By Helon Habila
“The new new release of twenty-first-century African writers have now come of age. surely Habila is among the best.”—Emmanuel Dongala
within the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, the spouse of a British oil govt has been abducted. journalists—a younger upstart, Rufus, and a once-great, now disenchanted veteran, Zaq—are despatched to discover her. In a narrative wealthy with surroundings and taut with suspense, Oil on Water explores the clash among idealism and cynical disillusionment in a trip packed with probability and unintentional consequences.
As Rufus and Zaq navigate polluted rivers flanked by way of exploded and dormant oil wells, looking for “the white woman,” they need to cope with the brutality of either executive squaddies and militants. Assailed by means of irresolvable models of the “truth” concerning the woman’s disappearance, depending on the kindness of strangers of unknowable loyalties, their journalistic objectivity will end up unsustainable, yet different values could but salvage their human dignity.
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Extra resources for Oil on Water: A Novel
Good, loads of you chaps do marry fairly early, isn’t that so? a number of the staff i do know, very younger, yet they continuously speak about their households. childrens and all. – certain, there are lots of who marry early. He sighed back and went quiet, as though he had misplaced curiosity in that thread of speak. He stood up. – Let’s move inside of. I’ll express you anything. Drink in hand, he led the way in which into the lounge. He picked up the distant and flicked at the television and there, at the BBC channel, they have been speaking in regards to the kidnapping. Isabel Floode, a British lady, were abducted by means of rebels within the Nigerian Delta, an try to make touch used to be spoiled through an unplanned army intervention, and now it was once uncertain if Isabel used to be nonetheless alive. a few oil businesses had already stopped sending expatriate employees to the zone, and have been even contemplating shutting down their operations as the price used to be turning into greater than they can undergo, and this hazard was once already inflicting a pressure within the oil marketplace, with costs anticipated to upward push in reaction. He became off the television. – It’s like a circus. I can’t exit, no longer even to the workplace, newshounds stalk me all over, and the humorous factor is I don’t even understand what to inform them, I don’t be aware of what’s occurred to her. That’s why i wished Zaq to head in there and discover. And now you assert he’s now not good. What’s improper with him? Is it critical? – He wishes leisure. The air in the market is sweet for him. James scratched his stubbled chin, back taking a look at me unusually, anticipating me to assert extra, yet I back his glance and stored quiet. – yet we had a deal, he agreed to head available in the market and be my eyes and ears. – Mr Floode – – name me James. – James, there quite isn’t something to document. – yet what did you notice? What do you're thinking that? Is she alive or no longer? You acknowledged you will have a few photos for me. Did Zaq offer you any message for me? I confirmed him the photographs, those that hadn’t been released within the papers: the burning boat, the homes, the sculptures on Irikefe, and eventually an image of myself with Zaq less than a tree. Zaq had prompt the final only for facts. Floode placed them again into the envelope and put them beside his drink at the desk. – Let’s get you a drink. He picked up a bell from an aspect desk and rang it loudly. Then, as though not able to maintain clear of the scoop, he became at the television back. The reveal used to be crammed through a blown-up picture of a smiling Isabel, and in the back of her used to be a crowded road, a bridge, and much within the distance the enduring giant Ben clock tower. subsequent, there has been a shot of picketing youths maintaining placards in entrance of an oil-company development in Port Harcourt. This section used to be followed by means of a protracted, rote-like voiceover approximately poverty in Nigeria, and the way corruption sustained that poverty, and the way oil used to be the most income, and the way as the kingdom used to be so corrupt, just a couple of had entry to that wealth. Floode grew to become off the television and grew to become to me. – Such nice power. You humans may perhaps simply turn into the Japan of Africa, the us of Africa, however the corruption is awesome. I stated not anything, trying to the door to work out if the maid was once coming in solution to Floode’s ring.