Why did Idilbi chose this method, rather than beginning at the beginning and proceeding to the end, with Sabriyya’s suicide?

More importantly, I’m guessing you have found this novel the most challenging of those we have read. This, if I’m right, will be due in part to the method of narration, which is by no means strictly chronological. You’ll remember that the narration of *Sabriyya* consists largely of a lengthy flashback. Why? Why did Idilbi chose this method, rather than beginning at the beginning and proceeding to the end, with Sabriyya’s suicide? Well, it adds poignancy to the story of her thwarted life. We know at her most joyous moments, happily in love (her potential liberation as a woman) and active in anti-French rebellion (hoping for the liberation of her country: here are the two major themes of the novel), that Sabriyya’s strongest and most intimate hopes will be cruelly dashed. Why does Conde tell her story in the way she does? Is it not harder for readers, demanding more of them? Yes, it is, and it does. But we value more that which we acquired with some difficulty. (Think of the electronic toy, or the car, you had to work and save for before you could buy it.) We have to work as readers, juxtaposing one piece of the jigsaw with the others to come to an understanding of Spiro’s life. and ancestry. So do you want to write about the method of narration? *The Last of the African Kings* also examines sources of authority, who gets to decide which stories are told, and how. Think of the ending of *Things Fall Apart,* which probably, and pardonably, puzzled some of you, or seemed an anti-climax. The point being made is that the story of Okonkwo, this powerful and significant and admirable, even if flawed, figure in Ibo society and culture, will be told by an uncomprehending and patronizing colonial administrator, whose book will revealingly be entitled *The PACIFICATION of the PRIMITIVE Tribes of the Lower Niger* (the words I’ve capitalized words are dishonest, even if sincere, are they not? Can you see how and why?). People wanting to learn about present-day Nigeria go to the shelves of Western, especially British in this case, university libraries, with their immense cultural prestige, and get a biased and limited account. How does Spiro come to understand the history of his forebears? I’ve just flipped quickly through the early pages of the novel and see Monsieur Bodriol (p. 10) and Henri Veyrier’s *Histoire Illustree de l’Afrique* (p. 34). What other sources does Spiro have? Could you write a few hundred words about one or two of them, their value, their effect?