Born and raised in Lagos, Nigeria, Nnamdi Kanaga is a multi-talented filmmaker, writer and actor. Onwuchekwa: Death Waits is his debut memoir. To read this memoir is to witness a familiar ache; it is to sit down with words that describe the uncertainty of death and how life insists on being ordinary afterwards.
This book roots the reader in a sense of place, it presents them with the dualities of life in two cities, Lagos and Abia, and what it means to navigate both places as a child. Nnamdi Kanaga makes a deliberate effort to keep us in scene; we are not just reading words, we are perceiving food, moving on roads, present on the streets, laughing and weeping at home. This kind of descriptive writing, I think, emanates from two things: first, that this is the author’s lived experience, so rendering it on the page was heart work, and second, that Nnamdi is an actor, and it’s part of his life’s work to interpret and depict life in visually edifying ways.
This memoir documents the realities of simple, somewhat slow living. I found it very moving as someone who recognises and relates to most of the lives portrayed. From the familial relationships to the long journeys children take to and from boarding school, every detail felt like home. While this is, at its core, a memoir about the loss of the writer’s brother, Peter, its pages carry us through culture, language and the preciousness of the Igbo spirit.
Nnamdi is honest on the page, vulnerable, even, showing us the interiorities of family members, his family dynamic, and the reason he believed Peter, his younger brother, was a reincarnation of their mother’s father. The Igbo concept of Ilo Uwa is pervasive in Igbo households, there is always someone who is suspected to have returned to the world again. This idea of reincarnation, as aptly captured by Nnamdi, presupposes that death does not end life; it only transforms it.
What begins in this memoir as a necessary interrogation of their mother’s favouritism toward Peter grows into a sincere and moving portrait of brotherhood, shaped by Nnamdi and Peter’s shared passion for the arts. They bond through making art together. They made music videos with their limited resources, talked about the future; truly, there are parts of ourselves that only light up by doing, by creating with the people we love, people who see us.
Even though the title of this memoir says Onwuchekwa: Death Waits, death was imminent. We see on pages 18 and 19, where Peter is matriculating and their mother reacts in an unexpected and unexplainable way. She shows sadness amid a celebration and that goes to show that sometimes we know that grief is coming; we might not be able to name it, but our bodies and spirit can hold a premonition that acknowledges that life can be amiss or as Nnamdi puts it when referring to their journey home from visiting day, “O biara Ije, nwe una,” “he who comes must go.” They say their goodbyes to Peter that matriculation day, believing they would see him again, but how we lose people is often unpredictable. In this book, a goodbye is a metaphor for an unwilled send-off. Sometimes the shape of our hands waving goodbye as we leave our loved ones might also be the shape of our hands on their grave.
On page 22 of the book, the narrative deepens. It starts with a date, April 17, 2014, so we know it’s central to the memoir. The suspense as you read is gobsmacking. You expect a death. You think it’s just the how and when of it that will shock you. But the pacing and bareness with which Nnamdi writes tell you the memoir is about more than one death. When the author’s uncle in a car and a young boy on a motorcycle collide, you wonder, is this another moment where we lose someone? Will something bad happen after this?
The book’s most profound lesson is that nobody can fully make sense of death. This loss of Peter happened over a decade ago, and Nnamdi is still trying to make sense of it. This memoir is one of the many attempts to document this loss. But is there a language to document loss? Reading this memoir, it’s clear that in many ways, the Igbo language is central to navigating and recounting grief. The use of dialect, especially for intimate exchanges, brings authenticity to the narrative. As an Igbo person who understands Central Igbo, it felt beautiful to see a variation of the language woven through this memoir, to know that there are many ways of saying and writing familiar words.
The book continues with April 19, 2014. There’s a screenshot of a tweet from Peter, Nnamdi’s brother. It’s moving. Social media back then was way simpler, just a way to document, to tweet a few words to say you’re resting, making memories with the ones you consider home. Documenting is everything, especially since our time on earth is not promised.
In this section, we see how emotions manifest physically when bad news is on the way. When Nnamdi gets a call on Peter’s phone but hears another voice, he writes:
“My body trembled violently, seized by an invisible force, as if a current of raw electricity had ripped through me. My hands were clammy, my breaths short and ragged, my heart pounding against my ribs like a war drum. The walls of the room felt like they were closing in, the air too thick, too heavy.”
What follows for Nnamdi, the shock, the flashbacks, the crowd at the house, is what I believe Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie captures in Notes on Grief: that “Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.”
Death is its own kind of twisted theatre, life must go on despite it. For young Nnamdi, it meant school and exams. His father, deep in his own grief, insisted he continue with school. That he does not pause his life over this loss. For the Nnamdi who is older, it means wondering what life could have been. Also, how do you tell a mother that her child, her favourite child, is dead? When you read the book, through Nnamdi’s parents, you’ll understand how parents are broken, almost beyond repair, by the loss of their children.
Nnamdi also shows how memory plays tricks on us when we grieve. Imagine sharing a birthday with your late brother. Every year becomes a painful reminder. Or as Nnamdi puts it:
“How do I celebrate when half of me is missing? How do I count my years when Peter’s stopped at 16? This is why I avoid celebrating my birthday.”
From this memoir, we also learn how life and death can be embedded in names. Onwuchekwaco is also Peter’s name. This opens up a whole discussion on the potency of names. Names are not random. They shape us. “It’s as if the name itself was both a plea and a curse, a desperate attempt to delay something inevitable,” Nnamdi writes. His own name, Nnamdi, was an antithesis to the loss that went on to happen after Peter’s in the book.
This memoir is intimate, so honestly written, that nothing will prepare you for the photographs you’ll see. Photographs, in this book, tell a story of when life was simpler, kinder and less complicated. You’ll see Peter and his siblings as children. You’ll witness their smiles, how their bodies fit into almost similar clothes, and their togetherness. You’ll see what once was. And if you’ve held your tears until now, they’ll likely fall.
If you’ve never lost someone, this memoir will teach you empathy. If you have, you’ll feel seen, it will feel like a hug, an ally in the greyness of grief. Onwuchekwa is a true story about death that somehow nudges you to continue with the business of living, in love and in hope, despite the uncertainties. Onwuchekwa: Death Waits by Nnamdi Kanaga is a necessary read.
