A assessment of Dulue Mbachu's Billy Bisa's Secrets and techniques and Different Tales by UZOR MAXIM UZOATU.The New Gong Publishers, Lagos, 2022.
THE artwork of the quick story is a really delicate type to grasp. The nice masters of quick fiction, resembling Man de Maupassant, Anton Chekhov, Isaac Babel and O. Henry, are as related at this time as they have been once they put pen to paper again in time.
Together with his debut assortment 'Billy Bisa's Secrets and techniques and Different Tales', Dulue Mbachu reveals convincing qualities that may serve him properly to be learn for years to return.
The eight tales in 'Billy Bisa's Secrets and techniques and Different Tales' have been written between the mid-Eighties and the late Nineties, however are nonetheless related at this time. Some tales had beforehand been printed in anthologies and famend magazines resembling West Africa and BBC Give attention to Africa.
Every story printed within the assortment is preceded by a verse that considerably emphasizes the theme. Within the first story, 'Say Sorry', the eccentric 25-year-old Nath, who lives in 'a provincial college city', is thrown into turmoil when the spouse of a professor, who drives a Renault 16 automotive, 'passes his pants' swipes at him, tearing it and biting his pores and skin with out even noticing him as she stopped a number of ft away. The case is taken to the police station, the place Nath's solely demand is: “I simply need her to express regret!”
The following story, “The Magic Ring,” is about within the college city of Nsukka, the place two younger associates, Chidi and Paul, turn out to be entangled within the schemes of a magician who sells a magic ring till Chidi ends the friendship by stealing the ring. to throw. magic ring. After being admitted to college, he sees that his former buddy, Paul, who had gone to be taught a commerce in Onitsha, had 'acquired two extra rings…'
The police can do every kind of loopy issues in Nigeria, and in Mbachu's “Arrested for Wandering,” two associates, Chuks and Unhealthy Joe, attending a celebration on a close-by avenue, waste nearly two hours of their time after which pay bribes. falsely arrested by some cops.
“A Nice Debate” is Mbachu's handy retaliation by means of private phrases within the Nigerian nationwide debate on taking on the IMF mortgage throughout Normal Ibrahim Babangida's regime of the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP).
In “The Blood Donor”, a person whose spouse is about to present start within the hospital is requested to seek out two pints of blood in case his spouse must have a C-section and witnesses a depressing man collapse in an try to get some to earn cash. as a blood donor.
The police are talked about once more within the following means within the story 'Joji and the Police': 'In all his 25 years within the police pressure, Sergeant Aduboni had by no means heard something prefer it… Somebody may stroll right into a police station and inform the police that he needs to steal, and suggest to the police to assist him steal and share the loot with him. Effectively-known human rights lawyer Femi Soares gives a contented ending shock.
“Paapa's Modernization” is in regards to the eponymous outdated man who cures the venereal illness of his fellow prisoners, however mysteriously reinfects them with the illness and has this protection for his motion: “You see, in these earlier days somebody may give us a rooster or a goat – and our technique labored so shortly that earlier than our consumer received residence from our assembly, the enemy could be useless, simply by distant management. It's simply that I've modernized it in order that it turns into common gonorrhea as a substitute of loss of life; moreover, I can remedy it and never kill anybody.
The title story, “Billy Bisa's Secrets and techniques,” is probably the most intensive story within the assortment and has a “Prologue” and “Epilogue.” It begins like this: “There as soon as lived in grim oblivion a musician who as soon as stirred his nation. Chyke Skido led the previously well-known Query Mark band. Within the early Seventies he was a phenomenon in Nigeria and West Africa.” Then the idiosyncratic rhythm guitarist enters the band who introduces himself as Billy Bisa or Bisa Billy or BB and takes youthful musicians underneath his wings along with his secrets and techniques, the highest of which is: “Study your guitar, know an instrument so you should utilize it… in any enterprise, nothing beats mastering the instruments of the business! That's the key!”
The one criticism of Billy Bisa's Secrets and techniques and Different Tales is that “The Nice Debate” is positioned because the third story on the contents web page, whereas it’s the fourth story within the ebook, after “Arrested for Wandering”. Aside from some minor printing errors, this will simply be corrected within the subsequent version.
Mbachhu's Billy Bisa's Secrets and techniques and Different Tales teems with revealing insights in a refined tenor. This assortment confirms the good promise of Mbachu's first novel from 2005, Struggle Video games. Mbachu understands the world of the oppressed individuals, and he writes their gospel with street-wise aplomb.
- Uzoatu, a poet, is the writer of God of Poetry
