Azoro, a young protagonist of this novel, was happy being a
spirit. Though he is born several times, he quickly left the bodies he was
trapped into, to return to the happy world of spirits causing pain to many
mothers in the process. But now he is born again and wants to live longer as a
human being but he is not cut-off from his connections to the world of spirits.
He sees the spirits all over the place, every day. He does not reveal this to
his parents and buries it within him as he is not interested in isolating from
spirits either. He is a child who did not want to be born and does not to die
soon.
Azoro is the only child to his poor parents living in
Africa. His father looks for work on daily basis as a load carrier and his
mother sells grocery in the local market to earn their living. There is a bar
in the neighborhood run by Madame Koto. The entire neighborhood, except Azoro’s
parents is scared of Madame Koto as they believe she is a witch. Madame Koto is
kind towards Azoro and she thinks he brings good luck to her if he sits in her
bar and can attract customers. While sitting in her bar, Azoro learns that majority
of the customers visiting the bar are not human beings but the spirits and
demons in their borrowed human bodies in the ugliest forms. All of those
spirits are interested in taking Azoro back to their world and make many
attempts to pack him up and carry. But the determined boy, escapes every time
and finds way to back to his home.
Other characters, incidents and narrations like the rage of
Azoro’s father, helplessness of his mother, the photographer, the elections,
the creditors of his father fill up the pages to bring African life into this book but the main theme remains the young boy’s encounters with the spirits. The story does not
conclude in this book as it continues in two more books making it a trilogy.
This is one of the unusual themes I have come across. It is
creative and imagination running wild. The first five pages of this book
convinced me that the life of spirits would be more joyous than life as human
beings. But the later pages are filled with horror and descriptions of spirits
and demon in their ugliest forms which are capable enough to give nightmares to
the readers. I see that in India as well, there are many famished roads,
thirsty for blood. But the difference is I do not get to see the spirits and
demons. I am happy I am not Azoro.
This book won The Booker prize for its author Ben Okri in
1991. This book has all the ingredients to become a good graphical novel if no
one has thought about it. And that way it can reach a different genre of
readers who prefer it read it graphically than immerse into a 500+ page novel
like this.
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