Novel
The Voice
Gabriel Okara · 1964
Synopsis
Okolo returns to his village in the delta and begins asking everyone whether they have “the thing”, without ever saying what it is. The question disturbs: the chief and the elders see an accusation in it, have him beaten and then driven out. He makes his way to the city, where he asks the same question of people too busy to hear it, and comes back despite the ban. A woman whom the village keeps at a distance is the only one to follow him.
Context
The novel models the syntax of Ijaw onto English: the word order, the repetitions and the compound words come from the author's mother tongue, and the text reads like a translation. It runs to one hundred and twenty-seven pages, published first in the author's country and then reissued in London and New York. Its French translator says he extended the author's gesture, who had himself pictured himself as a translator. The book appeared in German as early as 1975 and in French ten years later.
Who it is for
A short novel in English, with a syntax modelled on Ijaw. This unusual language is the central device and is disorienting at first.
Prizes and reception
The linguistic experiment of this novel, English modelled on Ijaw syntax, left its mark on the English-language African prose that followed it.