Synopses & Reviews
In the oil-rich and environmentally devastated Nigerian Delta, the wife of a British oil executive has been kidnapped. Two journalists--a young upstart, Rufus, and a once-great, now disillusioned veteran, Zaq--are sent to find her. In a story rich with atmosphere and taut with suspense, Oil on Water explores the conflict between idealism and cynical disillusionment in a journey full of danger and unintended consequences.
As Rufus and Zaq navigate polluted rivers flanked by exploded and dormant oil wells, in search of "the white woman," they must contend with the brutality of both government soldiers and militants. Assailed by irresolvable versions of the "truth" about the woman's disappearance, dependent on the kindness of strangers of unknowable loyalties, their journalistic objectivity will prove unsustainable, but other values might yet salvage their human dignity.
Review
"Habila has a filmic ability to etch scenes on the imagination." The Independent
Review
"Starred Review. A cinematic adventure and a remarkably tense race against the clock set in a haunting world of mangroves, floating villages, and jungle shrines--but it is also a brooding political tragedy in the Graham Greene tradition, one that illustrates the environmental and human costs of resource extraction in corrupt, postcolonial Africa....his mournful vision of the world never eclipses its fragile beauty, or its humanity." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
As Rufus and Zaq navigate polluted rivers flanked by exploded and dormant oil wells, in search of the white woman, they must contend with the brutality of both government soldiers and militants. Assailed by irresolvable versions of the truth about the woman s disappearance, dependent on the kindness of strangers of unknowable loyalties, their journalistic objectivity will prove unsustainable, but other values might yet salvage their human dignity. "
Synopsis
"The new generation of twenty-first-century African writers have now come of age. Without a doubt Habila is one of the best."--Emmanuel Dongala
About the Author
Helon Habila is the internationally renowned author of Waiting for an Angel, which won both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Caine Prize for African Writing, and Measuring Time and Oil on Water. He was born in Nigeria and now divides his time between America and Nigeria.