BOOK REVIEW

SERPENTS AND DOVES: A MASTERPIECE FOR OUR TIME Author: Dr Emmanuel Onwe Publishers: Wisdom and Brothers, UK Pages: 334 Hardback ISBN: 978-0-9561770-0-1 Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9561770-1-8 Reviewed by J.H. Osimiri I first came across this excellent novel by way of Adewole Ajao’s impressive review in ThisDay on 28 March 2009 and quickly obtained a copy for myself. Then I proceeded to make enquiries about the author and made discoveries that both humbled me and made me proud that he is my fellow compatriot. But this piece is not about the author but about his masterpiece. My very first thoughts after reading this book ranged from astonishment at such brilliance in story-telling to why the shelves of every bookshop in Nigeria are not creaking with the weight of this book. No Nigerian should be denied the pleasure of reading the story and the benefit of the fierce intellectual stimulation that this novel offers in spades. Story-tellers are born and not made. From the opening sentence right to the very last lines of Serpents and Doves, Dr Onwe demonstrates that he is a born writer as he indeed weaves an extraordinary and complex “tale of love, betrayal, murder, politics and fate” to quote from the novel’s blurb. Each sentence drives you to the next, each paragraph makes you hungry to rush to the next, each page grips you and seamlessly folds into the next, and each chapter thrills you and holds out the thrilling promise of a better serving in the next. This is first class story-telling – an art that can neither be taught nor learned. Apart from the exceptional art of story-telling, the sheer quality of the writing is audacious, bold, poetic and inventive. There were many sentences that left me applauding aloud and some had me in tears. More importantly, this is a story of the Nigerian, and indeed the human condition told with humour and searing wit. What struck me the most is the huge scale and ambition of the story and how calm and measured the author realised the climax without sacrificing subtlety, coherence or tension. Each moment you thought you had a good idea as to what would happen next, you are surprised and astonished by the actual turn of events. It manages to be both racy and sophisticated. Not an easy combination to achieve in a novel of this depth and range. The two young protagonists (both are 27 years of age), Toby the erstwhile university lecturer now languishing in redundancy and Sade, the investigative journalist working for a news magazine called The Periscope, set out to track down and expose a super drug kingpin called Frank Udoji. This task they must accomplish under the fevered atmosphere of military dictatorship, where brutality and severe restrictions on civil liberties meant that freedom of the press and of expression were effectively dances with the wolves. In the course of their quest, they come across the Area Boys, a small group of which was lead by a brilliantly and hilariously realised character nicknamed Swashbuckler and their mega Division of All Area Boys was headed by a character simply identified as GOC. The closer they got to the “bottom” of the intrigues, the more dangerous and life-threatening their adventure became because they were in effect dealing with a narco-dictatorship. Udoji was a mere tool in the hands of highly placed individuals at the very heart of government. In the end, they got their story and got the trouble that came with it. Sade was arrested and thrown into a maximum security jail. From this moment on, the enigmatic narrator, Toby, who had largely functioned in the shadow of the more effervescent Sade, came into his own. He must rescue his friend from the hangman’s noose - but how? The ending of novel is one of the most harrowing and heart-rending that I have ever read and I cannot say much about it here in order not to ruin the story for anyone who may read the book. But if I have any criticism to make of the book, it lies in the bleakness that ultimately enveloped the horizon of promise and hope. However, I have read an interview in which the author indicates that Serpents and Doves is the first instalment of a trilogy. So, perhaps, the redemption is yet to come and we may take the tragic ending of this first instalment as the beginning of a better reckoning. I, for one, desperately hope so. What is also instructive about the book is that, according the author’s Foreword, which is unusual in a novel but I can certainly see why he chose to write one, it was completed in 1996 and written whilst Dr Onwe was a student at the London School of Economics. It was snapped up by a literary agency called David Bolt & Associates, who described the manuscript then as “Certainly the best African novel I’ve read for some time. Characterisation is strong and good, and there’s no lack of drama.” I certainly agree with this comment and would go ahead to add that this is the most powerful indictment of corruption and perfidy that any Nigerian writer, dead or alive, has portrayed. Anyway, in the Foreword, the author goes on to hint at why the novel was not published then but without a full explanation. Nevertheless, the 13-year wait appears insignificant given how incredibly the book manages to be historical, contemporary and futuristic – even without a single mention of mobile phone or the internet! Wonderful stuff. One of the unique and attractive elements of the novel is how rigidly the author stuck to the essential task of story-telling, which of course is his first duty, but at the same time, exposes political and historical issues of considerable import without coming across as didactic or lecturing. Instead of instructing us or telling us, he showed us. There is no question that Dr Onwe is an extremely well educated man, as his brief bio data in the book indicates – he has stomped the globally famous halls of the Inns of Court and the LSE. But the true mark of erudition is to deploy it in making a point that makes a difference. In Serpents and Doves, Dr Onwe achieves this: he has made his point, which will endure forever. And in making that point, he has also masterfully thrilled and entertained us, educated us, challenged us, forced us to look into places we did not know were in existence and compelled us to examine political clichés and banalities in a way that brings new sense and understanding. He has stirred our anger and sought to drive us into collective action in order to attain our collective destiny. Dr Onwe has made a powerful contribution to the literary art in Africa with his mesmerising debut and one hopes that the two coming instalments will be no less gripping and inspiring. We have a new star in the horizon and Nigeria is enriched by this addition to the profusion of talents she has produced in the world of literature.

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