Measuring Time
Helon Habila
(Author)
Description
Mamo and LaMamo are twin brothers living in the small Nigerian village of Keti, where their domineering father controls their lives. With high hopes 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 sickly, awkward 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, and, using Plutarch's Parallel Lives as his model, he embarks 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 of 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.
Product Details
Price
$25.95
Publisher
W. W. Norton & Company
Publish Date
February 01, 2007
Pages
384
Dimensions
5.5 X 8.2 X 1.0 inches | 0.75 pounds
Language
English
Type
Paperback
EAN/UPC
9780393052510
BISAC Categories:
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Become an affiliateAbout the Author
Helon Habila grew up in Nigeria and is the author of three novels, Oil on Water, Measuring Time, and Waiting for an Angel. His fiction, poems, and short stories have won the Commonwealth Prize for Best First Novel (Africa Section), the Virginia Library Foundation's Fiction Award, and the Windham-Campbell Prize. Oil on Water was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, the Orion Book Award, and the PEN/Open Book Award. He is an associate professor of creative writing at George Mason University.