The Fate of the Banished - Julius Ocwinyo

A juggernaut of our local literary scene has registered a worthy script with ‘Fate of the Banished’.

It comes as little surprise that this book is required reading for literature students at the Advanced Level of secondary education. Ocwinyo explores the ravages of war through unpacking the circumstances of a few directly involved principals as a microcosm representing the wider malaise of rebellion.

A disillusioned protagonist, Apire is hamstrung by a myriad of factors preventing his success in public life many of which originate from the trauma visited on him through the killing of his father and the abuse of his mother and sister.

Having read the book a glorious fourth time, this novel has a viable claim on being one of the classics of African literature

The culmination of his bad luck is his joining an armed rebellion leaving his young family behind still fragile and bleak. This portends a domestic “crisis” starring his wife that persists during his long absences from home.

His return from the war is not as he imagined or hoped it would be. This lack of reprieve even after escaping the dangers of war carries with it a tragic potential for explosive backlash that acts as the climactic ending to the story.

Ocwinyo’s style of delivery has the raw punch line quality of village dialogue with powerful descriptiveness aided by the writer’s commendable cache of brilliant vocabulary. Ocwinyo manages to use words like “insouciance” and “nebulous” with charismatic ease yet does not intimidate the reader’s intellect.

4.8/5