In the Shadow of a Saint Paperback - 2001

Excerpt

My father. Where does he end and where do I begin? I seem to have spent my whole life chasing his shadow, trying to answer the questions that so many fathers pose to their sons. Is my life predetermined by his? My future defined by my past? Is his story repeating itself through me, or am I the author of my own fate? Is he my father, or am I his son? Where does he end and where do I begin?

I was always my father's son. His influence was visible in just about everything I did: my career, the woman I chose to marry, why I shortened my name, the books I read, the way I speak, the way I write, my politics. I used to fantasize about his death, imagining it as the moment when I would finally be free to be my own man, to make my own way in life without having to consider how he would react.

He was hanged in Nigeria on November 10, 1995. On the morning of his execution, he was taken from his prison cell in a military camp in Port Harcourt, on the southern coast of Nigeria, and driven under armed escort to a nearby prison. It took five attempts to hang him. His corpse was dumped in an unmarked grave; acid was poured on his remains and soldiers posted outside the cemetery.

Ken Saro-Wiwa's execution triggered a tidal wave of outrage that swept around the world. John Major, then British prime minister, described my father's execution as "judicial murder" and the military tribunal that sentenced him to death as a "fraudulent trial, a bad verdict, an unjust sentence." Nelson Mandela declared that "this heinous act by the Nigerian authorities flies in the face of appeals by the world community for a stay of execution." World figures, including Bill Clinton and the Queen, joined the worldwide condemnation of Nigeria's military dictator, General Sani Abacha. Nigeria was suspended from the Commonwealth; countries recalled their diplomats, and there were widespread calls for economic sanctions. There were candlelit vigils and demonstrations outside Nigerian embassies and at Shell Oil stations and offices. My father's death was front-page news around the world. Letters and tributes poured in from every continent, and Ken Saro-Wiwa was canonized in hastily prepared obituaries that were often littered with errors. A man whom few people had heard of twenty-four hours earlier was suddenly invested with a mythic quality, and his campaign against Shell Oil and a ruthless military regime was being touted as a morality tale for the late twentieth century.

But there were ugly footnotes to the saga. The quicklime had barely calcified around my father's bones when dissenting voices began to question the public's perception of Ken Saro-Wiwa. In The Times, one commentator wrote, "People are comparing Ken Saro-Wiwa to Steve Biko, which of course he isn't." A society columnist in The Sunday Times insisted that "Ken Saro-Wiwa may have got the short end of the stick but he was no angel." Shell Oil, the company my father had accused of devastating the environment and abusing the human rights of our people, responded to questions about its role in the affair by launching a public-relations campaign that spread doubts about his character and his reputation. The multinational distanced itself from the execution, insisting that it was being used as a scapegoat to deflect attention from the real issues in the trial. In a television interview, the head of its Nigerian operations claimed that Ken Saro-Wiwa had been executed for murder.

General Abacha declared war against Ken Saro-Wiwa, spending $10 million to counter the negative publicity his regime was attracting because of the execution. Washington lobbyists and public-relations consultants were hired to sell the line that Ken Saro-Wiwa had incited his followers to commit murder. An advertisement in the Washington Post graphically illustrated the sequence of events leading up to the trial and the execution. In London, the Nigerian High Commission took space in The Times to explain "the truth about Ken Saro-Wiwa." Newspaper editors were pressed to report "the other side of the story," and in The Guardian, where I was working at the time, one of my father's former associates described him as a "habitual liar." Punch magazine claimed that Ken Saro-Wiwa had duped gullible liberals and had used his friends in the media to "fool the world."

Media reviews

"Your book is rivetting, searingly honest and deeply moving.It is a splendid monument to an outstanding man, warts and all." —Desmond Tutu

"Ken Wiwa leaves no holds unbarred in his account of his father's remarkable life and appalling death. It's a searing personal and political document." —Harold Pinter

“His book is at once a tough indictment of the Nigerian government and the oil industry, and an intense and moving tale of a young man’s struggle to make peace with his father….Exceptionally — sometimes bracingly — frank.” —Toronto Life

“In The Shadow of a Saint is a stirring work that will resonate with you long after you close the book and a reminder on the anniversary of Saro-Wiwa’s death that the word really can be more powerful than the sword.” —Eye

“The straightforward honesty of Ken Wiwa’s account is the book’s shining merit. Not only is Ken Wiwa searching for the man his father was, he is also striving to unearth the truth of his own fraught relationship with him….And it is entirely fitting that it is by an act of writing that Ken Wiwa finally slips out of the long shadow that Ken Saro-Wiwa cast, to become his own man and , moreover, someone of whom I am sure his father would have been intensely proud.” —The Globe and Mail

“The story of his final hours is one of the most memorable in the book, not only because it is written by his son, but because it is written with a detachment and calm that amplifies both the horror of the death and the dignity and defiance of the victim. It must have taken great strength to write those pages. Ken Saro-Wiwa would surely be proud.” —The Edmonton Journal

“Ken Wiwa has written a powerful and thought-provoking account of his father. It is, above all, an extremely honest book, with no attempts to conceal the warts.” —The Financial Times (UK)

“Ken Wiwa does not spare himself in this story. He reveals self-truths he is not proud of. You feel for him. You feel for his father. His elegantly written book is a weave of Nigerian and family history, both turbulent, both tragic, neither without hope. The book is also a song of the Ogoni people, a tribute to their struggle, their endurance…. Poignant.” —The Guardian

“[An] inquiring biography…Wiwa handles plenty of confusion and guilt with aplomb…Wiwa’s childhood recollections are ambivalent: he describes his nervousness and self-consciousness around his father, his sense of always trailing in his footsteps…until this biography, that is — its voice very much his own, as is its political verve. Insightful chapters on the children of Nelson Mandela and Stephen Biko add poingnancy and depth to Wiwa’s personal exploration.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"In the Shadow of a Saint is a memoir, a biography, a political history, a tribute to a political martyr and a love letter to a father." — The Toronto Star

"[Wiwa] has produced a fascinating account of his troubled homeland, and a touching portrait of his talented father." — Maclean's