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Many of the stories of this collection, even when they strain credulity, pulsate with stimulating characters that overstretch natural and conventional boundaries, thereby quaking, in often delightful ways, our delicate sense of scale and moral order. Some of the narrations, inevitably, seek to bolster and stabilize the communal ethos but even these etch their contemporary relevance in the timeless lore that filter through their cultural canvas.

The tales of People, Animals, Spirits, and Objects: 1000 Folk Stories of Nigeria, edited by Bukar Usman, are organized into eight sections according to the nature of the characters embroiled in the stories. One interesting outcome of this classification is the realization that non-living objects, when personified or animated, can be as morally flawed as people, animals and spirits.  

These 1000 tales, rooted in Nigeria’s rich oral tradition, are as diverse as the cultures they reflect. Here are myriads of thrilling encounters made even more gripping by the subterfuge, chicanery, subversion, daredevilry, domestic jealousy, unenlightened self-interest, and comic foolhardiness of many of the characters. But there are also charming happenstances featuring fair-minded characters that reverse the trend of evil through their interventional and refreshing gestures of goodness, grace and godliness.

This is the third book of Dr Usman’s Treasury of Nigerian Tales (TNT)  quartet (the others being A Treasury of Nigerian Tales (TNT 001), A Selection of Nigerian Folktales: Themes and Settings (TNT 002) and Gods and Ancestors: Mythic Tales of Nigeria (TNT 004). One notable quality of this volume that recommends it to every lover of stories and the wisdom they illustrate is that it is as sizzling as it is sizable! No. of Pages: 939.