Call Me by My Rightful Name [Paperback]

Isidore Okpewho (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2004

A young African American (Otis Hampton) falls into periodic spasms and chants a text nobody understands. His troubled family seeks help. The text, recorded by a psychiatrist and deciphered by linguists, is found to be a corrupted family chant from the Yoruba of Nigeria. The doctor advises a trip to that ethnic region. The spiritual voices that have been summoning Otis finally bring him, after some alarming experiences in the journey from America through the Nigerian hinterland, to the very spot where his ancestor was enslaved over a century before. The recorded chant helps to locate the man’s surviving kin nearby. Otis is persuaded to remain in the village for nearly two years, during which, despite the resurgence of old antagonisms towards his family, he learns the language and culture of the place and joins in completing the rites his ancestor was performing when he was captured by slavers. Armed with a recovered identity and a chastened wisdom in African culture, Otis finally returns to the U.S. to play his part in the civil rights struggle of the time (the 1960s).

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Isidore Okpewho teaches at the State University of New York, Binghamton. He has published numerous works on African oral literature and three novels, the latest of which, Tides, won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa in 1993. In Call Me By My Rightful Name, the scholar of oral traditions and the novelist enjoy a skillful union.

Product Details

• Paperback: 268 pages
• Publisher: Africa World Pr (January 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1592211917
• ISBN-13: 978-1592211913
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #736,058 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BRILLIANT!, November 10, 2004

By 

Cafeafricana (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Call Me by My Rightful Name (Paperback)

BRAVO! I ENJOYED READING THE BOOK TITLED "CALL ME BY MY RIGHTFUL NAME" BY PROFESSOR ISIDORE OKPEWHO. THIS BOOK IS A PAGER TURNER, HISTORICAL, INTELLIGENT, AND THE PREMISE IS VERY FASCINATING. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! GET YOUR COPY TODAY!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Here, there, and everywhere, November 11, 2004

By 

Kevin Killian (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Call Me by My Rightful Name (Paperback)

I used to visit a friend at SUNY Binghamton who swore up and down that his professor, Dr. Okpewho, was the cat's meow. Okpewho's heavily accented Oxfordian English was elegant and precise, like the man himself. I expect he must be in his sixties today, and his new book has a sort of weary feeling to it. It has a surprising story which begins sort of like The Exorcist--an American man starts speaking in long lines of what seems like gibberish to his family and friends, a language he cannot account for himself, an experience like the famous "speaking in tongues" of evangelistic Christianity. Instead, linguists identify this language as the tribal dialect of Central Africa! One further note, the book takes place in the glory days of the Civil Rights Movement (the 1960s) and occasionally Dr. Okpewho seems to have forgotten how to bring this era alive, so that his protagonist's sttruggle has the dusty effect of an episode of AMERICAN DREAMS. But all in all, the author of The Victims (1970), The Last Duty (1976), and Tides (1993) has created a wonderland of a new novel.

The plot is intricate and extraordinary, bridging the gap between the USA and Africa as very few novelists are prepared to do, and very few readers ever get to understand. At the heart of the book is the simple cry of a man who is lost here and finds himself there, only to find his way once again back here in America, a country that sometimes seems as benighted as the Middle Ages, while flashing all kinds of high tech gimmickry. This novel is old fashioned in some ways, but it's a mind trip!