Ogbanje-Abiku (Spirit Children)

Our discussions in class recently about spirit children and spirits in general have sparked my interest to find more information about it. According to wikipedia spirit children or Abiku/Ogbanje are names given to a child who is stuck between the spirit world and the human or "body" world. Also, spirit children are said to purposefully bring misfortune to their family and die and be reborn simply to torment them. Taking that into consideration, it is very similar to The Famished Road, except for the fact that as of this point Azaro does not seem to do things or bring misfortune on his family purposefully, and seems to care about them very much.

During my searching I also found a video of Wole Soyinka, the winner of the Literature Nobel Prize in 1986, reading one of his poems and explaining its significance. He was born in Nigeria and has a poem titled Abiku, specifically pertaining to Abiku children that could shed some light on the true meaning of it to Nigerians. Here is a link to the poem itself.