My father’s first child was a girl. He said she was a loud squalling baby who grasped his finger with surprising strength, and he knew it meant she would be tough. But she died at the age of four months. The second, a boy, was not yet four months old before he died. Some people from my father’s family said my mother was a witch, eating her children, trading their innocent hearts in exchange for her own long life. But, at that time, other babies in our village in Edo were dying too. They got sick with watery shit and weak eyes. Some people said the diarrhea was punishment from God. The Christians prayed in church. The Muslims prayed at the mosque. The old people performed sacrifices. Still, babies died, and their tiny still bodies were wrapped in cloth and buried, and it seemed senseless that they had even been born at all.Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is such a wonderfully evocative writer. She has an uncanny ability for winding up narratives in such a deceptively simple way, cracking open a world so foreign and familiar to so many. It makes for some pretty beautiful short stories, and 'Olikoye' is certainly one of them. A tender, loving portrait of a woman remembering her son's namesake as she gives birth.
You can read 'Olikoye' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie over at the Medium website.
No comments:
Post a Comment