comment on theme

Through its insistent references to democracy, the novel captures the breakdown of the Nigerian state in the northeast, a dissolution conditioned by competing notions of good governance and statehood. The characters most involved in this discussion of democracy are Malam Zwindila, Ya Ta’s teacher in her home village; Malam Adama, her new teacher at the first Boko Haram camp; and Ya Ta herself, who is trying to figure out her relationship to their competing ideas.