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Title: We Will Live Again
Author: Chukwuemeka Famous
Year: 2023
Pagination: 180
Publisher: Griots Lounge Publishing
Genre: Fiction
About the Book:
When in 1960, Nigeria gained independence and the white men left, Thaddeus Iroha becomes the head of the local church in his district. It takes just assuming this position for him to unleash terror on his family. When the Nigerian Civil War sets in, Thaddeus flees with his family to their village. There, things deteriorate drastically, especially after Thaddeus was forced to kill a man captured by Biafran soldiers. Soon after that, he gives up on his religion and his wife, Chika, immediately resorts to fetish means to protect herself, while their two sons, Woha and Okey eventually become strangers.
The story is narrated by the first child, Woha, who, after the death of his father, fled from home because he could not withstand the harsh treatment he got from his mother and his brother.
Sprinkled with themes that revolve around politics, war, religious fanaticism, hatred, and hope, We Will Live Again is a story of disintegration, and then hope for a rebirth.
About the Author:
Chukwuemeka Famous was born in Eastern Nigeria and obtained a degree in Microbiology from the University of Benin. His writings have been published in Ibua Journal, Shallow Tales Review, Analogies and Allegories Literary Magazine, All Ears Magazine and elsewhere. He was one of the winners of the Packlight Writing Contest with his short story, ‘Oyinbo’ which was published in the anthology, Packlight: Memories of Growing Up in Africa. His was a finalist in the 2020 Quramo Writer’s Prize with his manuscript, Butterflies Will Come.
We Will Live Again is his debut novel published by Griots Lounge in June 2023. He lives in Benin City where he is pursuing a master’s degree in Environmental and Public Health Microbiology.
Remark:
We Will Live Again explores three significant themes of narcissism, patriarchy and religious fanaticism through a remarkable character known as Reverend Thaddeus Iroha, who represents the African literature completion of the trio of Okonkwo and Brother Eugene. Whereas Okonkwo was a brutal but hard-working adherent of his local customs and tradition, Brother Eugene’s irascible behaviour stems from his imagination of himself as faultless and all-knowing, exhibiting religious fanaticism through his unwavering and destructive adherence to the Roman Catholic mores. Pastor Thaddeus completes the trio through his Pentecostal flares that set his family ablaze. He is even more brutal than Okonkwo and Brother Eugene, only that he appears to retain some feelings somewhere at the corner of his heart. Set in the heat of the Biafran War, We Will Live Again captures in essence, the true lessons of how not to be a patriarch, a narcissist and a religious fanatic.
— Ifésinàchi Nwádikè, Ngiga Review
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