New award winning book aims to tell the Niger Delta’s Story

The Nigerian edition published by Cassava Republic Press was released last week by the Abuja based publishing house a year after Quercus released the book in the UK. The Costa Award winning novel is narrated by 12 year-old Blessing who watches her family fall apart after her mother catches her father with another woman. The […]

The Nigerian edition published by Cassava Republic Press was released last week by the Abuja based publishing house a year after Quercus released the book in the UK.

The Costa Award winning novel is narrated by 12 year-old Blessing who watches her family fall apart after her mother catches her father with another woman. The children relocate with their mother from their airconditioned home in Lagos to live a rustic life in Warri without electricity or water. There, Blessing witnesses firsthand the horrors of life in the Niger Delta region, with her elder brother Ezekiel joining militants and her mother working suspicious late hours to make ends meet.

Blessing is left in the care of her grandmother, who teaches the girl the ways of the midwives and in the course of her training, Blessing witnesses female genital mutilation and the devastation wreaked by multinational oil companies.

“Tiny Sunbirds is an evocative novel about the human toll of the environmental catastrophe taking place in the Niger Delta,” a statement by CRP said about the book.

“Though it refrains from scenes of slick oil-clogged creeks, the devastating effects of the sickness of pollution can be felt in small examples. It can be seen in the stale, clogged smell of the city, for instance, or the malformed babies who are born too early or the deterioration of Ezikiel’s poor health,” the statement added.

Tiny Sunbirds was winner of the 2012 UK Costa Award for First Novel and nominated as a finalist for the overall prize. It is sure to be a valuable addition to what is a growing pool of high-quality literature on the Niger-Delta.

The author Christie Watson is a trained British nurse and lives in London with her Nigerian partner. Tiny Sunbirds is her first novel.

More information on the book’s availability can be found at www.cassavarepublic.biz.