Kalakuta Republic
Chris Abani
Introduction by Kwame Dawes
About the Book
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.
About the Author
Chris Abani is a Nigerian poet and novelist and winner of the 2005 PEN/Hemingway Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, as well as a PEN Freedom to Write Award, a Prince Claus Award, and a Lannan Literary Fellowship. He lives and teaches in California.
Reviews
‘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
