I Saw the Sky Catch Fire by T. Obinkaram Echewa

Publishers Weekly

Echewa's remarkable novel is composed mainly of stories told to a young man by his grandmother on the night before he leaves his Nigerian village for college in the United States. (Feb.)

Library Journal

On the evening before he is to leave his wife, newborn daugther, and Nigerian village of Uzemba for an American college education, Ajuzia's grandmother tells him the story of how the battle of the sexes once escalated into a woman's war against the government of colonial Nigeria. Her anecdotes are intriguing and often comical--to punish a male transgressor, women gather in a group and sit on him--and the reader longs for more tales of women's strength (called Oha Ndom , ``the Solidarity of Women''). In Part 2, the novel jumps back one year. Ajuzia meets and marries Stella and eventually leaves for America. Five years later, Ajuzia returns. His grandmother is dying and Stella is pregnant with another man's child. As Ajuzia and Stella resolve their conflicts, Nigerian-born Echewa shows how a changing society has substituted individuality for community and reveals the purpose of the grandmother's storytelling. A brief Igbo-English glossary is included. Recommended, especially for African and women's collections.-- Harold Au genbraum, Mercantile Lib., New York

Product Details