Jun 29

Jun 29 The Road to the Country

About the book

Author: Chigozie Obioma
Publisher: Hogarth

More info:
The StoryGraph | Goodreads
Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the review.

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My Review

There’s no denying that Chigozie Obioma is one of the best to ever do it. With The Road to the Country, he proves it once again — enough this time to finally win him the Booker Prize, IMO. He deserves it.

This novel takes place on the frontlines of the Biafran/Nigerian Civil War and features the experiences of a young man named Kunle, who crosses into Biafra to find his brother and finds himself conscripted. At the same time, a seer is watching these events unfold 20 years in the past. I mean — what a construction! It had me hooked from the first page.

Admittedly, I’m not a huge fan of frontline war novels, so there were parts of this book that were slow for me, especially in the first half. But by the second half, Obioma had built enough scaffolding (relationships, subplots, etc) that I was much more engaged.

But truly, this book feels like the making of a classic in your hands. The roller coaster of Kunle’s emotions and experiences will break your heart and give you hope. The unflinching brutality contrasted with tenderhearted softness, guilt and love, fear and bravery in these pages — just excellent. Obioma is a master on the sentence level and at the novel level. He hammers home the cyclical, healing nature of history and the pairing of death and rebirth in a way that nobody else could.

Booker 2024 or bust, baby.