Kicking Tongues

Book excerpt: Karen King-Aribisala brilliantly transposes Chaucer's Canterbury Tales to modern-day Nigeria in this magnificent tale of forty very different travellers thrown together on a bus journey from Lagos to the new capital, Abuja. Carefully selected by their hostess – an enigmatic figure who calls herself, 'The Black Lady The' – the passengers on this journey range from a wealthy tribal chief to a humble petrol pump attendant, from a rain-maker to a reserved woman observing purdah. They are united only by their dissatisfaction with Nigeria's chaotic and corrupt regime, a concern which is reflected in the widely differing stories they tell on their journey – bawdy tales, sharp satires, poignant narratives and moral fables. Blending poetry and prose, rich visual images, and witty puns, Karen King-Aribisala succeeds in transforming a fourteenth-century English classic into an exuberant and distinctively African work.