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Tracing Ja Ja
Based on the life of accomplished merchant prince King Ja Ja of Opobo, Anthony Kellman has created a richly imaginative and warmly human work of historical fiction. Weaving between the official records and the satirical and cynical traditions of the “tuk” song, Tracing Ja Ja traces the emerging love between an ailing African king in exile and his Barbadian servant Becka. When Jubo Jubogba began life as a trader’s slave, paddling the great house’s canoes, no one could’ve predicted his meteoric ascent to become Ja Ja of Opobo, a sage merchant king of the Niger’s rich river delta. Kellman’s psychological insight crosses ages and cultures, with a poet’s perception of the beauties of his island’s flora and fauna.
164 pages, Paperback
Published July 1, 2016
22 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Kellman
10 books3 followersANTHONY KELLMAN is a writer and musician, and Emeritus Professor of English & Creative Writing at Augusta University. He is the author of five books of poetry, Watercourse, The Long Gap, Wings of a Stranger, Limestone (the first published epic poem from the island of Barbados), and South Eastern Stages. He is also the author of two novels, The Coral Rooms and The Houses of Alphonso; and four CDs of original music two of which are companions to his books Wings of a Stranger and Limestone. He's a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts poetry fellowship (USA) and The Prime Minister's award (Barbados). His poems, stories, and essays have appeared in literary periodicals in the USA, the Caribbean, Canada, England, Wales, India, Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil. He is also the editor of the first full-length U.S anthology of English-language Caribbean poetry Crossing Water: Contemporary Poetry of the English-Speaking Caribbean (1992) and is the originator of the Barbados poetic form Tuk Verse.
As a musician, he played and sung pop and West Indian folk songs on England's folk-club circuit in his late teens before returning to Barbados to resume academic studies. Anthony has released four CDs of original music (in the Island-folk/World/singer-songwriter genres) which feature an eclectic mix of Caribbean, African, and European folk influences. His lyrics reflect themes found in his novels and poetry such as the celebration of geographical as well as emotional landscapes; the importance of justice as a precursor to peace in the world; and the creole dimensions of Barbadian culture and identity which reflect both African and European elements. His music is also available from amazon.com and at
As a musician, he played and sung pop and West Indian folk songs on England's folk-club circuit in his late teens before returning to Barbados to resume academic studies. Anthony has released four CDs of original music (in the Island-folk/World/singer-songwriter genres) which feature an eclectic mix of Caribbean, African, and European folk influences. His lyrics reflect themes found in his novels and poetry such as the celebration of geographical as well as emotional landscapes; the importance of justice as a precursor to peace in the world; and the creole dimensions of Barbadian culture and identity which reflect both African and European elements. His music is also available from amazon.com and at
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June 28, 2024
King Jaja won’ leh Becka ’lone
King Jaja won’ leh Becka ’lone
Wha’ Becka got, um is all she own.
She feared there were few people who had any desire to hear Jaja’s story, that most were satisfied to reduce this great man’s life to a humorous folk song.
Tracing Ja Ja by Anthony Kellman won the 2018 Casa de la Américas Literary Award in the Category of Anglophone Caribbean Literature. The prize nomination read:
It has been published by the small independent Peepal Tree Press, whose mission statement reads:
The novel is based on the last four months in the real life story of Jubo Jubogha, also called Jaja by the British, King of Opobo in the Niger delta where he was first an ally of the British, providing military assistance in the Ashanti war, but later a hindrance to their commercial plans, acting as a inconvenient middleman between their traders and the palm-oil suppliers in the hinterlands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaja_of...
Aged 67, he was tricked into boarding a British ship, on the pretext of negotiations, and instead taken to Accra and, now on British sovereign territory, subjected to a show-trial for breaching British established trading rules, and sentenced to a large fine and five years in exile from his people.
As the novel opens in March 1891, at the end of the third year of his exile, he is suffering from chronic bronchitis and the British authorities have moved him from St Vincent to Barbados, the drier climate deemed more suitable for his health.
Slavery in Barbados has been abolished but the British still rule the island politically and dominate economically. Jaja’s arrival and status as a King is met with a polite but initially rather condescending reception from the colonial authorities, although over time his calm demeanor earns him respect and even friendship from some of the senior officials.
He is granted a house and his own servants and carriage, although given his Kingdom is charged for the resulting expenses, this is more a commercial decision than entirely respectful, and while nominally under house arrest, allowed to roam the island relatively freely.
In spite of his circumstances, the Crown has determined he has certain social rights accorded to his station as a king, and he is invited to witness various ceremonies such as a cricket game, a military parade for the visiting Prince of Wales, grandson of Queen Victoria, and to visit various places such as the island’s Parliament:
The buildings both impressed and depressed Jaja. They radiated British power, the country he’d once loved but now despised.
The ostentatious display of economic and political power also brings back painful memories of the culturally very different but also impressive, ceremonies and royal buildings in his own kingdom, Kellman’s prose (he is a poet and musician as well as a novelist) bringing both British Barbados and African Opobo to vivid life.
He aches for Opobo, to be attending his own festivals, his own rituals and ceremonies - like the New Yam festival, when, each August, the first of the newly-harvested yams would be offered to the gods and the ancestors, and then distributed to the people, and he, the amanyanabo, would eat the first yam as mediator between the ancestors and the people, between the Atlantic’s salt and the rivers’ fresh water, between gods and men.
The economically suffering Black Barbadians are intrigued by his presence amongst them, his arrival met by a large crowd:
They were filled with questions, bright with pride and an inchoate sense that they were witnessing something about their origins, somewhat tarnished but lambent like the morning light flickering on the glazed wharf water.
Such feelings are also awakened in his house servant, the 18 year-old Becka, who determines to help restore Jaja’s health and spirits, happily and at her initiaitve also taking to his bed. (Kellman takes her name from the satirical Barbadian folk song, recalling the rumours of the time, that provides the opening quote to my review). And Jaja indeed finds himself revived both by her affections and her locally sourced cuisine (again wonderfully described) but also by the natural beauty of the island, which reminds him of his own country, and which Kellman portrays in beautiful prose:
The carriage moved out past flamboyants budding red, rows of variegated immortelles, hibiscus courted by yellow butterflies, and sisal lances exclaiming like Jaja’s thoughts.
...
The porch looked out onto an enormous yard with a large mahogany tree in the centre, its base encircled with red bricks and ferns, with a wooden bench in the shade of its canopy. Ripe coconuts dangled like full udders from the several palms that ringed the yard. Banana trees glistened in the sun; royal palm fronds swayed; a pink cassia thrust out its long spikes of bloom; two flamboyants raged in red; and pink and white frangipanis flowed with their round-petalled stars. Trees like these also grew in Opobo, and this recognition quickened the king.
...
The mild breezes dancing over them transported him back to Opobo, and the masquerade colours of the garden ignited his spirits just as the music of the birds inspired his hopes. But it was Becka who had touched his mind and body in the most marvellous way.
Kellman makes judicious use of direct quotes from the British ran local presses of the time, both to provide him a source for Jaja’s activity in his 2 and a half months in Barbados but also to contrast Kellman’s account of a dignified King, greeting the Prince of Wales as an equal, to the prejudiced and sneering accounts of the press, seeing a savage rather than a monarch (a penchant for imperial pettiness, Jaja concludes). A contemporary report of a visit to a local school in the Barbados Globe notes: The poor king selected a number of girls and demanded that the headmistress send them to his residence so that they could become his wives.. An account of him dining with the Governor has him demanding and devouring vast quantities of food, whereas in Kellman’s account he simply politely requests a second helping as a complement to the cooks.
The novel’s plot is a little secondary but revolves around Jaja’s plan to escape Barbados and return to his kingdom, aided and abetted by a local Scot, descendent of those exiled to Barbados by Cromwell in the 17th Century (known as ‘red legs’ as they came with nothing but the kilts they wore and used to a very different climate and consequently burnt while working in the fields) and so himself no friend of the English Empire.
Eventually as his health once again deteriorates, the British themselves decide to send the ailing king home but he dies en route to Nigeria.
In the official historical accounts, Jaja was to die of a dysentery outbreak when his boat made an unscheduled stop at Tenerife to pick up the new British consul to Nigeria, and then forced to remain there as the island was quarantined. But Kellman’s research confirms stories that this was a false cover story and it is likely that he was ‘effectively murdered or at least allowed to die by the British Government’ before he could return to his kingdom, since historical records in Tenerife show no such outbreak.
The New York Times death notice of the King:
https://web.archive.org/web/201107140...
Overall a carefully researched and beautifully drawn historical novel, painting a vivid picture of the naturally beauty and historical state of Barbados, with an indirect but equally compelling view of the Opodo Kingdom, providing a gentle and nuanced portrayal of a love affair between an elderly King and a young maid, and, gently but forensically, indicting colonial injustices
King Jaja won’ leh Becka ’lone
Wha’ Becka got, um is all she own.
She feared there were few people who had any desire to hear Jaja’s story, that most were satisfied to reduce this great man’s life to a humorous folk song.
Tracing Ja Ja by Anthony Kellman won the 2018 Casa de la Américas Literary Award in the Category of Anglophone Caribbean Literature. The prize nomination read:
It is a passionate work of historical fiction drawing on actual events, to uncover one of the many atrocities of British colonial history. The novel engages the reader on both the emotional and cerebral level. We admired, and were moved by, Kellman’s portrayal of Jubo Jubogha, the African King, his resilience and refusal to submit to the indignities imposed on him by his British colonial jailers.
Much of the strength of Kellman’s work lies in his lyrical evocation of place, especially the Caribbean landscape. His portrayal of the people of Barbados captures both their pride in their African past and the suffering they endured. Tracing JaJa is a remarkable novel about human endurance, our capacity to find beauty and love even in the darkest of circumstances.
It has been published by the small independent Peepal Tree Press, whose mission statement reads:
Peepal Tree aims to bring you the very best of international writing from the Caribbean, its diasporas and the UK. Our goal is always to publish books that make a difference, and though we always want to achieve the best possible sales, we're most concerned with whether a book will still be alive in the future.
The novel is based on the last four months in the real life story of Jubo Jubogha, also called Jaja by the British, King of Opobo in the Niger delta where he was first an ally of the British, providing military assistance in the Ashanti war, but later a hindrance to their commercial plans, acting as a inconvenient middleman between their traders and the palm-oil suppliers in the hinterlands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaja_of...
Aged 67, he was tricked into boarding a British ship, on the pretext of negotiations, and instead taken to Accra and, now on British sovereign territory, subjected to a show-trial for breaching British established trading rules, and sentenced to a large fine and five years in exile from his people.
As the novel opens in March 1891, at the end of the third year of his exile, he is suffering from chronic bronchitis and the British authorities have moved him from St Vincent to Barbados, the drier climate deemed more suitable for his health.
Slavery in Barbados has been abolished but the British still rule the island politically and dominate economically. Jaja’s arrival and status as a King is met with a polite but initially rather condescending reception from the colonial authorities, although over time his calm demeanor earns him respect and even friendship from some of the senior officials.
He is granted a house and his own servants and carriage, although given his Kingdom is charged for the resulting expenses, this is more a commercial decision than entirely respectful, and while nominally under house arrest, allowed to roam the island relatively freely.
In spite of his circumstances, the Crown has determined he has certain social rights accorded to his station as a king, and he is invited to witness various ceremonies such as a cricket game, a military parade for the visiting Prince of Wales, grandson of Queen Victoria, and to visit various places such as the island’s Parliament:
The buildings both impressed and depressed Jaja. They radiated British power, the country he’d once loved but now despised.
The ostentatious display of economic and political power also brings back painful memories of the culturally very different but also impressive, ceremonies and royal buildings in his own kingdom, Kellman’s prose (he is a poet and musician as well as a novelist) bringing both British Barbados and African Opobo to vivid life.
He aches for Opobo, to be attending his own festivals, his own rituals and ceremonies - like the New Yam festival, when, each August, the first of the newly-harvested yams would be offered to the gods and the ancestors, and then distributed to the people, and he, the amanyanabo, would eat the first yam as mediator between the ancestors and the people, between the Atlantic’s salt and the rivers’ fresh water, between gods and men.
The economically suffering Black Barbadians are intrigued by his presence amongst them, his arrival met by a large crowd:
They were filled with questions, bright with pride and an inchoate sense that they were witnessing something about their origins, somewhat tarnished but lambent like the morning light flickering on the glazed wharf water.
Such feelings are also awakened in his house servant, the 18 year-old Becka, who determines to help restore Jaja’s health and spirits, happily and at her initiaitve also taking to his bed. (Kellman takes her name from the satirical Barbadian folk song, recalling the rumours of the time, that provides the opening quote to my review). And Jaja indeed finds himself revived both by her affections and her locally sourced cuisine (again wonderfully described) but also by the natural beauty of the island, which reminds him of his own country, and which Kellman portrays in beautiful prose:
The carriage moved out past flamboyants budding red, rows of variegated immortelles, hibiscus courted by yellow butterflies, and sisal lances exclaiming like Jaja’s thoughts.
...
The porch looked out onto an enormous yard with a large mahogany tree in the centre, its base encircled with red bricks and ferns, with a wooden bench in the shade of its canopy. Ripe coconuts dangled like full udders from the several palms that ringed the yard. Banana trees glistened in the sun; royal palm fronds swayed; a pink cassia thrust out its long spikes of bloom; two flamboyants raged in red; and pink and white frangipanis flowed with their round-petalled stars. Trees like these also grew in Opobo, and this recognition quickened the king.
...
The mild breezes dancing over them transported him back to Opobo, and the masquerade colours of the garden ignited his spirits just as the music of the birds inspired his hopes. But it was Becka who had touched his mind and body in the most marvellous way.
Kellman makes judicious use of direct quotes from the British ran local presses of the time, both to provide him a source for Jaja’s activity in his 2 and a half months in Barbados but also to contrast Kellman’s account of a dignified King, greeting the Prince of Wales as an equal, to the prejudiced and sneering accounts of the press, seeing a savage rather than a monarch (a penchant for imperial pettiness, Jaja concludes). A contemporary report of a visit to a local school in the Barbados Globe notes: The poor king selected a number of girls and demanded that the headmistress send them to his residence so that they could become his wives.. An account of him dining with the Governor has him demanding and devouring vast quantities of food, whereas in Kellman’s account he simply politely requests a second helping as a complement to the cooks.
The novel’s plot is a little secondary but revolves around Jaja’s plan to escape Barbados and return to his kingdom, aided and abetted by a local Scot, descendent of those exiled to Barbados by Cromwell in the 17th Century (known as ‘red legs’ as they came with nothing but the kilts they wore and used to a very different climate and consequently burnt while working in the fields) and so himself no friend of the English Empire.
Eventually as his health once again deteriorates, the British themselves decide to send the ailing king home but he dies en route to Nigeria.
In the official historical accounts, Jaja was to die of a dysentery outbreak when his boat made an unscheduled stop at Tenerife to pick up the new British consul to Nigeria, and then forced to remain there as the island was quarantined. But Kellman’s research confirms stories that this was a false cover story and it is likely that he was ‘effectively murdered or at least allowed to die by the British Government’ before he could return to his kingdom, since historical records in Tenerife show no such outbreak.
The New York Times death notice of the King:
https://web.archive.org/web/201107140...
Overall a carefully researched and beautifully drawn historical novel, painting a vivid picture of the naturally beauty and historical state of Barbados, with an indirect but equally compelling view of the Opodo Kingdom, providing a gentle and nuanced portrayal of a love affair between an elderly King and a young maid, and, gently but forensically, indicting colonial injustices
December 13, 2022
Was pretty good- I love how our fictional stories are really Factional ones- as this was based on the life of a real person and real events. I love how the author gave this forgotten king the humanity he deserved.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews