Chukwuemeka Ike’s Detective Novels and the Crises of a Nation

Abstract

Unarguably, Chukwuemeka Ike is one of the prolific writers from Nigeria having more than ten prose titles to his credit. Although his works deal with relevant social issues of nationalism, war, youth and children, the attention given to his works have not complimented his prodigious influence on the Nigerian literary space. One of the turning points that marked a watershed in Chukwuemeka Ike’s writing career and, indeed, in the evolution the novel in Nigeria was his experimentation with the detective novel especially in Expo 77 (1980) and Our Children Are Coming!(1990). Whereas the first purely explores the style of the whodunit the second uses the tribunal as basis of inquiry into the social vices of a nation. This paper, using the reader’s response theory, examines the current relevance of the social issues raised by Chukwuemeka Ike’s in Expo 77 (1980) and Our Children Are Coming!(1990) and recognizes the novelist’s attempt at handling issues of collective guilt and amnesia. The writers scrutinize the author’s adoption of the whodunit style and the tribunal method which succeeds only to the point of exposing the vices. The conclusion of the paper acknowledges the novelist’s commitment to the present and posterity but queries a seemingly lack of practical engagement that should rescue the nation from the self-inflicted vices or crises mirrored.