Blessings by Chukwuebuka Ibeh review – when a clinch is a crime

A gay Nigerian is persecuted by his father and the state in Ibeh’s stylish and moving debut novel

Born in 2000 in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Chukwuebuka Ibeh is the product of a well-deserved American MFA studentship, the ultimate finishing school for new authors who want to attain – as Ibeh does with this first novel – a blend of the particular and the universal, glossing traditional storytelling with a literary finesse that adds style without scaring the horses.

Blessings is the poignant tale of a talented and sensitive Nigerian boy, Obiefuna, who is caught by his conservative father in a clinch with another young man. Obiefuna is sent to get straightened out in a strict Christian boarding school, where “he learned to stay out of the way of seniors: never look them in the eye, cross to the other path when they were sighted, never even smile”. First love, first enmity and first rivalry follow, along with the first steps towards a sense of identity.