A book review on Oyin Olugbile's Sànyà - Parallels of Othello & Genesis

I normally do not write book reviews because I would have already converted most of the books I read into semi-textbooks by the time I am done reading them. This book by Oyin Olugbile , published by Masobe Books , is however different because it is the first fantasy book I have finished (that I can remember of). Not just that, it is also the first book that makes me compare an author to Chinua Achebe when it comes to the amount of African proverbs in the book!

When I started reading Sanya, I had no idea what to expect. It started with a story of Esu and Eledumare, which intrigued me because I know they are very important to Yoruba culture. In the note from the author, Oyin Olugbile says she wanted to “begin conversations around certain historical legends and events.” What was particularly interesting to me was that this work was birthed from academic research. Oyin researched to the point whereby things were not making sense and so the only way to make it make sense was to try and write a story about it!

Whilst reading Sanya, two things always came to my mind; “There is a hidden pattern in this book” & “This reminds me of Othello”.

“There is a hidden pattern in this book”

This review contains massive spoilers so just stop here if you have not read it and come back after you read it. Somehow, I hope it serves as some sort of commentary to this insightful story. First of all, I must admit I was never a fan of fantasy. It was that brand of fiction that I thought had no grounding in reality and should thus be ignored since it added nothing intellectually. Uff, how I was wrong. My first encounter with fantasy was with Tomi Adeyemi’s ‘Children of Blood and Bone’, but even that book could not hold me till the end (because of Sanya I am going back to Tomi Adeyemi from scratch; sorry for doubting you Tomi!)

Sanya is a story about divinity, gods and the supernatural. To understand stories about the divine and supernatural, I have learnt that it is interesting to view it from one’s own knowledge of what such things mean. I was able to complete the Bible sometime last year or the year before and I realised how it is nearly just filled with stories. More than that, I learnt how to look at the stories inside the Bible through a particular method referred to as ‘Chiastic structure’. Simply, Chiastic structure is just how to find the middle point of a story with a pattern. It is a literary technique that identifies the centre of a puzzle in narrative plots. Using the Chiastic structure for Sanya was mind blowing. You might ask why I would use something used to understand the Bible for Sanya. Well, why not? Sanya might as well have been a sample of what people in the past could have used for all I know. It might have had the same essence of “scripture” as the Bible has to billions of people, to the ancient Yorubas. To an extent, using the Chiastic structure might have been a stretch but I felt inspired to continue the journey. I am glad that I did. I found the Chiasm by finding the beginning, middle and end of the story from the total number of pages, respectively.

Using the Chiastic structure, we can see that the beginning of Sanya can be viewed in two ways. The first way it can be viewed includes the beginning of a story about gods. The second way it can be viewed includes a story about how Ajoke, Aganju & Dada woke up from darkness. In both cases, the beginning of Sanya parallels the beginning of the christian literature. Using the first viewpoint, a story about gods, the Bible starts with a consort of divine beings referred to as “us” (”let us create…”) In Sanya, these consort are made up of Eledumare (the supreme being), the Orisas (the loyal servants of Eledumare), and Esu (the bad guy who rebelled against Eledumare because he wanted to be on earth much longer). From the second view of the beginning of Sanya, Ajoke and her family begin in darkness. Likewise, the Bible started from light being formed from darkness. The fact that Sanya was born only after the setting of the darkness had passed makes Sanya a sort of light which serves as a seed from the darkness.

Other parallels include the family orientation of Aganju. Whereas Aganju rejected his royal lineage because of the family in front of him, Adam was rejected from the royal family of the Biblical God because he chose the family in front of him. Like Adam, at his early period, he had two children who represented two kinds of orders. Just as how Cain murdered Abel because of jealousy (”would you not be accepted if you did well? […] Sin is lurking at your door”) Dada also became bitter towards Sanya and felt rejected by the gods; whilst Sanya (as Abel) was accepted. It seems as if both Cain and Dada are pictures of the negative, whilst Sanya and Abel are pictures of the positive. In the same vein, Aganju chose to till his farm for his livelihood while Adam was cursed to till the land to survive. For both fathers’ children, it seemed like the mothers had a bigger say in the turn out of their destinies. Eve’s eating of the fruit led to the “fall”, whereas Ajoke’s disobedience of marrying a person from the lineage of Esu, Aganju, led her to have a sickly boy and a daughter that was born to fight.

At the middle of Sanya (page 383 divided by 2) is the return of Osoosi. Finding the Chiastic structure in the Bible is normally done according to the individual stories themselves but if we take the chiasm within the chiasm, the middle of Genesis is broadly centered on the story about the protection the God of Abraham gave to him and his wife against King Abimelech. Largely, it is a story about protection of the one who has been “chosen”. In Sanya, the return of Osoosi was a reinforcement of her own protection, though it came with its own implications. It is the ending of Sanya that is however very interesting in its parallels with the Bible. Whereas Dada was the one who got the “land”, or kingdom, Sanya was the person put on “exile”, even though she did return to her “land” because Oya carried her there. At the end of Genesis, the land was given to Joseph’s family but they ended up as slaves some hundreds of years later. I will guess that the kingdoms Dada got will also get a share of their own enslavement, should Oyin decide to write a part 2.

“This reminds me of Othello”

Iago! This was the name that repeatedly came to my head as I saw the Othello in Sanya. The clearest example is the experience of Osuntoke, the princess that loved Sanya so much (no, she was not lesbian; she thought Sanya was a man). What was hard to decipher was who was Othello? Iago? Desdemona? There are so many contenders and rather than stating why a particular character in Sanya wins, I will try to explain Oyin’s brilliance in making them one or more Othello characters throughout the story. For a level playing field, Esu cannot be a contender for Iago (if not he will be the clear winner).

“She loved me for the dangers I had passed, And I loved her that she did pity them. This only is the witchcraft I have used” — Might be one of the most important lines in Othello. Though Sanya obviously did not love anyone except Osoosi, Toke’s love for Sanya was as one that seemed bewitched. Despite this, it is her sister, Obatooni, who I think is most like Desdemona. Her love to the bandit, Oko, feels more linear to the relationship between Othello and Desdemona. Like Desdemona’s father, Obatooni’s father would have never accepted her love for Oko. This led to the eventual elopement wrapped around kidnapping when Sanya disappeared.

But who is Iago? This is a tricky question but in a way, it would be Toke. Toke is the only culprit liable for trying to destroy a relationship that was meant to be one of peace. Though her statements were true, as opposed to Iago’s lies, her intent on trying to destroy things makes her the only person that can be tagged a Iago in intention. It is not necessary to over stretch the parallels of different narratives so I won’t force more similarities even though a person that has read Othello might have even more.

All in all, Sanya is a very interesting book that is rich in culture (I underlined so many proverbs in the book that I felt I was reading Chinua Achebe!) Sanya is also very important because of the humanisation of the gods that were believed in by past generations of Africans. Will I recommend this book? Definitely.