Drumbeats of the Gods
The sun rises up in the morning and went down in the evening. The birds sang melodiously in treetops and the insects whistled in their hidings in the darkness of the night. The old sat with their young and the young learned many ways of the clan – the many features of clan’s life. Then the young men who inherit their gender, born to be boys, become men with great pain and in these pain they learned many lessons. They survived many seasons and moons with courage, with bravery, but only one thing could make them lose all these achievements. As for Emenike he had gone against the rule of the clan and ozo title. He lied with his tongue, something considered bad for a titled man. He ended sadly. The world rolls on and on after these and changes down to our time appear as if we are ceasing to be what we were.
endorsement
A captivating story deeply rooted in indigenous African moral and humane ethic told by another emerging voice from Nigeria
—Prof. Chima J. Korieh, Marquette University.
about the author
Chima Ugokwe is a Nigerian writer. He is the author of the award-winning Igbo novel Iwe Nwanne Anaghi Eru n’ọkpụkpụ, which won the ANA/ZIK Prize for Indigenous Literature and The Silence Within which won the Wordinaction International Prize for Drama, England. He has published extensively in magazines and journals, gone on residencies and readings in and outside Nigeria and has received other numerous awards and accolades in writing including Princess Hastrup Prize for The Best Researched Work, Nigeria 50 Stars @ 50 Award for Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee Anniversary; Rotary Club India Award for Excellence in Writing; 2010 Commonwealth Club London Award For Young Writers Achievers For The Nigeria’s Golden Jubilee; Pendlewar Poetry Writing Competitions, England and INDIAFRICA Awards. A recipient of the 2011 Ebedi Writer’s Fellow and 2014 Commonwealth Youth Fellow, he lives and work in Nigeria.