AND AFTER MANY DAYS by Jowhor Ile is about the missing son in the family

of the Utus. Paul, a seventeen year old son of Benedict and Ma goes missing all of a sudden after
leaving the house for a friend’s one Monday afternoon, throwing his parents and siblings (Bibi and
Ajie) into total confusion. It also evolves round the economical state of the nation as at that time.
The oil sector is being referred to as “Company” in the text.

The novel made use of a Third Person or Omniscient narration scheme which the
narrator is an outsider as he is not a character in the story being narrated. However the narrator
possesses the ability to know everything that happens in the story. He passes comments on the
character for the benefit of the reader and it also gives room for the author’s interference. The
narrative used, however, was a very reliable source of information.

The time setting of AND AFTER MANY DAYS is between 1974 and 1995,
while the physical setting is in Ogibah Village in Port Harcourt, Rivers state, the South-South
region of Nigeria in Africa. Social setting is efficiently included i.e. the cultural ethics like the
traditional names, places, rights, values and religious practices. The plot is influenced by the
settings of the text i.e. the description of the houses in Ogibah depicted the time and physical
setting.

There are certain themes in this book, but the overall theme of the book is “The
Inseparability of Social Conditions and Individual Actions” (The connectivity between social
conditions and individual actions). In AND AFTER MANY DAYS, there are lots of explicit
information on the social conditions in the Nigeria and Port Harcourt of the 1970s-1990s through
characters’ speeches and authorial comments. Of the actions in the story, few are carried out by
groups while most are individual actions. Although, these individuals’ actions often reflect shared
experiences of member groups, the individual is responsible for his or her actions. There are
however, clear links between the social condition in which some of the characters find themselves
and the actions they take i.e. the inseparability of social conditions and individual actions. In no
other character is this more evident than that of the novel’s protagonist. Paul is the best and oldest
of Benedict’s three kids, he grows up to learn basic morals of life and he lives to experience certain
life tips which have a great effect in his behaviour and actions. In short, one of the major thematic
preoccupations of the novel is the view that individual actions are a function of the social conditions
in which the individual finds himself or herself.

AND AFTER MANY DAYS is a prose text under the fictive category as a novel. It
contains 25 chapters and 287pages altogether.

Jowhor Ile was born in 1980 and grew up in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, where he
lives currently. His fiction has appeared in Mc Sweeney’s Quarterly and Litro Magazine.

The first part of the book introduces the reader to what it is like to be in search
of a missing child. The reader experiences how painful the Utus find it in wonder of their son’s
disappearance. As the story goes on, it is clear that something terrible must have happened to Paul
and the Utus need to carry out certain investigations to figure it out. The end of the book focuses on
Bibi’s preparations, Ma’s success and how Paul was found in a most shocking state.

I really enjoyed reading the book; it is very educative, informative and very
entertaining. I would definitely read more books by the author and I expect more from him as well.
His novel has a great insight and it has reached out to its readers all over the world with the
informative scheme used.

This book is highly recommended for book lovers all over the world, because it is
very educative and quite informative, I will advice people the world over to purchase this book and
not just purchase it but read it and enjoy as well. I give thumbs up, kudos and a five star rating to
Jowhor Ile’s AND AFTER MANY DAYS.

Adefuye Jesudamiloju Esther.