7.4 /10 1 Votes
Translator Alison Anderson Originally published 1991 Genre Coming of age | 3.7/5 Goodreads Pages 206 pp | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
J. M. G. Le Clézio books Le Chercheur d'or, Ritournelle de la faim, The African, Wandering Star, Poisson d'or | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Onitsha is a novel by French Nobel laureate writer J. M. G. Le Clézio. It was originally published in French in 1991 and an English translation was released in 1997.
Contents
Plot summary
Onitsha tells the story of Fintan, a young European boy who travels from Bordeaux to the port of Marseilles to sail along the coast of Africa to the mouth of the Niger River to Onitsha in colonial Nigeria with his Italian mother (nicknamed Maou) in the year 1948. Warren Motte wrote a review in World Literature Today to note that, like many of Le Clézio's writings Onitsha is a novel of apprenticeship. He mentions that the very first words of the novel inscribe the theme of the journey and announce that it will occupy the foreground of the tale and he quotes a passage from Onitsha to exemplify Fintan's reluctance to embark upon that journey
It was a long journey as Le Clézio wrote:
They were intending to meet Geoffroy Allen (Fintan's English father an oil company executive who is obsessed with uncovering the area's ancient history by tracking down myths and legends) whom Fintan has never met.
Onitsha depicts childhood, because it is written semi-autobiographically, but seen through the eyes of Fintan and to lesser extent his father, and his mother, who is not able to fit in with the colonial society of the town of Onitsha with its casual acceptance of 'native' slave labour. Le Clézio wrote:
Eventually, Fintan's father loses his job with the United Africa Company and moves the family first to London, then to the south of France. Sabine Rhodes, another British National, already a miscast in the colony recognises the inevitable
The novel ends on a note of rebellion against the white rulers and points towards the coming of the neocolonialism of conglomerates which would finally begin another form of economic exploitation of a country rich in oil.
Critique
The book is a critique on racism and the vestiges of colonialism as seen from the youthful perspective of the main character
Throughout the book, Fintan's rejection of colonialism is symbolized by the attacks of his mother Maou, who increasingly speaks out against the way the colonials treat the indigenous people. The book seemingly mimics Le Clézio's own life, especially when the character travels back to Africa in an attempt to fill in the sense of loss he had suffered, to renew it in his mind, a task that ends in a dead end.
Translating Onitsha
Alison Anderson is the author of Darwin's Wink and the translator of seventeen books, including The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. Anderson wrote about how it was for her to have translated Onitsha for the fall 1997 edition of World Literature Today
Alison Anderson published her own synopsis of Onitsha