Say You're One of Them - Uwem Akpan (Kindle)

I’m beginning to think I had some subconscious desire for a depressive state when I chose both Sashenka and this novel for two of my twelve selections for my TBR Reading Challenge. The continuation of my summer reading rampage finds me in desperate need of some lighter fare.

“Say You’re One of Them” is a collection of five short stories written by a Uwem Akpan, a Jesuit priest born in Nigeria. They are evidence of Akpan’s experiences, research and imagination that has traveled down the dark path of a continent torn apart by war and religious prejudice. To make the stories more harrowing, they are all told from the eyes of a child.

In “An Ex-Mas Feast”, an 8-year-old Kenyan boy struggles with the knowledge that his 12-year-old sister will put him through school with her earnings as a prostitute. This story takes place in Kenya.

In “Fattening for Gabon”, 10-year-old Kotchikpa and his little sister have been sent to live with their uncle because their parents are dying of AIDS. The uncle soon starts to receive money and a certain motorcycle for which there is much familial obsession and dreams of grandeur. It doesn’t take Kotchikpa long to figure out that he and his sister have been sold to human traffickers.

The shortest story, “What Language is That?”, describes two girls, BFF’s, that are torn apart because of religious differences, but bridge their physical separation with a innocent, visual secret language.

If the stories have not been troubling enough so far, then we are presented with “Luxurious Hearses”. Jubril, a 16-year old Muslim, must run for his life when the conflict between his people and the Christians in northern Nigeria reach devastating proportions. To escape, he must travel on a bus full of histrionic, psychotic, schizophrenic Christians, aka the Luxurious Bus.

Our last little ray of sunshine is “My Parent’s Bedroom”, where 9-year-old Monique and her toddler brother must witness an ethnic war between the Hutu and Tutsi occurring within the four walls of their Rwandan family home in the most horrible way imaginable.

I vaguely remember reading the reviews for this book, ranked as one of the top books of 2008 by EW, which stated there were glimmers of hope buried amongst the horror in the short stories. With the exception of perhaps “What Language is That?”, I saw very little hope. In fact, each story left me feeling hollow and shocked at the violence, disillusionment and fear experienced by each of the children in these tales. The writing is fabulous – it captures the voices, the dialects and the innocence of the children so perfectly. I, however, of the insulated, pedicured, excess world that I live in, found the stories eye-opening and uncomfortable. Yes, of course I saw Hotel Rwanda and I read the news, but never from the viewpoint of little kids. This is another good one to read when you need reality to give you a big kick in the dupa.

4 out of 5 stars