This debut novel from the author of the powerful, universally
acclaimed Foreign Gods, Inc. looks at a woman's drowning and the
ensuing investigation in an emerging African nation.
In the country of Madia (based in part on Ndibe's native Nigeria) a
young prostitute runs into the sea and drowns. The last man who spoke to
her, the "madman" Bukuru, is asked to account for her last moments. When
his testimony implicates the Madian armed forces, Bukuru is arrested and
charged with her death. At the first day of trial, Bukuru, acting as his
own attorney, counters these charges with allegations of his own,
speaking not only of government complicity in a series of violent
assaults and killings, but telling the court that the president of Madia
himself is guilty of rape and murder. The incident is hushed up, and
Bukuru is sent back to prison, where he will likely meet his end. But a
young journalist manages to visit him, and together they journey through
decades of history that illuminate Bukuru's life, and that of the entire
nation. A brave and powerful work of fiction, Arrows of Rain is a
brilliant dramatization of the complex factors behind the near-collapse
of a nation from one of the most exciting novelists writing today.
