A Harvest from Tragedy: Critical Perspectives on Nigerian Civil War Literature (review)

A Harvest from Tragedy: Critical Perspectives on Nigerian Civil War Literature, ed. Chinyere Nwahunanya. Owerri: Springfield, 1997.

A Harvest from Tragedy is a more comprehensive and elaborate critical study on the civil war literature than previous works on the same subject, such as those by Craig McLuckie and Theodora Akachi Ezeigbo: indeed, McLuckie and Akachi Ezeigbo are among the contributors to this book. The eight contributors to this collection are all equipped to answer the posed by the editor, Chinyere Nwahunany, in the Introduction: "What is the place of Nigerian war literature in the African political and literary experience?" However, an editorial remark by Nwahunanya provides a direct answer that could be taken as the thesis that guided the various contributors' responses:

In its re-creation and interpretation of history, Nigerian war literature has enriched the existing body of historical writing from Africa[,] especially historical fiction. In this way the writers have made literature continue to function as the mirror of society. In the process of mirroring society and criticising its pitfalls, the war literature also serves as a compass for social redirection. (14)

A Harvest from Tragedy thus engages the reader's attention in its exploration of localized literary works with a vision adhering to the essential values of human existence.

In "Foreboding: Works Prophesying the War," a chapter complementing the editor's introduction, Isidore Diala yokes Achebe's A Man of the People and Christopher Okigbo's poetry in the bid to situate the origin and reactions of Nigerian writers to the impending tragedy. Chapters two and three present contrastive essays: Craig W. McLuckie's "Literary Memoirs of the Nigerian Civil War" and Remy Oriaku's "Political Memoirs of the Nigerian Civil War." This editorial categorization of the memoirs enables the critics to explore the subject matter with deeper insight. McLuckie comments that "Wole Soyinka comes across as the most promising and accessible to all," while "Elechi Amadi and Ken Saro-Wiwa produce limited memoirs in that they are personal histories" (56). On the other hand, Oriaku asserts that the political memoirs "clearly illustrate the fact that each autobiographical text has its internal truth which is determined by the author to conduce to his overall self-image" (83). The two critics agree that there is an uncomfortable element of selective truthfulness in the memoirs. Another contrastive and implicit comparative dimension could be discerned in Onyemaechi Udumukwu's "Federal Voices in the Nigerian War Novel" and Chinyere Nwahunanya's "Biafran Voices in the Nigerian War Novel." Udumukwu insists that the few writers on the federal side in the conflict "derive their materials from a common historical source" and that "their responses to this common source have remained varied and constitute a babel of voices" (109). Nahunanya argues, however, that the Biafran novelists portray a debasement of humanity and that "the predatory behaviour exhibited by men who were in positions of power during the war" shows that they "have gone on with such behaviour even after the war, and out of it fashioned and adopted an entirely new and objectionable ethos" (138).

Other essays illustrate the same careful reading and interpretation of often neglected genres. J. O. J. Nwachukwu-Agbada examines war poetry published in books and journals by civil war participants who were either civilians or soldiers. The range is wide and his reading stresses the poets' achievements as well as their flaws; he makes the plausible claim that "Nigerian war poetry on the civil war probably comes nearest in vigour to post-war Nigerian poetry of social commentary" (164). Another unique study is Augustine Amanze Akpuda's "The Drama on the Nigerian Civil War," perhaps the only study entirely devoted to the drama on the civil war and one not restricted to one gender or to one side of the conflict. Akpuda concludes that "in spite of whatever incongruities there might be in the delineation of plot, setting, characterization...