The significance of magical realism in the novels of Elechi Amadi

In the novels The Concubine and The Great Ponds, Elechi Amadi, through the magical realist tradition, revisits the precolonial past of the Ikwerre (Nigeria) to showcase the cultural and intellectual sophistication of this society. As represented in Amadi’s writing, this was a well-structured society with its own credible social and cultural values that defined and explained their worldview, with nothing to envy in the West. In The Concubine, for example, the fates of the men (Emenike, Madume, and Ekwueme) who intend to marry Ihuoma can be explained naturally as well as supernaturally. In The Great Ponds, the novelist employs African mythology to critique the Western arrogance and egocentricity that plunged the world in the purposeless and wasteful war of 1914–18, as well as complicating character and meaning in this novel through the supernatural. Through the war over fishing rights in the Wagaba pond between Chiolu and Aliakoro, Amadi transposes some of the consequences of the First World War, such as the death and suffering that involved the Central and Allied Powers, into his narrative. Amadi’s magical realist fiction is a celebration of indigenous beliefs and culture, as well as a tool to explore character and history