Using extensive oral interviews and other primary and secondary documents, Obi Nwakanma gives a multifaceted account of Christopher Okigbo and the various elements that shaped his life and poetry. Okigbo was a remarkable African poet who contributed to the reimagination of postcolonial African literature and was renowned as a Biafran war hero. In Thirsting for Sunlight, Nwakanma combines a chronological and thematic approach to track different phases of Okigbo’s life across various Nigerian cities. More than other texts on Okigbo, Thirsting for Sunlight provides a complete portrayal of his humanity, impulses, astuteness and vulnerabilities. Okigbo is shown not just as a literary genius or war hero and victim, but as a son, father, combatant, educator, womanizer, lover and athlete. His life is interwoven into a broader Igbo and Nigerian history, thus providing insight into political and social developments in Nigeria during the colonial and postcolonial periods. Thirsting for Sunlight is, therefore, a narrative not just about Okigbo but also about colonial education, traditional Igbo religions, multinational corporations and the postcolonial state.

The book is divided into eight chronological chapters and an epilogue. Each chapter focuses on specific moments in Okigbo’s life, with the first three discussing his early life and teenage years. Through narratives about Okigbo’s extended family networks and the religious practices in Ojoto, his home town, Chapter 1 offers interesting glimpses into Igbo culture in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Okigbo’s family was responsible for the guardianship of the town’s notable water deity, Oto, and Nwakanma weaves these religious and cultural components into his account of Okigbo’s early life. This is followed up in Chapter 2 with a discussion of his teenage years, set within the context of British colonial education and the academic culture at the elite secondary institution, Government College, Umuahia. Typical of Nwakanma’s style, this chapter discusses the socio-economics and politics surrounding the entrenchment of ‘government colleges’ in Nigeria and how Okigbo’s experience at Umuahia shaped his literary career. In the third chapter, we learn about the background against which some of Nigeria’s earliest political and intellectual elites – Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and Alex Ekwueme, for example – were moulded at the University College, Ibadan, and about Okigbo’s place in that story. Here, Okigbo’s skill as a poet is nurtured.

The other five chapters revolve around Okigbo’s adult life, including crucial and sometimes tumultuous moments such as the collapse of his export business, his experience of racism within multinational corporations, the loss of his civil service job, his venture into school administration as the vice principal of Fiditi Grammar School, and his growth as a poet. Chapters 7 and 8 in particular set out Okigbo’s entanglements in the political climate that led to the coups of 1966 and the Nigeria–Biafra war of 1967. When the countercoup of 1966 occurred, claiming the life of Major General Aguiyi-Ironsi, Nigeria’s military president, Okigbo was on the coup plotters’ ‘wanted’ list for his connections to Major Ifeajuna, one of the participants in the initial coup that had brought Aguiyi-Ironsi to power. Now a displaced intellectual, Okigbo was at the centre of developments in Biafra at the onset of war and was enlisted for the dangerous mission of gunrunning. Chapter 8 culminates in Okigbo’s courage and death during the battle at Opi, Nsukka, in defence of his beloved new nation, Biafra.

Nwakanma knows how to tell a compelling story; indeed, there are no dull moments in his narrative of such a complex character as Christopher Okigbo. His writing style lures the reader in and keeps them flipping through the pages. He successfully weaves Okigbo’s story into a broader narrative of Nigerian history, thus highlighting the significance of his life and times. The book includes a chronology of Okigbo’s life as it intersects with Nigerian history, making it easier to track the various moments in the life of this enigmatic character. Throughout the book, Nwakanma makes a connection between Okigbo’s poetry and major events in his personal life, such as his mother’s death and the loss of his civil service job. This gives readers extensive insight into the making of Okigbo as a poet.

Nwakanma’s lucid and entertaining writing style, and the story that he generates, makes it possible to understand the importance of Christopher Okigbo not just in Nigerian and Biafran history but also for African poetry. Because of Okigbo’s untimely death at the age of thirty-seven, his literary work is not as appreciated outside the African continent as it should be. This book introduces a wider audience to Okigbo and creates a portrait of a man whose work continues to echo in African academia. It will be useful to students and scholars interested in Nigerian history, the Nigeria–Biafra war, English and African literature, African studies, political science, and colonial/postcolonial studies.