Measuring Time
by Helon Habila
Mamo and LaMamo are twin brothers living in the small Nigerian village of Keti, where their domineering father controls their lives. With high hopes of finding adventure, the twins attempt to flee from home, but only LaMamo escapes successfully and is able to live their dream of becoming a soldier who meets beautiful women. Mamo, the awkward, sickly twin, is doomed to remain in the village with his father. Gradually, he comes out of his father’s shadow and gains local fame as a historian, embarking on the ambitious project of writing a ‘true’ history of his people. But when the rains fail and famine rages, religious zealots incite the people to violence — and LaMamo returns to fight the enemy at home.
A novel about ardent loyalty, encroaching modernity, political desire and personal liberation, Measuring Time is a heart-wrenching history of Nigeria, portrayed through the eyes of a single family.
‘Measuring Time confirms Habila as an exceptional voice in African literature… Colonial history, tribal myth, 20th-century politics, Plutarch and the poetry of Christopher Okigbo are tightly woven into precise and loving descriptions of landscape. The novel’s triumph is to allow hope to endure.’
The Observer
