Author | Edna O'Brien |
---|---|
Language | English |
Publisher | Faber & Faber |
Publication date | 3 September 2019 |
Media type | Print (Hardback) |
Pages | 240 |
ISBN | 9-780-57134116-0 |
Girl is a 2019 novel by Irish author Edna O'Brien. The book's plot is inspired by the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in Nigeria, and is narrated by a fictional victim, Maryam.
O'Brien first conceived of the novel after reading about a girl kidnapped by Boko Haram in a magazine at a doctor's office. [1] and the plot is inspired by the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping in Nigeria. [2] She travelled to Nigeria twice to do research, which included interviewing "escaped girls, their mothers and sisters, to trauma specialists, doctors and Unicef". She later said that she had tried to create a "kind of mythic story from all this pain and horror". [3]
O'Brien regarded Girl as a continuation of the focus of her career, "to chart and get inside the mind, soul, heart and emotion of girls in some form of restriction, some form of life that isn't easy, but who find a way to literally plough their way through and come out as winners of sort – maybe not getting prizes – but come through their experiences and live to tell the tale. It is a theme I have lived and often cried with". [4]
O'Brien does not type her books, and as with others wrote Girl on loose paper, periodically dictating pages to a typist. [5]
The narrator, Maryam, a victim of kidnapping, is given as a prize to a Boko Haram soldier Mahmoud, and bears his baby. Her feelings towards him are complex, especially after he tells her that he joined the group to protect his mother. The story describes horrors in great detail, and is tough to read. Maryam escapes with another girl, but upon returning home is punished by her family, but the closing lines give hope. [6] [7]
Girl was published on 3 September 2019. [8]
In 2020 O'Brien opened the Avignon theatre festival with a reading from the novel, later described by the French ministry as "a moving story about violence against women, one of her lifelong concerns". [9]
Writing for The Guardian , Alex Clark praised the novel, saying: "Everything that O'Brien does memorably throughout her novels, she does here." [10] Charles Taylor of the Los Angeles Times wrote "...the book is the product of a writer thinking of misogyny as a global force, and what's more a force able to reach the fanatic heights represented by Boko Haram because the misogyny of everyday life gives that fanaticism something in which to take root... Girl is a superb example what fiction is supposed to be: an act of empathetic imagination". [11]
Francine Prose of The New York Times praised the book, saying "Let's give O’Brien credit for her energy and passion, for reminding us that at every moment girls are being abused and exploited with unconscionable cruelty and malice. Let's honor her for the grit that inspired her, a woman in her 80s, to travel to Nigeria to listen to people's stories". She said that it also led her to reading moved to begin Beneath the Tamarind Tree , a non-fiction account of the release of some of the Chibok kidnapping victims by CNN reporter Isha Sesay. [7]
According to literary review aggregator Book Marks, the novel received mostly positive reviews. [12]
Girl was shortlisted for the Prix Femina étranger in France in November 2019, and in that year O'Brien won the Prix Femina spécial for her entire body of work. [13] [14]
Poet Imtiaz Dharker, judge for the 2019 David Cohen Prize, a lifetime achievement award won by O'Brien, said about Girl: "I thought I had the course of O'Brien's work mapped out before the judging came around, and then, towards the end of the process, another great tome dropped through the letterbox, changing the whole terrain". [4]
O'Brien said in a 2020 interview that she had been disappointed by the novel's poor reception in the US, although it was well-received in France and Germany. [3]
Josephine Edna O'Brien was an Irish novelist, memoirist, playwright, poet and short-story writer.
Cibak is an Afro-Asiatic language spoken by about 200,000 who are majorly Kibaku people in Nigeria.
Chibok is a Local Government Area of Borno State, Nigeria, located in the southern part of the state. It has its headquarters in the town of Chibok.
Yvonne Ndege is an international journalist, and media and communications professional. She started her career at the British Broadcasting Corporation, as a graduate trainee in London, United Kingdom.
On the night of 14–15 April 2014, 276 mostly Christian female students aged from 16 to 18 were kidnapped by the Islamic terrorist group called Boko Haram from the Government Girls Secondary School at the town of Chibok in Borno State, Nigeria. Prior to the raid, the school had been closed for four weeks due to deteriorating security conditions, but the girls were in attendance in order to take final exams in physics.
The Sambisa Forest is a forest in Borno State, northeast Nigeria. It is in the southwestern part of Chad Basin National Park, about 60 km southeast of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State. It has an area of 518 km2.
On the night of 5–6 May 2014, Boko Haram militants attacked the twin towns of Gamboru and Ngala in Borno State, northeastern Nigeria. About 310 residents were killed in the 12-hour massacre, and the town was largely destroyed.
The following lists events from 2014 in Nigeria.
Chikaodinaka Sandra Oduah is a Nigerian-American journalist, poet and cultural entrepreneur who has worked as a television news producer, correspondent, writer and photographer. She is the founder of Zikora Media & Arts, which operates as a media production company and a cultural institution. Oduah was formerly a correspondent for VICE News. Known for her unique human-focused ethnographic reporting style with an anthropological approach, she was awarded a CNN Multichoice African Journalist Award in 2016. Upon the abduction of 276 schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram in Chibok, northeastern Nigeria, she was the first international journalist to visit and spend extensive time in the remote community of Chibok. Her thorough and exclusive coverage of the mass kidnapping won her the Trust Women "Journalist of The Year Award" from the Thomson Reuters Foundation in 2014. Oduah's reporting explores culture, history, conflict, human rights, and development to capture the complexities, hopes and everyday realities of Africans and people of African descent.
Amina Ali Nkeki is a Nigerian former hostage of Boko Haram. She was one of 276 female students the group kidnapped from Chibok in 2014. After 57 of the girls escaped in the first few months, the remaining 219 were held for several years. Of this larger group, Ali was the first freed. She was found on 17 May 2016 by Civilian Joint Task Force along with a four-month-old child and an alleged Boko Haram member, Mohammed Hayatu, who described himself as her husband. All three were severely malnourished.
Laila St. Matthew-Daniel is an executive coach, leadership trainer, speaker, author, women's rights activist and writer. She is the founder and President of ACTS Generation GBV, a non-governmental organization which combats domestic violence and child abuse in Nigeria. She has organized various protests for the rights of women and the girl-child, some of which are the Buni Yadi Massacre of February 2014 and part of initiating group who organized first protest against the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping by the Boko Haram sect. She has organized various sensitization seminars and workshops to empower women on the issues of self mastery, self awareness, and self actualization.
Operation Turus is the code name of the British military operation to assist Nigeria during the Boko Haram insurgency. It was launched in April 2014 by Prime Minister David Cameron in response to the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping which saw over a hundred schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, a jihadist terrorist organisation in northeastern Nigeria. Initial efforts were focused on the search for the missing schoolgirls, with the UK deploying military specialists, satellite imagery and reconnaissance aircraft from the Royal Air Force. According to a source quoted in The Observer, the UK successfully located the missing schoolgirls and offered to rescue them but this offer was rejected by the Nigerian government which considered it a national issue. Most of the schoolgirls remain missing.
On February 19, 2018, at 5:30 pm, 110 schoolgirls aged 11–19 years old were kidnapped by the Boko Haram terrorist group from the Government Girls' Science and Technical College (GGSTC). Dapchi is located in Bulabulin, Bursari Local Government area of Yobe State, in the northeast part of Nigeria. The federal government of Nigeria deployed the Nigerian Air Force and other security agencies to search for the missing schoolgirls and to hopefully enable their return. The governor of Yobe State, Ibrahim Gaidam, blamed Nigerian Army soldiers for having removed a military checkpoint from the town. Dapchi lies approximately 275 km northwest of Chibok, where over 276 schoolgirls were kidnapped by Boko Haram in 2014.
Daughters of Chibok is an 11-minute Nigerian short film. The virtual reality documentary tells the story of Yana Galang, whose daughter, Rifkatu, was among the 276 girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in April 2014 from their school dormitory in Chibok, northeast Nigeria. The film was made to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping.
Stephanie Busari is a Nigerian journalist notable for exclusively obtaining the "proof of life" video for the missing Chibok schoolgirls in the wake of the Bring Back Our Girls advocacy which led to negotiations with Boko Haram that resulted in the release of over 100 of the kidnapped schoolgirls.
Kidnapping is a major problem in Nigeria in the early 21st century. Kidnapping by bandits and insurgents is among the biggest organised or gang crime in Nigeria and is a national security challenge.
In the evening of 11 December 2020, over 300 pupils were kidnapped from a boys' secondary boarding school on the outskirts of Kankara, Katsina State, northern Nigeria. A gang of gunmen on motorcycles attacked the Government Science Secondary School, where more than 800 pupils reside.
The Chibok Girls styled as The Chibok Girls: The Boko Haram Kidnappings and Islamist Militancy in Nigeria is a 2016 non-fiction social novel by Nigerian author Helon Habila. The novel was developed due to 2014 kidnaping of 276 Chibok school girls from age 16 to 18 by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram.
Beneath the Tamarind Tree styled as Beneath the Tamarind Tree — A Story of Courage, Family, and the Lost Schoolgirls of Boko Haram is a 2019 non-fiction social novel by Isha Sesay. The novel was written when Sesay was a journalist at CNN International. It gave the details about the 2014 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapping by Boko Haram.
Aisha Muhammed-Oyebode is a Nigerian lawyer, entrepreneur, author, activist and philanthropist. She is currently the Group chief executive officer of Asset Management Group Limited and the chief executive officer of Murtala Muhammed Foundation.