Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jan 2015
304 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
In the country of Madia (based in part on Ndibe's native Nigeria) a young prostitute runs into the sea and drowns. The last man who spoke to her, the "madman" Bukuru, is asked to account for her last moments. When his testimony implicates the Madian armed forces, Bukuru is arrested and charged with her death.
At the first day of trial, Bukuru, acting as his own attorney, counters these charges with allegations of his own, speaking not only of government complicity in a series of violent assaults and killings, but telling the court that the president of Madia himself is guilty of rape and murder. The incident is hushed up, and Bukuru is sent back to prison, where he will likely meet his end. But a young journalist manages to visit him, and together they journey through decades of history that illuminate Bukuru's life, and that of the entire nation.
A brave and powerful work of fiction, Arrows of Rain is a brilliant dramatization of the complex factors behind the near-collapse of a nation from one of the most exciting novelists writing today.
"Starred Review. A Kafkaesque, imaginative novel of great necessity and power." - Kirkus
"Ndibe is a gifted writer and an adept storyteller, who clearly exults in the telling." - Essence Magazine
"Arrows of Rain is a brooding and powerful first novel from Nigerian Okey Ndibe... a gritty political thriller with real emotional depth which poses vital questions about our responsibility to bear witness; to be the custodian of 'stories which must be told.'" - New Internationalist
"Alluring, crisp and lucid... [Ndibe] is a novelist who portrays his characters, whether poor or rich, weak or powerful, with great complexity." - Sahara Reporters
"Highly evocative." - Nobel Prize Laureate Wole Soyinka
This information about Arrows of Rain was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Okey Ndibe first came to the US to act as founding editor of African Commentary, a magazine published by Chinua Achebe. He has taught at Brown University, Connecticut College, Simon's Rock College, Trinity College, and the University of Lagos (as a Fulbright scholar). His award-winning journalism has appeared in The New York Times, The Guardian, and the Hartford Courant, where he served on the editorial board. He earned his MFA and PhD from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is the author of Foreign Gods, Inc., and lives in West Hartford, CT, with his wife, Sheri, and their three children.
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