Exploring Transwonderland: A Journey Through Nigeria

John Downing: I've been to Nigeria once, in a very special moment, for the last ten days of the 2nd Festival of African Culture and Arts, in 1977, as part of the UK delegation. Intense, magnificent, Lagos bewildering, nerve-wracking... I was eager to read this 'tour' of fra selection of key places in Nigeria that I'd never got to, especially since it is written by a daughter of the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, a fearsome warrior for truth and justice, executed by the government. She takes us on an illuminating journey north-west-east-centre, sharing frankly her complicated feelings. N a very strong dash of wry humour...

United States on Oct 15, 2023

Miss M.: Fantastic read for a lover of Nigeria as myself. The book does not delve into the various nuances of the society but all the same a great read. KSW had a disdain for Igbos which some believe was fuelled by guilt from his participation in the looting of Igbo wealth during the war. I wonder if the writer followed through by giving Igbos a mere mention and not in positive light.

United Kingdom on Aug 21, 2019

NorthernGirl: She had me at 'nibbling at my sanity'!
If you've never been to Lagos, the city that threatens the author's delicate internal balance, she just may persuade you to give it a try, knowing of course, that you may return [IF, you do] with some of the outer margins of your sanity in disarray too.

I'm enjoying this book in portions, like a good movie you're afraid may end before you want it to .....i know, preposition at the end, no bueno, but you get the idea.

I don't know if Miss Noo set out to be funny but she has me in stitches.

It's lovely to see in vivid imagery familiar people and situations. I feel as though I'm with her as she embraces Nigeria via public transport. Whatever possessed her to do such a thing eludes me at the moment. Nevertheless, she pulls you in with her wide-eyed wonder which alternates with shock and sometimes, resigned indignation.

This is my first time reading her work. I hope she has others.

United States on Apr 24, 2019

Albert Braz: A fascinating exploration of Nigeria’s landscape and culture. Noo Saro-Wiwa, who was born in Nigeria but grew up in England, crisscrosses her native land after having only visited the country briefly twice over a decade. The reason for her prolonged absence is that the government of Nigeria meanwhile had executed her father, the celebrated writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Looking for Transwonderland is Noo Saro-Wiwa’s incisive account of her search for both Nigeria’s identity and her own. Yet, while she identifies as Nigerian throughout, she’s very much an insider/outsider. Indeed, when she finally reaches her ancestral homeland in the southeastern part of the country, she openly acknowledges that she felt like “an ethnic foreigner” in much of Nigeria. Moreover, even in the Ogoni territory of her ancestors, it’s not clear that she is at home, since she’s been profoundly affected by her diasporic experience.

Canada on Dec 07, 2017

Nataša MV: A very honest account by the Nigerian author Noo Saro-Wiwa, living in London, who travels around very different parts of her native country. In doing so, she is faced with a variety of every day problems with which the vast majority of Nigerians have to cope with. But no matter how difficult the life in Nigeria is, the author still finds love for many things about Nigeria: "the dances, the masks, the music, the baobab trees and the drill monkeys".

United States on Oct 17, 2017

JPM: Interesting and informative

India on May 31, 2016

Janet L. Butler: Noo Sara-Wiwa's travelogue around Nigeria is a very personal one. She grew up in the UK and had not visited the country as an adult. She also acknowledges her love-hate relationship with the country given the execution of her father by the then military regime.
I enjoyed the book a great deal since I lived in Nigeria for some years and also traveled around the country quite a bit. I enjoyed her observations on everyday life and the Nigerian psyche. I also appreciated learning about some of the rather obscure places she visited along the way.
I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in Nigeria, lives there, lived there, loves the place and has hopes for its redemption!

United States on Jun 06, 2014

Erik Bloom: I read Looking for Transwonderland in a book club. While I found Saro-Wiwa's writing quite engaging, the book itself did not hold together well. In general, each chapter seemed to long and had perhaps too much information. I found myself struggling to finish the book. This is a shame...obviously, the author does know how to write and has a lot to say.

The story itself is a fictionalized account Saro-Wiwa return to Nigeria and her visit to the country where she was born. She is the daughter of a famous Nigerian activist, who was killed by the previous military regime. Returning the country was a way to help her understand who she was and where she came from. Traveling across the country, she saw much corruption as well as many people trying to make the country better or simply trying to live their lives as best they could. It is a shame that the book is so long and unfocused.

United States on Jan 20, 2014

Tulsi: Noo Saro-Wiwa, the deceased Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa's daughter, undertook a six-month tour of Nigeria to rediscover her roots, understand the history of her parents' country, and make peace with the country to which she lost her father.

The writing in this unconventional travelogue/self-discovery book is amazing, and Saro-Wiwa weaves an engaging tale of contemporary Nigerian history with her own family's fate (her father, the leader of the Ogoni people's struggle against avaricious oil companies in the Niger delta, was executed).

Observant, funny, sad and evocative, Saro-Wiwa manages to tell a difficult tale in lyrical style and without rancour. I had only read Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's books, so my knowledge of Nigeria was limited. Saro Wiwa's book got me interested in the Ogoni people and their struggle.

If you want to understand western Africa, the sway of Christianity in the south of Nigeria and the hold of Islam in the north, Nigerian moral strength despite the onslaught of globalization and greed - read this book. It is one of hope and understanding, and the story of one individual who made peace with the country of her...

Germany on Jan 19, 2014

dmf9436: I have just finished reading this wonderful book. Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray that 'Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter'. In the best travel writing we get a portrait of the subject and a portrait of the author and this book delivers both with honesty and in a brilliant writing style which slips easily from powerful and evocative description to knock about comedy to introspective reflection. It is always compelling and never pretentious. I have visited Nigeria a few times but have always been protected by a bubble-wrap of corporate security, unable to engage properly, in the way that the author has, with this exciting and dynamic society. The unusual perspective of a Nigerian raised in the UK gives us an inside and an outside view of this country through the lens of the author's engaging personality. Our and her own prejudices are put under the microscope and ruthlessly examined.

The first thing I started to do when I put the book down was to start planning a trip to see the vast expanse of Nigeria that isn't Hilton Hotels and limousines. The author is very open about her country's...

United Kingdom on Dec 22, 2012