In the Shadow of War

“In the Shadow of War”

• Genre: Fiction; magical realism
• Originally Published: 1983
• Reading Level/Interest: Lexile 620L; grades 11-12; college/adult
• Structure/Length: Approx. 10 pages
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: As a young boy living during the Nigerian civil war, Omovo follows a veiled woman through the forest to find out if she is a spy, as some soldiers have told him. The soldiers follow her, too, and Omovo witnesses an incident that reveals the horror of war.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: War violence; civil war; starvation

Ben Okri, Author

• Bio: Born in 1959; Nigerian-born British poet, novelist, essayist, short story writer, anthologist, aphorist, and playwright; work is classified as post-modern/post-colonial with characters and events influenced by Okri’s childhood in Nigeria during the country’s civil war; later works moved from realism to an incorporation of more magical and fantastical elements (magical realism); his short story “In the Shadow of War” was first published in the London magazine West Africa and was revised for publication in the anthology Stars of the New Curfew; winner of numerous national and international prizes, including the Booker Prize for Fiction (1991); Royal Society of Literature (1997); Order of the British Empire (2001)
• Other Works: Stars of the New Curfew (1988); The Famished Road (1991); A Way of Being Free (1997); Starbook (2007); A Time for New Dreams (2011)

CENTRAL THEMES connected and noted throughout this Teaching Unit:

• Motivations of Loyalty
• Uncovering Truth
• The Ambiguity of Morality in Times of War

STUDY OBJECTIVES: In accomplishing the components of this Unit, students will:

• Use prior knowledge to predict story setting/conflicts around issues of a civil war and its impact on children, families, and communities.
• Apply the skills of notetaking, active reading, and summarization in order to organize and assess story concepts for reading, unit activities, and essay writing.
• Discuss and analyze the story themes of loyalty, uncovering truth, and morality in war, as they relate to author’s purpose, story elements, and story characters.
• Examine and critique man’s relationship to man through the impact of war on Omovo (protagonist), other story characters, and events and be able to make general applications of the story’s concepts to a broader world.