinua Achebe’ in literary circles, it is no surprise that Chigozie Obioma’s storytelling prowess proves to be unique, as seen in his debut novel The Fishermen.
The book has since gone from being listed as a 2015 New York Times Sunday Book Review Notable Book to clinching other literary awards, shortlists, and nominations, including being shortlisted for the prestigious Booker Prize. That makes him the first Nigerian author to have been shortlisted twice for the prize. The book has also been translated into more than 17 languages, with only a few contemporary African novels beating this feat. Set in the popular city of Akure in Southwestern Nigeria, during one of the most turbulent leadership periods in Nigerian history, The Fishermen tells the story of a close-knit family gradually falling apart due to the psychological manifestation of a violent prophecy in one of the children’s lives.
Ikenna Agwu, the protagonist of the novel, is a fifteen-year-old lad who struggles with a psychological breakdown after a fishing adventure went wrong, leading to his death, suicide and the incarceration of his two immediate brothers. The mental breakdown of his mother, and the eventual breakdown of the familial stronghold. We see all these through the eyes of Benjamin Agwu, one of his brothers and the narrator persona of the book.
Exploring themes such as superstition, psychological manipulation, familial bonds, and grief, Chigozie Obioma in his debut novel takes us on a journey of how a family went through one of its worst of worlds with only strands of hope in a new future in sight of them, in the most gripping manner. True to Achebe’s style, Chigozie Obioma makes the role of each character in The Fishermen paramount, placing only a few on the minor character bench.
First, there’s Abula, Akure’s famed madman, whose evil ‘prophecy’ to the Agwu sons while on a naughty fishing expedition changes Ikenna’s life forever.
Then there are the rest of the Agwu sons, including the narrator Benjamin Agwu, each displaying their internal throes of despair and uncertainty in their roles in Ikenna’s transformation and eventual death; and there is Father and Mother, the Agwu patriarch and matriarch, each struggling to pull the family together when grief in intervals made camp on the doorsteps of this once happy family.
Worthy of note is Chigozie Obioma’s use of symbolism in moving the plot, and indeed the story forward. Characters, as well as events, are symbolized, and what’s more, the author employs a form of titled symbolism like the Ghanaian author, Ayi Kwei Armah. Ayi Kwei Armah in his novel The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born, likened the main character in his novel to a chichidodo —a bird who hates excrement but eats worms: meaning someone who hates a bad system but has no choice but to benefit from it. Chigozie also symbolized his characters and events using the perceived characteristics of certain animals.
As the novel unfolds, we see how the waves of destruction that are thrown against the family and tainting the fabric of the city they lived in too, are likened to ‘Locusts’— Initially pleasing and adventurous sight in arrival but bringing along with it a flood of catastrophes.
We also see how Ikenna, the main character, is likened to both a sparrow and phyton —the first a bird who is so fragile and susceptible to death while in captivity, the second a wild snake terrorizing other snakes. This is true of his nature after the psychological transformation that came with Abula’s prophecy. He became captured in the throes of certain damnation, terrorized others with his newfound identity, and lost his life in the process. Also, the character of Abula the Madman, the harbinger of doom is likened to a ‘Leviathan’ —an indestructible whale, symbolizing how superstition and its agents can prove to be strong forces in the psychological framework of humans, difficult to extinguish. The matriarch and patriarch of the family are symbolized as the ‘Eagle’ and ‘Falconet’. Both birds are known for seeking the protection and welfare of their loved ones, which was true to their role in the novel.
Furthermore, the narrator and his other siblings are symbolized using “Tadpole’ ‘Fungi’, ‘Egret’ and ‘Moth’ each to symbolize how the transformation left them—vulnerable and innocent.
Feelings and forces are also symbolized as well. We have ‘Spiders’ symbolizing the aftermath of grief— webbed, weaving fear into the hearts of those gripped. We also have ‘Leeches’ —symbolizing hate which sucks up reason leech-like; attaching sentiments and the thirst for revenge into the heart. This manifests in the eventual murder of Abula by the Agwu brothers.
The instances are numerous, each resonating with the reader in different shades. For a book with such literary finesse, one might expect a complex structural representation of these symbols. But nay it is. True to his predecessor’s storytelling wit, The Fishermen features medium-paced storytelling, with diction spiced by references to the concrete and abstract qualities of human relationships using these symbols. Structurally, each symbol precedes a chapter in the book.
The book takes a step further by using its narrative voice beyond mere storytelling, to a commentary on the human condition and how it manifests in interpersonal, communal, and familial relationships. Indeed, The Fishermen as a debut novel is profound and has the literary standpoint to prove Chigozie Obioma Achebe’s offshoot in the contemporary Nigerian Literature space. It is indeed a masterpiece deserving the literary recognition it has garnered over the years.
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Amuda Abbas Oluwadamilola, 19, is a Literature major at Ahmadu Bello University. He is also an art enthusiast, a member of the HillTop Creative Arts Foundation and writes for ArtHutNG, a platform for the development of established and emerging voices in African Literature.
