Obinna Oke

Desert Breed Obinna Oke

Desert Breed is a riveting novel that tells of Uche, an orphan who hails from Mbazu, a remote village in Eastern Nigeria. Born into a wretched polygamous family, Uche grows to discover that Ogubata, his step mother wants him dead. Things become hellish after his presumed mother mysteriously dies. Ojemba, his father takes to drinking, gets bitten by a venomous snake and dies but shortly before then reveals to Uche how Ogubata had vowed to kill his true mother, that she had died while giving birth to him and that the woman he knew to be his mother was his aunt who came to nurse him. Umahi, Uche's uncle takes him to Onitsha where life turns the opposite of what was promised. Uche manages to get a secondary education and meets Lilian, a pretty young girl he loves. She becomes Uche's graceful fancy and strongest object of perseverance throughout his long years of ordeal. Uche is forced to live on the streets where he hawks gala. He travels to Awka, unaware of the ban on street-hawking, gets arrested and charged. He tricks his way out of imprisonment only to be caught in the mortal web of vicious kidnappers. While in the Kidnappers' den, he overhears that he is to be slaughtered for sale the next day. But he must not disappoint his father and the mother he never knew. Above all, he must behold Lilian's face again. Only then would he die peacefully. To achieve all, Uche must first fight his way out of the gallows of death. Desert Breed is both a suspenseful and tear-evoking video-centric tale of the interplay of culture and belief, the poor and forgotten, and the perilous ladder which the victims grovel through to hold their heads up the dungeon of abject lack. It tells of the piteous lot of orphans and the vulnerable in our contemporary society. It is interspersed with unquenchable humour which leaves tears rolling atop laughter. It vividly brings to the fore the plight of the African child and the pains of motherhood in Africa.