Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva" />
  • ABOUT
  • PRINT
  • PRAISE
  • SUBSCRIBE
  • OPENINGS
  • SUBMISSIONS
  • CONTACT
The Missing Slate - For the discerning reader
  • HOME
  • Magazine
  • In This Issue
  • Literature
    • Billy Luck
      Billy Luck
    • To the Depths
      To the Depths
    • Dearly Departed
      Dearly Departed
    • Fiction
    • Poetry
  • Arts AND Culture
    • Tramontane
      Tramontane
    • Blade Runner 2049
      Blade Runner 2049
    • Loving Vincent
      Loving Vincent
    • The Critics
      • FILM
      • BOOKS
      • TELEVISION
    • SPOTLIGHT
    • SPECIAL FEATURES
  • ESSAYS
    • A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
      A SHEvolution is Coming in Saudi Arabia
    • Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
      Paxi: A New Business Empowering Women in Pakistan
    • Nature and Self
      Nature and Self
    • ARTICLES
    • COMMENTARY
    • Narrative Nonfiction
  • CONTESTS
    • Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2017 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2016 Nominations
    • Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
      Pushcart Prize 2015 Nominations
    • PUSHCART 2013
    • PUSHCART 2014
Alone in BabelJune 21, 2013

Caine Prize: The Whispering Trees, by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

Reviewed by Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva

When an author says that he wants to win the hearts of the readers, you know that his story will be different. The Whispering Trees not only won my heart but many others as well.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s story recounts Salim’s revelation of life’s bigger picture, which he comprehends only after a life-threatening car accident that claimed the life of his mother, Ummi, and also brought his permanent blindness. The story revolves around his turbulent relationship with his love, Faulata, and her patience during his recovery and his journeys into the after world. Here, he meets with friends who died long ago, and also re-enters the woods that hold the Whispering Trees, which is a place of childhood memories, reconciliation and spiritual healing.

“It’s strange how things are on the other side of death. I fear I am incapable of describing the experience to you because I do not know what words to use. One simply has to die to understand the enigma of death.”

Winning readers' hearts: Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

Winning readers’ hearts: Abubakar Adam Ibrahim

The opening paragraph takes us to an unfamiliar place, a place that becomes almost tangible. While the rest of us reside on this side of life, there is another more alluring side which words cannot describe. We are invited to be part of an experience which we see only from the main character’s perspective — in this case, Salim. The story is set on the premise that there is a lot to learn and, as every good story should, it offers its readers a new experience.

Salim is refreshingly normal. He is a human with fears, career aspirations, a foolish love of the opposite sex. This normalcy makes his journey more believable because we witness the makings of a finely rounded character. From the start of the story, after the car crash that takes Ummi’s life, Salim enters a trance with heavenly melodies that usher in the presence of Faulata. This interaction brings the revelation of his blindness, the way he admonishes those around him for his loss. The blindness separates him from his medical career and causes him to stumble over objects, making him the laughing stock of those around him — especially his sister’s friend, Surata. Faulata is driven to internal rage, which she carefully conceals with endless care over Salim. When she finally snaps, she beats up Surata for her meanness to Salim and even threatens to burn her house. Faulata, a symbol of our limitations, shows that even the most angelic of us have failings.

When university studies take up more of her time, she spends less with Salim and he is able to uncover a spiritual strength that, due to his overdependence on Faulata, he never knew he had. A brutal argument also makes her more distant even though she returns once in a while to help.

 Faulata, a symbol of our limitations, shows that even the most angelic of us have failings.
His encounter with the Whispering Trees, which were a childhood playground, is a turning point in the story. It was here that an incident led to the death of his friend Hamza. Hamza reappears to Salim’s conscience and invites him to be a part of this world where forgiveness is possible, eternal joy is complete and happiness is reachable. He is able to guide Salim to a deeper place in his soul so that he too can seek and do the things that account for something much bigger than immediate pleasures. For Salim’s spiritual eyes to be fully open however, Faulata must leave so that he depends on inner strength. When she gets engaged to another man, he is thrown into another fit of despair but the truth of the Whispering Trees enables him to pick himself up and embark on a new path in life. He attends Braille school and learns to manoeuvre himself using a cane. Furthermore, Salim gains insight into peoples’ hearts and the short-lived pleasures that ultimately make them sad.

This spiritual overflow and revelation lead Salim to an ultimate point in his life and his former troubles appear miniscule in comparison.

The Whispering Trees is a story for everyone. It occurs in a place that could be anywhere. Reviewing the story, it seems hardly necessary to turn to quotations from other sources for support: The Whispering Trees carries its own strength.

Beverley Nambozo Nsengiyunva is a Ugandan writer. She is the coordinator of the Babishai Niwe Poetry Foundation, which conducts annual poetry competitions for poets from the continent.

Tags

African fictionbook reviewsCaine Prize

Share on

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • Google +
  • LinkedIn
  • Email
Previous articleCaine Prize: Foreign Aid, by Pede Hollist
Next article‘This gnaws away at my heart’: Szilárd Borbély’s The Dispossessed

You may also like

Nobody Killed Her

Z213: Exit

Our Bodies & Other Fine Machines

Ad

In the Magazine

A Word from the Editor

Don’t cry like a girl. Be a (wo)man.

Why holding up the women in our lives can help build a nation, in place of tearing it down.

Literature

This House is an African House

"This house is an African house./ This your body is an African woman’s body..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

Shoots

"Sapling legs bend smoothly, power foot in place,/ her back, parallel to solid ground,/ makes her torso a table of support..." By Kadija Sesay.

Literature

A Dry Season Doctor in West Africa

"She presses her toes together. I will never marry, she says. Jamais dans cette vie! Where can I find a man like you?" By...

In the Issue

Property of a Sorceress

"She died under mango trees, under kola nut/ and avocado trees, her nose pressed to their roots,/ her hands buried in dead leaves, her...

Literature

What Took Us to War

"What took us to war has again begun,/ and what took us to war/ has opened its wide mouth/ again to confuse us." By...

Literature

Sometimes, I Close My Eyes

"sometimes, this is the way of the world,/ the simple, ordinary world, where things are/ sometimes too ordinary to matter. Sometimes,/ I close my...

Literature

Quarter to War

"The footfalls fading from the streets/ The trees departing from the avenues/ The sweat evaporating from the skin..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Literature

Transgendered

"Lagos is a chronicle of liquid geographies/ Swimming on every tongue..." By Jumoke Verissimo.

Fiction

Sketches of my Mother

"The mother of my memories was elegant. She would not step out of the house without her trademark red lipstick and perfect hair. She...

Fiction

The Way of Meat

"Every day—any day—any one of us could be picked out for any reason, and we would be... We’d part like hair, pushing into the...

Fiction

Between Two Worlds

"Ursula spotted the three black students immediately. Everyone did. They could not be missed because they kept to themselves and apart from the rest...."...

Essays

Talking Gender

"In fact it is often through the uninformed use of such words that language becomes a tool in perpetuating sexism and violence against women...

Essays

Unmasking Female Circumcision

"Though the origins of the practice are unknown, many medical historians believe that FGM dates back to at least 2,000 years." Gimel Samera looks...

Essays

Not Just A Phase

"...in the workplace, a person can practically be forced out of their job by discrimination, taking numerous days off for fear of their physical...

Essays

The Birth of Bigotry

"The psychology of prejudice demands that we are each our own moral police". Maria Amir on the roots of bigotry and intolerance.

Fiction

The Score

"The person on the floor was unmistakeably dead. It looked like a woman; she couldn’t be sure yet..." By Hawa Jande Golakai.

More Stories

Of Persimmons

“My beloved brought me a basket of Hachiya persimmons, orange-red and glowing…”
Poem of the Week (24 May), by Susan Nguyen.

Back to top
One last love letter...

April 24, 2021

It has taken us some time and patience to come to this decision. TMS would not have seen the success that it did without our readers and the tireless team that ran the magazine for the better part of eight years.

But… all good things must come to an end, especially when we look at the ever-expanding art and literary landscape in Pakistan, the country of the magazine’s birth.

We are amazed and proud of what the next generation of creators are working with, the themes they are featuring, and their inclusivity in the diversity of voices they are publishing. When TMS began, this was the world we envisioned…

Though the magazine has closed and our submissions shuttered, this website will remain open for the foreseeable future as an archive of the great work we published and the astounding collection of diverse voices we were privileged to feature.

If, however, someone is interested in picking up the baton, please email Maryam Piracha, the editor, at maryamp@themissingslate.com.

Farewell, fam! It’s been quite a ride.

Read previous post:
The Walled City

Story of the Week (June 21), by Faiqa Mansab

Close