The Famished Road

Felines of all sorts feature prominently in the novel: Whether it be housecats, feral cats, or big cats (lions, tigers, leopards, panthers, and so on), cats appear unexpectedly throughout the novel. They often appear as guides or harbingers of extraordinary events to come. A cat appears on the novel's first page in the form of royalty: “Our king was a wonderful personage who sometimes appeared in the form of a great cat” (3). The implication is that the king—as opposed to the corrupt politicians who will appear later—is connected to the natural world rather than the more questionable modern, material world; he is “king of the forest,” as it were.

Cats also gather around the blind old man, who pops up repeatedly throughout the book. Blindness in literature often signifies an ability to see or prophesize beyond mundane reality, and it often evokes the poetic and the epic. Homer, credited with writing down the foundational epics of Western literature, was blind. The blind old man “with a cat in his lap” (323) manages to witness—and sometimes disrupt—most of the novel’s major events. He possesses Azaro’s friend, Ade, at one point, predicting a chaotic and cryptic future through him: “Something is happening” (475) and “Trouble is coming” (477). He claims that he has “seen the future” and that “nothing is finished” (477). Tellingly, when he makes these prophecies, he speaks in “the voice of a cat” (475). Cats, like abiku, seem to have a second sight.

Dad’s assumption of the moniker of Black Tyger when he embarks upon his boxing career is also significant. For one, there are no tigers on the continent of Africa; thus, Dad’s choice of nom de guerre refers to his singularity, his distinctiveness —there are no others like him. In addition, his opponents adopt feline nicknames, too: Black Tyger first fights the Yellow Jaguar before besting the Green Leopard. As it turns out, the Yellow Jaguar is a spirit, the ghost of a man who had died three years previously. Dad, “mov[ing] like a large cat” (357), bests the supernatural foe in a symbolic fight for his soul: “With all the concentrated rage and insanity of those who have a single moment in which to choose between living and dying, Dad broke the chains of his exhaustion and thundered such blows on the man as would annihilate an entire race of giants” (357). His fight with the Green Leopard is no less symbolic. It is a fight about political philosophy and ethical commitment: Dad wants to “disgrace” (396) the views of the Party of the Rich, with their kleptocratic ways. His victory is hard won, and he pays a steep physical price, but it is indicative of the thread of hope that weaves its way through the novel.

Notably, none of the politicians in the novel bear specific names, and the political parties mentioned—the Party of the Rich and the Party of the Poor—are given broadly allegorical titles. The author is not interested in particular ideologies or recognizable, real-life political figures or parties; rather, he is engaged in a sweeping critique of the corrupting impacts of politics on ordinary lives. These impacts are not the result of badly organized parties or the unethical influence of a select few bad actors; in the author’s view, it is clear that politics are inherently immoral, distorting truths and thwarting dreams.

In the aftermath of the tainted milk incident, Azaro realizes how the landscape of his life has been altered forever “when politics made its first public appearance in our lives” (127). Within a couple of chapters, the Photographer is being hunted—“Kill the Photographer!” (179)—and Madame Koto’s bar is overrun with violent thugs, representatives of the Party of the Rich. They threaten Azaro, who runs and hides in the burnt van of the political operatives. There, he sees visions of the restless dead: “Their lips quivered with the defiance of the innocents, with the manipulations of politicians and their interchangeable dreams, and with the insanity of thugs who don’t even know for which parties they commit their atrocities” (180). There is no redemption for the politicians of whatever stripe, no practical solutions for the endemic poverty and hunger to be found in their equally empty platforms.

A few chapters later, Azaro notes the effect that the politicians’ presence has on Madame Koto and her bar: “I knew we were in the divide between past and future. A new cycle had begun, an old one was being brought to a pitch, prosperity and tragedy rang out from what I saw, and I knew that the bar would never be the same again” (220). The corrupting influence not only of political power but also of financial might—Madame Koto is entranced by “the smell of new money” (221)—alters the bar and demoralizes the marginalized (like Azaro’s family, who still live in poverty). Azaro also points out that the new patrons “did not look like thugs. In spite of the bandage and the animal expression in their eyes, they looked like modern businessmen, contractors, exporters, politicians” (220). The author manages to indict those general groups seeking to exploit the people and resources of the nation, conflating big business with political misconduct. By the novel’s end, Azaro realizes how damaging and wide-ranging the infection of politics has become:

In that [spiritual] realm the sorcerers of party politics unleashed thunder, rain flooded those below; counter-thunder, lightning and hail were returned. On and on it went, in every village, every city of the country, and all over the continent and the whole world too. Our dreams grew smaller as they waged their wars of political supremacy (495-96).

The only antidote, it seems, is Dad’s prescription to be open-minded, respectful, and tolerant of one another. As he urges, “We need a new language to talk to one another” (498). Clearly, the language of political polemics only sows dysfunction and discord.