Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a youth who travels to Africa in 1948 with his Italian mother to join the English father he has never met. Initially enchanted by the exotic world he discovers in Onitsha, a bustling city prominently situated on the eastern bank of the Niger River, Fintan gradually comes to recognize the intolerance and brutality of the colonial system and gives the novel a notably direct, horrified perspective on racism and colonialism.
Though remarkable for its evocative treatment of local history and beliefs through sights, sounds, and smells, Le Clézio keeps war and unforgiving reality at the forefront. A startling account – and indictment – of colonialism, Onitsha is also a work of clear, forthright prose that ably portrays both colonial Nigeria and a young boy’s growing outrage.
J. M. G. Le Clézio, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, has published more than twenty novels and nonfiction works including The Round and Other Cold Hard Facts, also available in a Bison Books edition.
Alison Anderson is the author of Darwin’s Wink and the translator of seventeen books, including The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery.
