A Siege of Owls
A Novel
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
An urgent and unforgettable work of magical realism following a young man coming of age in rural West Africa as he bears witness to the violence, upheaval, and hope in a rapidly changing society
In a drought-stricken Igbo village, young Ekwe grows up haunted by owls, myths, and the boundaries of a world too small to contain his restless spirit. After touching a forbidden leaf that his father warns will trap him in astral planes, he is swept into a journey that will carry him across Nigeria, through savannas, deserts, and conflict zones, and into the heart of a nation’s unraveling.
Taken in by Danjuma, a gentle Fulani cowherd with a sprawling family and an instinct for danger, Ekwe enters a world of cattle herding, migration, and precarious survival. As insurgents tear through northern towns and tribal wars erupt in the Middle Belt, Danjuma leads his family on an epic pastoral flight southward, seeking safety in a country where no place is truly safe. Along the way, Ekwe witnesses birth and burial, kindness and betrayal, and the fragile alliances that form between strangers bound by necessity.
But violence follows them like a shadow, and the owls—symbols of myth, menace, and prophecy—perch over every new beginning. Back in his own village, Ekwe’s twelve-year-old sister is pressured to marry a wealthy adult suitor. Ekwe becomes obsessed with how much their lives would improve if she married this man, but Oyibo, stubborn and proud, resists the path that is laid out for her. Meanwhile, simmering tensions between herders and farmers threaten to ignite, forcing Ekwe to confront the truth of where he belongs.
Sweeping, immersive, and fiercely humane, A Siege of Owls traces a child’s odyssey across a fractured landscape, weaving folklore with the stark realities of insurgency, displacement, and the longing for home. It is a story of two families—one lost, one gained—bound together by fate, resilience, and the dangerous hope that somewhere, peace still exists.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Nigerian author Awoke (The Liquid Eye of a Moon) offers a captivating and magic-fueled adventure set in contemporary Africa. Ten-year-old Ekwe defies his father's warning that if he touches a forbidden leaf called an ekwukwonju, he will "be blown away by wild wandering winds." Not long after, Ekwe falls asleep on a bus, arriving unintentionally in Maidaguri in northeastern Nigeria after riding all night. He's taken in by a cow herder, Danjuma, and slowly learns the family's language. One evening, as the family sits down for supper, Muslim extremists burst into their home and open fire, injuring Danjuma and killing one of his wives and a daughter. Afterward, Danjuma migrates with his surviving family to the south, where they briefly find peace, until local tensions between farmers and cow herders erupt in violence. Ekwe is then borne away by a large owl to Central Africa, where he is mentored by a mercenary named Jafari. When he and his fellow mercenaries are abandoned by their employer, Jafari and Ekwe resort to petty crime, until Jafari accepts a proposal from a shady war profiteer who makes him swear allegiance to the Mesopotamian goddess Lamashtu. Then, suddenly, Ekwe wakes up at home, "confused and dizzy," and learns that a much older, richer man is courting his 12-year-old sister, Oyibo. Awoke weaves his immersive and lyrical tale with folklore and vivid scenes of real-world violence. This one hits hard.
