Waiting for an Angel

This amazing stories brought up a lot of questions and interesting topics about Nigeria and the horrible history it has. I really liked the writing and how the story of Nigeria was told so I did some research on Helon Habila to see what I could come up with.

Helon Habila was born in Nigeria in 1967. His father was a type of church worker who helped christian missionaries in Nigeria. He studied literature at the University of Jos and taught at the Federal Polytechnic Bauchi, before moving to Lagos to work as a journalist. In Lagos he wrote his first novel, Waiting for an Angel, which won the Caine Prize in 2001. In 2002 he moved to England to become the African Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia. After his fellowship he enrolled for a PhD in Creative Writing. His writing has won many prizes including the Commonwealth Writers Prize, 2003. In 2005-2006 he was the first Chinua Achebe Fellow at Bard College in New York. His second novel, Measuring Time, was published in February, 2007. He currently teaches Creative Writing at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where he lives with his wife and two children.

He actually has a "Blogger" blog! You can find it here.

There were some themes to the book that I thought were very depressing and sad. For example the book starts in a prison cell with Lomba a seemingly innocent writer. It then moves to earlier history about a student who drops out of school, his closest friend loses his sanity in front of him, the terror the military brings, his novel never being finished and losing a woman to another man. This storyline spells out s-u-i-c-i-d-e! But not to worry there are undertones to this book that keeps the story moving and people from jumping out windows when they are finished reading it.

The characters in Waiting for an Angel are a representation of the story of Nigeria. They are individual stories of ordinary people living in extraordinary times. The whole time I was reading the story I kept thinking about Achebe and his story Things Fall Apart. The authors really capture the essence of the nation and the people during those times. I was reading articles about interviews Habila gave to people and it amazes me that this author still wants to write even with what goes on in Nigeria. He explained that in order to get a book or work published it has to be "Self-published." He stated that Nigeria does not spend the necessary money and time on scholarly literature or writers. Can you imagine not having an agent and getting your books out to the public single handedly? Its amazing what an inspiration these writers are and once you read their stories, the inspiration only soars higher.

My favorite character of the book had to be Aunt Rachael. In the beginning you see her as a compassionate aunt who takes her nephew in after his dad kicks him out. She feeds him and gives him a tutor for nothing. But later in the story we see her slipping, she begins drinking more heavily, and having more frequent outbursts. I don't blame her however, if someone left me like that I would be pretty depressed too. But! She is an amazing woman and bounces back. When Habila described her turning around I couldn't stop smiling. I thought of all the strong women in my life and all the women who have been through the same thing. Habila really captured the essence of womanhood and overcoming obstacles.

What can I say, I read this book in one sitting and LOVED it!