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Indlæser... Born on a Tuesday (original 2015; udgave 2016)af Elnathan John (Forfatter)
Work InformationBorn On a Tuesday af Elnathan John (2015)
Ingen Indlæser...
Bliv medlem af LibraryThing for at finde ud af, om du vil kunne lide denne bog. Der er ingen diskussionstråde på Snak om denne bog. A book that deserves wide readership. A novel by a Nigerian writer of the life of a young man, a muslim, born into typical rural poverty in the north of the country. Lack of money, opportunity and education sends him away from home at a young age to a traditional religious school. The straightforward timeline of a plot follows him from street crime to trusted administrator and fixer at a mosque in Sokoto. Along the way his experience mirrors recent political events in Nigeria with the growth and threat of Boko Haram, though the movement is never named as such by the author. To a non Nigerian, non Muslim everyday life is used to illustrate the bigger picture. A well told story with great relevance. The author is not a stylist by any means and lets his imagination flow only intermittently especially during a passage on detention and torture, all too routine, in police cells. Dantala Ahmad (aka “Born on a Tuesday”) is the protagonist and narrator of Elnathan John’s coming-of-age novel set in Northern Nigeria during the early years of the 21st Century. Dentala is likeable and articulate. Despite being quite naïve, he is intelligent and eager to learn about his society and the wider world. John effectively evokes Dentala’s personality with a series of journal entries that he writes in longhand, defining English words and asking questions about society and his place in it. Moreover, John gives us a well-balanced view of a people, struggling with religious and political unrest while also evoking the humanity of many of his characters. Dentala is what is known in Nigeria as an almajiri, a young man who is sent away from home to study Islam. After completing his studies, he does not have the means to return to his home village. Instead he is recruited into political activism that results in an unfortunate violent incident. He is forced to flee to Sokoto, a neighboring city, where a local imam, Sheikh Jamal, begins to mentor him. In addition to his indoctrination to Islam, Dentala also finds friendship, explores sex and finds romance. At its core, the novel represents a critique of violent Islamic fundamentalism. Hypocrisy and corruption are prevalent and frequently manifest in violence between the two factions of the Muslim faith. Dantala’s brothers become estranged from him after their indoctrination into the Shia sect. Unfortunately, John demonizes Shiites while portraying Sunnis more favorably. Sheikh Jamal is a progressive and erudite Sunni cleric while Mallam Abdul-Nur is a distasteful man who preaches violence against all non-believers, a tendency that spills over into his private life and is characterized by spousal abuse and brutality toward his brother, Jibril. Jibril is worldlier than Dentala. Their friendship develops from an exchange of language skills. Jibril teaches Dentala English, while Dentala teaches Jibril Arabic. Jabril also introduces Dentala to sex. This can be problematic in a society where men have few avenues to develop healthy relationships with women. John deftly deals with issues surrounding sex and romance in this society with Dentala’s thwarted infatuation with Sheikh Jamal’s daughter, Aisha; and with Jabril’s romantic involvement with Abdul-Nur’s estranged wife. The latter begins with in a sense of protectiveness but ends unfortunately. John’s language engenders feelings for the people trapped in this fractured culture. Regrettably, however, the prevalence and severity of violent eruptions can only leave one with an overwhelming sense of pessimism about their future.
a compelling debut set in northern Nigeria ...In the west we mostly hear of life in northern Nigeria through news reports of Boko Haram atrocities, yet John steers away from making this a novel about Boko Haram. It is as if he wants to demonstrate that northern Nigeria is more than terrorist attacks, steeping the reader in the language and the culture of the Muslim north, where men and women rarely mix. He uses Hausa words without translation, but also shows us Dantala exploring the English language in handwritten sections intercut with the main narrative, in which he defines English words and then applies them to his own situation. The Igbo people have a saying about the little piece of dry meat that fills the mouth. John’s book is that meat: a relatively short novel with an extraordinary density, and we, his readers, are grateful.
In the far reaches of northwestern Nigeria, Dantala lives among a gang of street boys that are paid by the Small Party to cause trouble during the election. When their attempt to burn down the opposition's headquarters ends in disaster, Dantala must run for his life, leaving his best friend behind. He ends up at a mosque in a motor park where he soon becomes a favored apprentice to the mosque's Sheikh. He is assigned a roommate name Jibril, and a friendship develops as the boys trade language skills -- Dantala's Arabic for Jibril's English. But when one of the Sheikh's closest advisors begins to raise his own radical movement, Dantala finds himself faced with a terrible conflict of loyalties. As bloodshed erupts in the city around him, he must decide what kind of Muslim -- and what kind of man -- he wants to be. No library descriptions found. |
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Er det dig?Bliv LibraryThing-forfatter. |
> Dantala vit dans la rue avec les voyous de Bayan Layi, fume la wee-wee sous le baobab, fait le coup de poing pour le Petit Parti. Souvent, les bagarres tournent mal mais, comme on dit, tout ce qui arrive est la volonté d'Allah. Un soir d'émeutes, pris en chasse par la police, il doit s'enfuir. Sans famille, il trouve refuge à Sokoto auprès d'un imam salafiste. Il apprend l'anglais avec son ami Jibril, tombe amoureux, psalmodie l'appel à la prière, lit tout ce qu'il peut.
Le gamin naïf mais curieux découvre l'étendue de ses contradictions et la liberté de la pensée, et gagne sa place et son nom dans un monde chaotique et violent. Alors que les tensions entre communautés ne cessent de croître, un imam irascible fait sécession et part à la campagne fonder une secte extrémiste. Loin de l'exotisme et du tiers-mondisme bien-pensant, Elnathan John nous emmène dans une région dont on ignore presque tout : harmattan, poussière des routes, vendeurs de koko, et le goût du dernier morceau de canne à sucre – le meilleur.
On brandit des machettes, on assiste à des matchs de lutte, on prend toutes sortes de transports, on marche, on court, on aime, on est Dantala de bout en bout, passionnément. Un formidable roman d'apprentissage, sensible et poignant, dont on sort complètement retourné ...
--LeFigaro.fr