User:Goody Black

UWEM AKPAN AND EKONG UDOUSORO AS A NARRATIVE.

Uwem Akpan uses his personal narrative in the novel new york my village. According to him in an interview with NPRʼs Michel Martin, he said he was born a year after the biafra war; 1971. “The soundtrack of my childhood was the stories of the biafra war”.

The humiliation Ekong the main character in the novel new york my village is rooted in the authors personal experience. Uwem transform his personal narrative into a literary work using Ekong. Uwem explain in an interview how he was stranded at the embassy just because he was asked to write a short story. To him, it's not necessary. These are some of the things he put together aesthetically in the novel new york my village. Uwem put his personal experience into fiction, to him, it's a total terror to go to the embassy. Ekong also passed through the same terror.

Based on the fact that Uwem have lived in the U.S for a while, he is able to create those experiences in new york my village. The Bedbugs palaver, the american publishing press, catholism etc. Uwem is able to bring all this together effectively and aesthetically in the novel. It feels like ten books in one.

Uwem Akpan uses new york my village as a chance, opportunity to say “the Americans are like us in everything, especially violence. We are all human beings. We are capable of doing it”.

Personally, i do not see Ekong in this novel, rather, i see Uwem Akpan. Uwem Akpan uses Ekong to touch all the areas of his life experience from the church to the publishing press, to the bedbug, to the tribalism and racism.