Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree - Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani - ★★★★.½

AUTHOR: Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

GENRE: Young Adult Fiction.

PUBLICATION DATE: September 4, 2018.

RATING: 4.5 stars.

Khaled Hosseini had written in The Kite Runner, "Some stories don't need telling." A corollary to that would be that some stories need to be told. Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree (BBBT) is one of them.

BBBT tells the story of a brave young girl, whose name and age aren't revealed throughout the story. You can guess from the writing that she might be in her teens, possibly around 15-16 years of age. At first, she seems to be a typical girl of that age, a clever girl with dreams, a girl intent on education to ensure future success, a girl worried about class tests and menstrual leaks while in school, a girl harbouring a secret crush on a local boy, a girl who loves spending time with her friends,... But as the chapters move ahead, you see that this girl is much stronger, much more intelligent, and much more responsible than an average teen. And all of this is tested on one fateful day when the Boko Haram militants invade her village and kidnap her along with many other girls from the village. How does this young girl face the uncertainty of living with militants? Is there a happy ending for her? Is any ending truly happy in such a scenario?

You need to keep two things in mind while reading BBBT:

1. Despite its subject matter, it is quite tame in its writing.

2. It has very short chapters.

Some people have reviewed these two issues as shortcomings of the book but for me, both of these factors were points in favour of BBBT.

The gory content is missing because BBBT is primarily Young Adult fiction. So though there are many traumas that the girls undergo, most of it is implied and not explicitly written. Of course, what is implied is pretty shocking, but at least you don't need to read grotesque content in case you are squeamish about that. That said, your imagination can play havoc with your peace of mind at what the girls go through.

Secondly, the short chapters help you in racing through the book with ease. You don't feel like you are reading a novel but as if you are peeking in someone's diary. Every word is from the heart. The chapters relate not just incidents but also thoughts and dreams and disappointments. You can feel every emotion that the young girl experiences in the course of the 330 pages. The brevity also lends a kind of jumpiness to the narrative, almost as if you were watching a projector that reveals the whole presentation but a single frame at a time.

BBBT ends with some answers and many questions. It is not a book you'll not be able to brush aside easily after you are done with the last page. Adaobi Nwaubani, the Nigerian author who narrates the tale of the unnamed protagonist, crafts a storyline that sucks you within its vortex. Though using simple words appropriate to the young protagonist, Nwaubani conveys the pathos of the situation deeply. One line from the book says, "Their Islam is from inside their heads, not from the holy Quran." This is so stark and truthful that I felt like giving her a standing ovation.

Of course, there are some situations in the book that seem totally unrealistic to you, especially related to some of the kidnapped girls becoming radicals, even willing to be suicide bombers. And this is where Viviana Mazza, the Italian journalist, steps in to slap sense into your head with her brilliant afterword at the end of the story. The afterword details out the actual Boko Haram incidents that inspired the book, the lives of the girls who were kidnapped and of some of those who were able to make their way back alive. And that's when the sad fact makes itself clear: what is unrealistic to you is a daily reality to someone else.

The dedication of the book reads: "To the girls and women of Nigeria, in the hope that they may know brighter times than these." I sincerely pray that this happens soon.