The Famished Road

The altercation between the “warlords” likely references the Nigerian Civil War, which raged for nearly three years in the late 1960s. As the author renders them in his allegorical take, the internecine battles are transposable and essentially pointless. Speaking of the warlords, he writes, “[T]hey all looked alike. They were the interchangeable faces of violence and politics” (192). Two pages later, the futility of hyper-partisan politics—their policies more alike and more unattainable than different—is again highlighted: “The three men [...] went up the street, arms held high, chanting the songs of their ascendency, the songs of the Party of the Poor, or was it of the Rich. No one could be certain” (194). To the impoverished people of the compound, the game of politics is almost wholly meaningless—“no one thought of them as heroes” (194)—compared to everyday concerns.

For example, Azaro and his family are constantly concerned with paying the rent—which, it must be noted, the landlord raises because Dad disagreed with the landlord’s political stance. Once again, politics interferes with what matters on a human scale, and Azaro describes Dad as “a man undergoing a terrible martyrdom” (199). Dad is sacrificing himself for the sake of his family and the sake of his principles. Azaro and Mum do not know where Dad gets the money to pay the rent, though they suspect his actions are illegal or, worse, immoral. When he returns home with the rent, Dad “applied great quantities of the perfume to himself and thoroughly stank out the room with its crude ingredients” (201). He is covering his tainted scent, corrupted by whatever actions he had to perform (it is hinted that it is murder) to procure the rent—a moral stench that cannot be disguised by cheap perfume.

It seems that politics, however insignificant to everyday concerns, infiltrates every aspect of the characters’ lives. Because politics here are a matter of life and death, Dad cannot help but get himself embroiled in dangerous conversations about political concerns. In Madame Koto’s bar, Dad and the carpenter argue about politics while she keeps barking, “NO POLITICS!” (212). Dad finally admits “politics is bad for friendship,” but also, “friendship is bad for politics” (212). It is telling that the author never fully identifies any specific or actual political party, nor does he delineate the different party’s positions or policies. “Politics” is truly a symbolic term rather than a description of something specific and concrete. It is also ironic that, during this scene, Dad asks Azaro what he learned at school that day: “About Mungo Park and the British Empire” (212), he replies. The legacy of the British Empire’s colonization of Nigeria is to leave behind poverty, divisive politics, and an educational system that still privileges the West. These facts are, indeed, political.

The author also addresses spirituality as an antidote to politics in this section. When the family’s door is marked—“crudely hacked with machetes” (227)—Azaro’s immediate reaction is intense fear and sadness, understandably so. However, in the throes of that “darkness,” he finds something positive to grasp: “But deep inside that darkness a counterwave, a rebellion of joy, stirred. It was a peaceful wave, breaking on the shores of my spirit” (229). Azaro “saw this light,” and it was “the brightest, most beautiful thing in the world” (229). Importantly, this light did not “blind;” it was a “mystery” (229). This language echoes the language of Christian conversion, though the author never mentions a particular religion. Azaro has been metaphorically enlightened—another step on his pilgrimage.

Alongside politics, poverty is the other defining feature of Azaro’s and his family’s life. It drives Dad to despair and Mum to hawk her wares, fully aware that her efforts are an exercise in futility. After learning that the landlord had raised their rent, Dad bemoans how “they”—the faceless powers that be—“make you commit murder” or “become an armed robber” (237). How can one be a moral and ethical man in the face of such poverty, of such pressure, without opportunity? Mum herself becomes “merely a detail in the poverty of our area” as she wearily walks to the market (238). This depth of poverty is all-encompassing and all-consuming. Madame Koto’s newfound wealth stands in stark contrast, though she, too, knows its grip: “She counted her money over and over again as if she had just woken from the nightmare of poverty” (249). When Dad tries to drink in her bar as the politicians from the Party of the Rich convene to have a meeting, he is thwarted: “Because you people have money you think you can prevent a poor man from drinking, eh?” (255), he asks them. Their reply is, “Yes, we can” (255). Money buys you access, dignity, and power.

Finally, there is the odd and disturbing scene at the end of Book 3 between the Photographer and Azaro. He shows Azaro a picture “of a man hanging by his neck from a tree” (263). At first, the Photographer implies the picture is “from another planet” (263); but later, he says it was from “[a]nother continent” (263). Clearly a reference to a lynching in America, the picture implicates “white people” (264) from all continents in the collusion that is racism. The author reveals the interconnectedness throughout the African diaspora, where Azaro can live in fear of politics and poverty in Nigeria while a Black man who plays “piano music” (264) in America can lose his life. These are the terrible fruits of slavery and colonialism, bolstered by the racist narrative that continues to sustain them.