A
Literary Saloon
&
Site of Review.

Trying to meet all your book preview and review needs.

Contents:

Main

the Best

the Rest

Review Index

Links

to e-mail us:


support the site

the complete review - fiction

Smile Awhile

by
Ogali Ogali

general information | our review | links | about the author

- Return to top of the page -

Our Assessment:

B : clever and fairly amusing tales

See our review for fuller assessment.

The complete review's Review:

       Smile Awhile is a "novel" recounting the (mis)adventures of a character named Abanidiegwu. In fact, there is no continuous narrative here, rather just brief episodes -- anecdotes, really -- from this comic rogue's life. Nineteen brief scenes, making good fun especially of the hapless but quite ambitious rogue as well as the society he lives.
       Ogali wittily contrasts the clash of new and traditional worlds. There is a great deal of exaggeration, but Ogali uses it to good effect, and generally with a warm touch. When Abanidiegwu becomes a teacher at a village school and lights up a cigarette his students can't explain the smoke coming from his mouth and think he is on fire (and considerately then douse him with fifty buckets of water). When Abanidiegwu tries to put on a tie the villagers, thinking he is trying to hang himself, come and cut it off, admonishing him "never to attempt such an atrocious act any longer". Cars, trains, and trousers are also mysteries, and also used to comic effect.
       There are also some straightforward roguish exploits -- a clever garden theft, and the essentially illiterate Abanidiegwu getting himself appointed Headmaster (as well as "Principal, Class teacher, Pastor, Catechist and School Clerk") in an "interior and backward town".
       It is a loose collection of stories, but most are fairly entertaining and, though exaggerated, quite amusing.

       NOTE that the character Abanidiegwu also appears in Long Long Ago (see our review)

- Return to top of the page -

Links:

• Onitsha Market Literature: From the Bookstalls of a Nigerian Market - at the University of Kansas
• Indiana University Library collection

• The collection Veronica My Daughter and Other Onitsha Plays and Stories, which includes:
  • Adelabu
  • Caroline the One-Guinea Girl
  • Eddy the Coal-City Boy
  • The Ghost of Patrice Lumumba
  • History of Item: Past and Present
  • Long Long Ago
  • Mr. Rabbit is Dead
  • No Heaven for the Priest
  • Okeke the Magician
  • Patrice Lumumba
  • Thirty Years for the Director
  • Veronica My Daughter

• Bertolt Brecht's Stories of Mr. Keuner
• Emmanuel Obiechina's introduction to An African Popular Literature
• Life Turns Man Up and Down, edited by Kurt Thometz
• Index of books relating to Africa

- Return to top of the page -

About the Author:

       Nigerian author Ogali A. Ogali was born in 1935 and was a leading author of the pamphlet literature sold at Onitsha market.

- Return to top of the page -

© 2001-2010 the complete review

Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links