The 207-page The Forest Dames by Ada Okere Agbasimalo published by Author House UK Ltd last year, tells the story of a civil war and its horrifying consequences in the lives of women.
The book of fiction also chronicles the suffering that continues many years after war has ended, asserting that only justice can bring peace and guarantee progress.
The book opens with ‘the forest dames’, Gonma, Deze, Sofuru and Lele, who suddenly find home in the forest owing to their being pursued by randy soldiers for sexual pleasure. Chapter after chapter records the exploits of the forest dames.
Described as ‘The Endangered Species’ in the second chapter with the same title, the girls try to make a home in the forest far away from the conflict and other human beings.
Incisive dialogue, awe inspiring intrigue and conflict play out in this chapter and in the rest of the 22 chapters in the book that capture their challenges and even rare moments of joy.
There is the return of Deze’s family and others from the northern part of the country where anarchy and ethnic killings reign, air raids and the degeneration of the crisis into full-scale war.
This may be a fictional narrative but the author is so painstaking with facts and figures that those who have never experienced a war situation can glean a glossy gory picture of the agony from the start of hostilities, death and whatnot.
There is, for instance, hunger, sickness and death far from the battleground but which is the direct result of the fighting. War may bring out the worst in people but as the battle rages, saints can also be found among the soldiers.
Among the saints are the humanitarians in the International Red Cross who attempt to take care of poor civilians and those afflicted by the scourge of kwashiorkor.
Chapter 10 titled: “The First Move” quotes Jacob Killenberge (2001) saying that; “protecting women in war is not merely a question of law. It is also a matter of social responsibility and common sense.
Because it is of thanks to women that life goes on in terms of upheavals”. This is the crux of the foreword by Chief Justina Offiah, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, which states that the gender dimension of the book reveals a lot about the vulnerability of the female person and deficient government capacity to protect her in times of war.
The plot of **The Forest Dames** is that of a community at war, the woes occasioned by the battle, how they manage to live through the tragedy and come out a stronger people. It is one book that everyone who loves a good story should read as the writer is a storyteller of no mean consequence.
Also, there are a lot of lessons to be gleaned from the attractive book. The author has done well in exposing the ills of war, so that those fanning the embers of conflict can beat a retreat because anybody’s daughter, niece or sister could be a prisoner of the ‘girl happy’ soldiers and their different bullets. In fact, anyone could be a casualty or even a victim of war.
No comments:
Post a Comment