SEASON OF CRIMSON BLOSSOMS. #BOOK REVIEW.
AUTHOR: ABIBUBAKAR ADAM IBRAHIM
#BOOK REVIEW
Amorphophallus Titanium (Corpse Flower), blooms after 30 years! Interestingly, it grows on a host, preferably a vine. The plant has been code named the corpse flower because in its blooming it emits the smell of rotting flesh.
Imagine this, after painstakingly waiting for 30 years, the only thing you get is the smell of death. We are lucky some ancestor of ours observed this in yore and people, I presume, no longer look forward to that spectacle.
Of course, in the west, botanical museums mostly, the blooming of this flower brings with it hundreds of tourists, to bear witness to the event or something like that.
The show lasts for only three days, since the flower withers and dies afterwards and count down for another 30 years commences.
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Around September, together with my friends we attended a literature event, billed as the literary cross roads, the panellists were; Abubakar Adam from Nigeria, Season of Crimson Blossoms Author and Kenyan /Somali, Abdul Adan, who has written many stories, among them The Somalification of James Karangi.
Afterwards during Snacking, I went to say hi to Troy Onyango. He was selling some books on behalf of Prestige Book shop at the back. I have no idea what this guy does. Apart from him being a fantastic writer, he calls himself a lawyer, but I always meet him either in the belly of prestige or somewhere hugging prestige bookshop in a corner, like this night.
After a generous handshake, he instructed firmly and zealously, “You must buy Crimson, it is a fantastic book”,
“Don’t pull your sales man antics on me, you are on a commission, aren’t you?”,
Then he turns to Zukiswa Wanner, who was standing inconspicuously a little further on his right. By then I didn’t know I was standing a metre away from her highness, a fantastic south African novelist and Journalist “Hey, this guy thinks I am trying to market Crimson?
With jerking suddenness Zukiswa pulls a show for me. She paces around, …
“Her, my brother, you have not read Crimson?” hey! Heeeeey! Which Africa do you live in, your ancestors will curse you, now! Read Mr, read this book like it’s your ticket to greatness!
She births a short live theatre right there, trying to bring to life the feeling I would get if I were to read the book. It was hilarious. I have never come across a writer with so much reverence for another writer’s work like Zukiswa to Abubakar.
Under duress of mind and soul, I M-pesa Prestige my money, which I had budgeted to survive on through September (times are hard) and I buy the book, then I get rewarded when Troy admonishes my friend Faith for reading African Literature Bootleg downloads. Ha ha! How could she betray Africa literary scene like that?
Troy rains mind blows on her,
“Look, for example, it took Ayobami Adebayo (Author of, stay with me) seven years to have this book printed because she had no funds, then you go ahead and read it as a bootleg PDF! Do you have a heart?” or even half a heart?”
Hahaha, go on Troy, how could she read boot legs? I cheered Troy in this trolling all the while Faith trying to explain that someone hacked her computer and downloaded for her the illegal African literature books. Oh really?
If this were the old days, Troy would have sold Faith to slavers ha ha!
I am game whenever it is time to roast that friend.
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Fate is something else entirely. One day, a thief breaks into an old woman’s house and awaits her return. The old woman’s name is Hajiya and she is in her early fifties. The thief’s name is Reza, a twenty something year old, miscreant, killer, gang leader, weed seller, and every other title worth a ticket to 50 years in jail.
Hajiya, is a widow, Zubairu her late husband had died 12 years earlier, in an ethnic Cleansing brutality. In her house she lives with Little Ummi, her granddaughter, whose mother Hureira is on her second marriage after getting divorced from her first for being a hot head and a husband beater. Hajiya also lives with Fa’iza, the daughter of her sister, whose husband and son were also killed in the ethnic cleansing.
Hajiya, has two more children, Hadiza, who is married and has two kids, and Munkaila who is rich and has married a beautiful lady, Sadiya, and they too, have two kids.
In all, Hajiya has three grown up children, Hureira, Hadiza and Munkaila all who have their own families, making her a grandmother and she has one dead son too, called Yaro. He was shot dead by the police as a young man.
Hajiya is living a happy retirement life, a reader might deduce, but she doesn’t know what she has been missing until the thief breaks into her home.
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An old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb. -extract.
Honour is milk that once spilt cannot be recovered. -extract.
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Sex like they say is a dragon, once awaken, it’s hard to put back to sleep. Hajiya can barely remember what it felt like engaging in coitus or even what it meant anymore. The fact that Zubairu never excited her sexually doesn’t help. There was a lot she would have wanted to do to spice up their sex life but her late husband was a myopic man.
Madness or lack thereof, is Reza lusting for Hajiya, and vice versa and soon enough they are in a sexual relationship. An over the top thief turns to a lover. There is no shame between them in this secret relationship, irrespective of Hajiya’s half a century life and Reza’s twenty something years.
She knows she ought to be ashamed, but for what? What scares her is the fact that Reza reminds her of Yaro, her dead son. To Reza, Hajiya reminds him of his mother. This reminiscence of close persons in their individual lives somehow breeds this unprecedented whirlwind fornication.
Reza makes her feel youngish and opens her to possibilities that even in her youth she didn’t venture into. He awakens her desires to heights she had never thought possible in her entire life. She knows if this continues, Reza will liberate her sexual decay and she cannot stop this to save her life.
She allows herself to experience and to step into this sexual inebriation willingly and lustfully.
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Reza’s mother abandoned him at a young age, he was barely conscious of himself. His one-eyed father brought him up, in a house that had two more wives.
His mother’s reputation was inglorious and there has always been talk that she was a whore. It is this talk among his father’s co wives and gossip of her follies that breaks Reza’s will to continue living in a house of hostilities with no protector especially when his father was not around, which was often since he was a cattle merchant. Reza ran away from home at a young age and he grew and hardened in the streets.
In a plot resembling Africa prevalence politics that every powerful politician has criminals all around to do the dirty work, Reza is the go to criminal for a powerful senator in Jo’s.
It is a season of money making until he botches up a kidnap attempt sanctioned by the senator.
It is also a season of fornicating with Hajiya until gossip reaches Munkaila’s ears, that his mother is sexually involved with a young criminal.
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Fa’iza is a troubled girl, she saw her brother’s head cut into half during the ethnic cleansing. The sight of blood, or meat sparks hysteria in her young mind and she convulses like a possessed girl.
She is the one who will help the reader understand this season of crimson blossoms better.
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Dreams can be dainty and beautiful, like butterflies, and just as fragile — extract.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —Season of Crimson Blossoms is a fantastic book, Abubakar has used African idioms with astonishing efficiency, easily engraving his name in your mind.
This story is a work of fiction of course but he has implanted factual sections making it a journey along the edges of African Culture, Impunity, Imperfections and politics.
Not all African writing is meant to show the bad side of Africa, Poverty and what not. Sometimes you get a nice fictional story. Crimson is funny, humorous and frankly speaking it exerts you to step on the gas pedal and soon enough you will have devoured the book.
The author is a ferocious reader and you can tell from the many books he quotes in this story through Faiza. I enjoyed Faiza’s scenes, she is a funny teenager.
Read this book. …
Hey, the Corpse Flower elucidation segment plays no role whatsoever in this review. It is just general knowledge, call it a pre-treat for taking the time to read this review.
But, the author has used the flower’s characteristic well in this book, you will come across a scene where Hajiya is edifying Reza about this flower and it fits well in her analogy.
Battle of the wallet.
Is the book worth a buy: hell yes! @ ksh. 1,600, prestige book shop.
Can You gift someone this book: Of course, yes? Especially I would really appreciate if someone gifted Faith, the bootleg reader, she needs to be weaned from fakes. Ha ha.
Troy Onyango, once again, your recommendation has not disappointed even an ounce, asante sana. You are what, I read recently on brain pickings; Only one mountain, can know the core of another mountain — FRIDA KAMLO
Till next time, good people.
