The Frictions in Micheal Afenfia’s Don’t Die on Wednesday

By Salamatu Sule

Title: Don’t Die on Wednesday
Author: Michael Afenfia
Pages: 258
Publishers: Origami Books [Parresia Publishers Ltd]
Year: 2014
Something there is that stares and doesn’t love Wednesdays, it is called the friction in Micheal Afenfia’s Fiction—reading this gives us a picture of a book well written with a striking title, like Don’t Die On Wednesday. I think the whole title is a string of suspense woven up in a nest construction like a spider’s web that only reading can detangle.
Don’t Die on Wednesday is a work of sport fiction.

The novel tells us a story of the life of a rising Tottenham FC top striker, Bubaraye Dabowei’s rising career which unfortunately is wreck by one game he visions to win against one of the finest club in England. Against this backdrop, Mango as he is fondly called picks up his pieces to go back to his country home and grow young professionals after he finds out he will not be able to play professional football for life. In the middle of it all, his life drifts and tears apart by his South African Model Wife, Nikiwe Dlomo, her repulsion to return with her family to Nigeria comes to foreplay through betrayal, infidelity and shared game of criminal antics.

For Afenfia, the game of life is there on the pitch as determined by the small round leather ball as the massive crowd focuses on one star—Tottenham FC’s top striker, Bubaraye ‘’Buba’’ Dabowei aka Mango.  The book is unique in its narrative, style and content as Michael tells us the story of fame and shame, of desperate dirty desires and of love, lust and loss, including the gain and pain that lead to a sour tragic end of the games that we play.  Nikiwe is desperate to get a production job so she plays dirty with Nareej when she meets him at secret places.
“He slipped his key card into a slightly open side compartment in her bag and asked  her to  go up ahead of him”. p 90

“When she opened her eyes, the large smile on his face told her everything.
Nareej purred like the cat that got the cream, another beauty queen in his jar of hearts” p. 91
The goals we score in the game of our lives matters as they place us firmly within history’s frame—some are wooed because of our good qualities and others booed for their deceits, fouls, on the pitch of life. Consequently, Buba’s wife, Nikiwe, pays the price for working against her husband to achieve her goals.

Buba follows his dreams and Sese will not succumb to his father’s wish at the detriment of his career, the one he dreams most, even if it were the last thing he did on earth.
The characters in Afenfia’s novel all act out their moves in the two halves of the Beautiful but dreadful game, as he creatively captures their injuries, yellow and red cards. All of this whish not to happen on a Wednesday!

The author puts it succinctly this way, seeking to capture the fever of the game—
Come today
That’s all I say
Any Monday,
Tuesday, but please no,
Not Wednesday

This novel is a socio-realistic fiction with all the events tied to everyday life, the struggle and hustle as opposed to the greed that attenuates it. Afenfia draws our attention to the critical conditions of the social structure of the society. As fictional as this novel is, we cannot shy away from the existential fact that the themes of its concerns are contemporary.
Truth is stranger than fiction but if fiction must make any sense, then don’t die on any day at all without reading this book.

Sule wrote from Abuja

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