Point of View

Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree is told from the first-person perspective of the narrator, Ya Ta. As a narrator, Ya Ta is warm and generous towards her friends while also still implicitly critical of her village and, eventually, of Boko Haram’s ideology. Ya Ta’s perspective is often skeptical and critical, and her mode of address is often through asking questions. This is especially true in the camp scenes, after Ya Ta is taken hostage. Bewildered by her new environs, Ya Ta tries to make sense of Boko Haram, its ideology and its motivations. Through Ya Ta’s perspective, the reader is also able to know not just what Ya Ta does and what actions she takes, but how she is feeling and what she is thinking about. For example, the reader hears from Ya Ta: “I wonder if Success is thinking about me...