Say You're One Of Them, by Uwem Akpan

A voice for the African children of war

This astonishing first collection of short stories marks the arrival of a major writer. In 2007 Uwem Akpan's story, "My Parents' House", was shortlisted for the Caine Prize, which recognises the best short fiction from Africa. It is a deeply disturbing story about a little girl forced to witness the unwilling murder of her mother by her father during the genocide riots in Rwanda. By the time one reaches this fifth and final tale, the reader has had to come to terms with the author's unsparing eye and lack of sentimentality.

The last sentences are remorseless, containing the ironic twist you often hope for in classic short-story writing, but somehow deeply compassionate too. It is a long time since I have been so moved and so disturbed. Any notion that the short-story form is languishing irrelevantly is disavowed by this terrific, and sometimes terrifying, collection.

Uwem Akpan is a Jesuit priest. The centrepiece of the book is the novella-length "Luxurious Hearses", set against the north-south Muslim-Christian troubles which followed the death of President Abacha of Nigeria. Akpan takes no sides. The story is about Jibril/Gabriel, a young lad who has a foot in both religions, though his mindset is more with Islamic orthodoxy. He has accepted the amputation of his right hand as a just punishment for stealing a goat. As he journeys on a bus through Nigeria to escape the mass slaughter of rival groups, his chief aim is to keep his healing stump undisclosed, for if it is seen he will be known to be a Muslim in the wrong part of the country. His ordeal is relentless, but not without comedy. Akpan never lets up in his acute and loving observation of the life of the road, and the human mix of both the living and the dead on the bus itself.

In "Fattening for Gabon", two children are literally being fed for the slave trade, since an emaciated body will not achieve much at market. This is not an 18th-century tale, but very much of today's world. The children are victims, but also judges of the adults who abuse them.

All these stories are about children. Akpan shows them to be pawns of the grown-up world, but at times they also watch it with extraordinary detachment. He conveys how little they understand the motives of their elders, but how wise they are in finding ways to survive. Sometimes, at the limit of endurance, the children are less petrified than we the reader. We understand the potential of human evil. They do not.

In the contents list each story has a country denotation against the title, indicating Akpan's determination to speak for the continent of Africa and not just Nigeria. This is evident too in the registers of language, using patois, dialect and "pidgin" where appropriate. Occasionally this makes reading difficult, as one has to adjust to unfamiliar usages, but it also helps the great feeling of authenticity and pan-African inclusiveness. Some of these stories are small masterpieces.

Akpan, who is now teaching in Harare and probably witnessing horrors equal to any described in this collection, arouses huge expectations for his next book. I hope these will not intimidate him. Given the robustness and muscularity of his writing here, I doubt if that will happen.

Alastair Niven is Principal of Cumberland Lodge, Windsor