The book that explores the effect of disloyalty

Title: The ConcubineAuthor: Elechi AmadiReviewer: Moses MubeziThe Concubine is one of Africa’s typical stories with an African setting without reference to colonialism like many African novels. Elechi Amadi was born on May 12,1934 in Aluu in Eastern Nigeria. The Concubine was published in 1966. The book explores the effect of disloyalty to the natural norms of culture of the Ibo. It is engaging and calls for our sympathy to the sufferers of the condemned love and those who default the norms of their culture.Ihuoma is beautiful, open, frank and gentle. She could even greet her supposed enemies and won the admiration of the entire community. Her beauty was both body and skin deep. Though young she became a widow. May be her other problem was being a widow that young made her susceptible to her to new suitors. It was too bad that such a young girl should languish in protracted widowhood.“Death is a bad reaper; often plucking the unripe fruit.”Death is a mystery both to the young and the old because we are equally fated. In her persuasion of her daughter to consider having a man to look after her, Ihuoma’s mother, Okachi, seems to ponder on the belief that only the dead can be idle. She says her daughter would just ruin her health fretting over her dead husband.Ihuoma’s interaction with Ekwueme leads to a bond that is complicated and not easy to break. She becomes the devil in Ekwueme making him restless for the rest of his entire life. Her beauty is not only bewitching to young men of her age but to even old men. Though she had already three children, she was still young and beautiful to be resisted by any man. Apparently Ihuoma is attached to the supernatural world which ought to be feared by any man in love with an exceedingly beautiful woman. The most difficult thing to be done by such men as Madume and Ekwueme is to give up their love for the devil in them.Many readers may be sorry for the various deaths caused by Ihuoma but at the same time be glad that Madume paid a price for his character which may serve as retribution intended by Amadi to reduce the pain we share with Ekwueme for the greater part of the story.‘Concubine’ is a rather second rate word not to be appealing in both meaning and societal position. It is the concubine in The Concubine that astounds all and wins the admiration of everybody. Many may wish justification for Ekwueme having the concubine and would even dare loving such a concubine; others will keep away from the forbidden beautiful women.The reviewer is an educationist and publisher-