The Shadow Speaker
Appearance
The Shadow Speaker (Sun/Hyperion 2007), Written by Nnedi Okorafor-Mbach, is a first-person novel that takes place in the year 2070. The Shadow Speaker was a Booksense Pick for Winter 2007/2008, a Tiptree Honor Book, a finalist for the Essence Magazine Literary Award, the Andre Norton Award and the Golden Duck Award and an NAACP Image Award nominee.
Plot
Ejimafor "Ejii" Ugabe is a fourteen year-old Muslim Igbo girl. She lives in the Nigerian village of Kwàmfa. Her father was once the hated dictator-like chief. She lives in the year 2070. The whole world is falling apart after a nuclear fall out in , quote, “the early twenty-first century”.
Characters
- Ejimafor Ugabe - The 14 year-old daughter of the former Kwamfa Chief and One of the trusted advisors of the Sarauniya Jaa, the Red Queen.
- Sarauniya Jaa - The Red Queen. She is not an actual queen, but is treated like one. She witnessed the Great Changed while under the captivity of a tribe who claimed her to be their queen. She was fourteen at the time. When she speaks a red flower always accompanies her words.
- Chief Ugabe - A hypocritacal chief. He is said that he is of the fierce Woddabe tribe. When Jaa came to Kwamfa, the cheif came along as an apprentice. He came back 1 month later. He seated him self chief in, quote, “...the name of our nuturing queen, Sarauniya Jaa!”. He apparently used that as an excuse to carry out his evil deeds. One day, Jaa came to Kwamfa and confronted the man and accused him of using her name in vain and doing things that she would never agree to do. After, she sliced his head off and it rolled into a meat-eating plant which ate it. All in front of his oldest child, Ejii, and oldest Son, Fadio (Ejii's Half-Brother). He was eventually buried without his head.
- Gambo - He is a Co-Husband of Jaa. He used to be an Aejej. He was turned into one when he was a child. Jaa was being attacked by him and she started talking to him. A Red flower fell as he calmed down and he turned back into a human. He would still be an Aejej in our time because according to the novel, he was an aejej a short while before the twenty-first century. That would mean that the Aejej is not a product of the Great Change.
- Buji - From the Northern portion of the Ooni Kingdom on Ginen. He is Jaa's first husband. They met while watching the "burning bushes" (Carnivourous bushes that feed on bugs that are a cross between wasps and fireflies which gives them a yellow, orange glow). Buji's Family expects to be a traditional wife. Showing respect to her husband, etc. But Jaa Marrying Buji, and Buji marrying Jaa are different. In this case, Jaa married Buji.
- Mrs. Ugabe - She is the chief's first wife and the divorced advisor too Jaa following the chief's execution.
Notable Places
- Kwàmfa - The village which Ejii, the chief's family, and Mrs. Ugabe all live.
- Agadez - A Futuristic Muslim City. It has the tallest mosque in the world and the tallest and fanciest Hotel, the Yellow Lady.
- Ginen - Another world. Not Dominated by Humans, but by plants. Religion seems to be of little interest. A Mass majority of humans live in the Ooni Kingdom. The most of human life outside the kingdom is in a village here and there.
- The Burning Bushes - One of the few odd things in the book that have a scientific reason. EVery 25 years wasps that ligth up migrate to the fields and get eaten by these Carnivorous plants who get their glow.