Finding Wholeness on Shattered Grounds

Reviewed by Etimbuk Antia. April, 2024

Kaine Agary’s debut novel Yellow-Yellow is a bildungsroman that has the life experiences and observations of a seventeen-year-old Greek-Nigerian heroine, Zilayefa as its narrator. The novel’s title conveys the biracial roots of the heroine — a product of a whirlwind interracial love affair between an absconded Greek sailor father and a young, naive, orphaned Nigerian woman. The yellowed-out book cover gestures to the overwhelming ways by which the protagonist is overdetermined from the outside because of the colour of her skin à la Frantz Fanon. For Zilayefa, the perception of her skin colour occludes the acknowledgement of her full humanity, as exemplified by her nickname.

Set after the discovery of oil in commercial quantity in Oloibiri, in an unnamed Ijaw village, Yellow-Yellow is written in thirteen chapters and narrated in the omnipresent voice of its female protagonist Zilayefa — whose naïve tone progressively grows to full awareness through the journey motif. The novel examines themes such as bi-racial identity, self-discovery, and gendered entanglement with resource extraction in the Delta with its negative outcomes. The Niger Delta petroleumscape is mirrored through abject poverty, land and water pollution, and general hopelessness. Yellow-Yellow invites its readers to witness the downside of resource extraction and its cost on inhabitants’ social lives and well-being.

To reiterate the degrading and exploited environment of the Niger Delta, Agary uses unadorned imagery to describe the environment as she weaves the story. Sentences like “the crude oil pipes that ran through my village broke and spilled oil over several hectares of land” (3) and “I watched as the thick liquid spread out, covering more land and drowning small animals in its path” (4) emphasizes the despoilment of nature, human entanglement, and the irrevocable power of oil to consume all on its path. According to Zilayefa,

 The only option I was unwilling to consider, that tormented my quiet

moments the most, was to remain in my village. My ears still rang

from maternal wails piercing the foggy days when mothers mourned…

the water that flowed with streaks of blue, purple, and red, as drops

of oil escaped from the pipelines that moved the wealth from beneath

my land and into the pockets of the select few who ruled Nigeria was

the same water I drank (39).

Agary decries the dispossession of the people and criticizes the Nigerian state for its complicity. The quoted passage presents the unnamed village as a microcosm of the Niger Delta, a violent terrain with traumatic stressors for the protagonist and community members. Therefore, Zilayefa’s escape from the village indicates another pitfall of destructive extraction – rural-to-urban migration.

As the protagonist journeys to Port Harcourt, she encounters life beyond her oil-soaked impoverished village and leans on women for her growth. The women in Zilayefa’s circle in Port Harcourt are bosses who make their mark and carve their niche through sheer focus, resourcefulness, and determination. Those Amazonian women influence, support, and set Zilayefa on the right path. Although the protagonist ventures beyond their protective shield in her search for self and wholeness, she gains crucial knowledge that leads to an awakening. Agary juxtaposes the women in rural Niger Delta communities with those in the city to underscore their nurturing and entrepreneurial ethos. Irrespective of their location, the women in Zilayefa’s life remain a strong force of good in the novel.

As a Bildungsroman, the story and themes are relatable with a reliance on internal monologue and gripping dialogue. Through Zilayefa, Agary tells the story of the bi-racial women of the Niger Delta. The characters in the work are memorable, and the language is clear yet evocative. Yellow-Yellow examines the deprivations prevalent in the lives of women who live in environmentally degraded and exploited places and highlights their shared vulnerability with our nonhuman kin. Yellow-Yellow is a great and suspense-filled read. This novel is significant because it contributes to giving a fuller understanding of the Niger Delta oil zone to avoid the pitfall of a single story.

Genre – Novel.
Author: Kaine Agary
No of Pages: 179
Publisher: Dtalkshop Paperback, Nigeria