(4.5 stars) In his third novel, award-winning Nigerian author Helon Habila continues the dialogue he began with Waiting for an Angel, a novel set in the 1990s during the government of Sani Abacha, a tyrant who used his military for his own ends. Abacha allowed no hint of dissent, and journalists were routinely jailed and held without trial. As a result, Nigeria was expelled from the Commonwealth of Nations, and most of the free world enacted sanctions against it. When Oil on Water opens, ten years have passed. Sanctions have been lifted, but Nigeria's elected government officials and the military are still colluding with the oil companies, and all are still getting rich. The poor are still poor-unable to fish in their rivers for food, unable to grow crops on their oil-soaked land, and unable to breathe the air without choking. In opposition to the military and the politicians, a significant rebel movement has now arisen, determined to obtain oil money on their own, and they will do virtually anything to get it.
Here, as in Waiting for an Angel, Helon Habila emphasizes the power of the press to keep people honest--or more honest than they would be without reporters watching and reporting on their actions. Rufus, a young reporter with an uncertain job future, and Zaq, an alcoholic who was once one of the best reporters in the country, are searching for Isabel Floode, the wife of a British petroleum engineer, who has been kidnapped by rebels and held for ransom. Nine days have passed, and all the other journalists looking for her have given up, but these two continue to follow the river in a small canoe, looking for clues and trying to make contact with those who may be holding Mrs. Floode. No one knows (or will say) how to reach the rebels, and no reliable demands have been made for ransom. As they travel, the author uses Rufus as an intelligent, if sometimes callow, Everyman who seems to observe everything around him as if for the first time--abandoned villages, burned out villages, villages that have been bought and razed by the oil companies, and villages in which no one "knows" anything, caught between the militant rebels and the military.
Throughout his travels, Rufus reminisces about his own past and how he became a writer, broadening the scope of the action and giving more detail about how real people try to live real lives within a corrupt and treacherous environment. As the novel progresses, the reader observes Rufus maturing and coming to terms with his goals, even as he sees how much broader and more complex his subject is than what he had imagined. He begins to see the shades of gray which mark the work of true journalists. Because Zaq is twenty years older than Rufus, Zaq's story, as it emerges, shows how Nigeria's cultural values and its political history have changed from the 1980s through 1990s.
Habila writes efficiently and often descriptively, emphasizing the lives of individuals within a fraught environment while avoiding the temptation to turn the novel into a war story, however much conflict exists. His depiction of village life contrasts with that of the cities of Port Harcourt and Lagos, and the moments of horror cast the moments of kindness into sharper relief. Throughout, the emphasis is on individuals, and though most of them are not fully developed (nor do they need to be), they give a vivid portrait of real life in Nigeria, especially to readers who may be unfamiliar with Nigeria's history and its current problems. The narrative, as it dips back and forth into the past, constantly broadens the picture of life itself, and it is obvious that the author himself has taken to heart Zaq's admonition to "Write only the truth." Mary Whipple
Waiting for An Angel: Fiction
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