Kalakuta Republic

by Chris Abani

"Abani’s poetry resonates with a devastating beauty which cuts to the heart of human strength, survival and tyranny."— Pride Magazine "Reading Abani’s poems is like being singed by a red hot iron."—Harold Pinter "Stunning poems … Abani conveys the experience in words shaped into art and made unforgettable by their quietness."— New Humanist "A beautiful work of art ... elevates art and humanity above meanness and inhumanity."— World Literature Today "A brave and challenging book ... I was moved as much by what the poems have achieved as by what they have rescued from that nightmare world. Reading, I found myself in tears."— Sunday Tribune   This powerful collection of poems details the harrowing experiences endured by Abani and other political prisoners at the hands of Nigeria’s military regime in the late 1980s. Abani vividly describes the characters that peopled this dark world, from prison inmates such as John James, tortured to death at the age of fourteen, to the general overseers. First published after his release from jail in 1991,  Kalakuta Republic  remains a paean to those who suffered and to the indomitable human spirit.   Chris Abani is a Nigerian poet and novelist. Publications include  The Virgin of Flames  (Penguin, 2007),  Song For Night  (Telegram, 2008) and Graceland  (FSG/Picador 2005). He is a professor at the University of California and the recipient of many prizes, including the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship and the PEN Hemingway Prize.

Genres: Poetry, Nigeria, African Literature, School, Biography

116 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2000

About the author

Christopher Abani (or Chris Abani) is a Nigerian author.

He was a political prisoner in Nigeria at various times during 1985 and 1991. At times he was held in solitary confinement and he was held on death row for some time after being sentenced to death for treason.

He is a Professor at the University of California, Riverside and the recipient of the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the 2001 Prince Claus Awards, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston-Wright Legacy Award and the Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award. Selections of his poetry appear in the online journal Blackbird.

Reviews

[Queer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifyingly close to be so far away, like the cat in the biscuit tin at the end. Read this because you have to bear witness. Read this because surviving is art. Read this because you are paler when you leave it.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for my Global & Transnational Literature class at the University of Utah.

What a wonderful read! Abani's story packs a powerful punch. His language is both beautifully gentle and necessarily violent. This poetry demands to be read and his story deserves to be known.

[Bookish · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chris Abani writes of the suffering and pain, witnessed and endured, during his time as a political prisoner in a Nigerian prison. He was arrested and held multiple times from 1985 when he was 18 years old, then again in 1987, to his last arrest when he was put on death row in 1991. Kalakuta Republic is a poetic lens into that hellhole, and its aftermath on the writer in London.

I have not read anything quite like it. Kwame Dawes, author of the collection's introduction, asks a good question - How do you marry craft to convey such a nightmarish reality? I don't have the answer. I kept that question at the back of my mind, intending to refer back to it as I worked my way through the poems but the intensity of the poems themselves meant I was immediately sucked in. Where did that leave me? Oddly enough I didn't feel like a voyeur. I'm glad for that, and I believe that in itself speaks to Abani's craftsmanship and his sensitivity with language. But how do I, as a reader, even through a poem, be a witness to that kind of suffering? And its aftermath on the human body and mind? London, oh frigid London, added its own grime to the story. All in all, strangely beautiful and hypnotic, Kalakuta Republic raises uncomfortable questions about humanity and society.

[Cassandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

amzing, stark, poetry from his time in prison. true evidence of the power of words.

[Kasey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is as brutal as it needs to be to represent brutality. Not easy, but then it ought not to be.

[Jeremy Allan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this alongside Nazim Hikmet's prison poetry, and they made for an incredible pairing. Important work.

[Antonio Di Muro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is it possible to make poetry on the most brutal forms of oppression and sadistic abuse on humiliated humans? Chris Abani shows it is pissible indeed, and provides, in his elegant verse, compelling portraits of his cellmates.
In living and telling the story, he honored the memory of those who died. John James, brutally killed at age 14, I hope you can hear the verses to your memory, and smile .

[Cooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four and a half stars

These are very powerful and moving poems. This is the poetry of wItness at its truthful best. It is terrible and essential reading about man's inhumanity to man.

[happens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really intense and dark.

[Davidcharlesbowmangmail.com · Rating 4 out of 5]

These poems make extremely uncomfortable reading: the violence verges on the pornographic. Dante's Inferno is less frightening, if only because Abani's experiences are presumably not imagined ones.

[Ching-In · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even more resonant & gut-wrenching the 2nd time around.

[Isla McKetta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly difficult imagery and powerful story, but I've read a lot of Abani's later work and I could see the struggle of newness in this early book.