Abstract
The second quarter of the twenty-first century, moving forward towards a viable African future repositioned on its traditional foundations, calls for a speculative approach in African literature discourse. It is time to forage into African cosmology in the quest for progress towards a desirable African future, as advanced technological knowledge impacts social media, literature, science, culture, the economy, politics, value systems, and more. Generally speaking, speculation fiction genre goes beyond realism to include aspects of science fiction (Sc-fi), the supernatural, imaginary, fantasy, futurism, and more. Rereading Arrow of God with a speculative lens Chinua Achebe’s this third canonical novel of The African Trilogy, Things Fall Apart, No Longer at Ease, and Arrow of God, on the Igbo world can unearth usable materials for continually rebuilding a robust and plausible Igbo future. Because authorial license allowed Achebe less than a rigid adherence to how he depicted people, places, and events, his literary imagination profited from this to challenge the boundaries of the human and divine, real and surreal, and possible and unknown universes. These are the domain of the speculation fiction genre. Arrow of God won the ever-given Jock Campbell Statesman Prize for African Writing! In 2022, Arrow of God was selected as one of 70 books on the “Big Jubilee Read List” to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth 11! A few questions come to mind in this forage into Arrow of God as speculation fiction. First, what was the power dynamics in the Umuaro community? Second, how did the people exert power in deciding their god Ulu’s actual wish for their community over above their Chief Priest Ezeulu’s dictates? Third, what were the traditional rituals and rites inherent in the Igbo natural and supernatural worlds in Arrow of God? There are only some of the many questions that this exercise in literary criticism shall seek to answer in reading Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God as Igbo speculative fiction.