Thoughts on Helon Habila's 'Oil on Water'
This is my first encounter with Helon Habila's work. As he is increasingly becoming more important in the canonization of African literature (he won the Caine Prize in its second year and he recently anthologized African short stories with a respected publisher), I thought I should read him right away. And what better way to introduce myself to his work than through his recent novel, 'Oil on Water', which takes readers to the Niger Delta. I say take, as opposed to invite, because from the moment you hear the narrator's voice, you are taken on a voyage as if you were foreign to the Niger Delta, which, in my case, is true (never mind that earlier today, a lady outside the grocery store asked me if I was Nigerian and I told her what I was, and the lady with whom she was standing quickly said: "You are my neighbour and I said, "Are you Mozambican?" and she said, "No, I'm South African"). As I begin reading the novel, I am following a nar...