REVIEW
Brides of Infidels is a powerful, necessary book. It forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the world we live in, truths that are often obscured by the distance of geography or the numbing effect of repeated headlines, revived only when the country receives new appellations as a ‘country of concern’. Ajeluorou writes with compassion and clarity, refusing to sensationalise the suffering of his characters. Instead, he honours their humanity, their resilience, and their right to be remembered
IN Brides of Infidels (2026), a novella published by Rasmed Publications and listed as children literature, Anote Ajeluorou turns his gaze toward one of the most harrowing realities of contemporary Nigeria: the violent incursions of extremist groups into rural communities and the devastation they leave behind. It is a slim book, but it carries the weight of a nation’s grief.
Ajeluorou, a journalist and cultural critic, writes with the urgency of someone who has watched the country’s security architecture buckle under the strain of insurgency. His narrative is not merely reportage in fictional form; it is a lament, a warning, and a plea for remembrance.
All these were clear and coherently presented during a reading and discussion session by school pupils at the launching of the book on Friday, January 23 at CRIMMD Museum and Library at Ajao Estate, Lagos, as part of CORA BookTrek:.The Ajao Estate Iteration.
The story centres on Akwaga, a quiet village whose residents have grown accustomed to the uneasy rhythm of life in a country where news of attacks has become almost routine. The villagers have heard of massacres elsewhere, but like many communities far from the urban centres, they cling to the belief that such horrors will not reach them.
Ajeluorou wastes no time in shattering that illusion. The novel opens with a family studying the Bible on a Sunday afternoon, a scene of domestic calm that is brutally interrupted by the staccato crack of gunfire. What follows is a swift, merciless assault by a band of terrorists described as “killers for an impure god”.
The attack is rendered with a journalist’s eye for detail and a storyteller’s instinct for emotional resonance. Ajeluorou does not indulge in gratuitous violence; instead, he captures the chaos through sensory fragments, the metallic smell of gunpowder, the screams that rise and fall like a broken siren, the dust kicked up by fleeing feet – all imagery suitable for comprehension by children.
The effect is cinematic, but not in a way that glamorises the violence. Rather, it mimics the disorientation of trauma, the way memory fractures under the weight of terror.
The men of Akwaga are rounded up and executed in front of their families. The women and girls are herded together and marched into captivity. It is a scene that echoes real events in Nigeria’s recent history, most notably the abduction of the Chibok schoolgirls in 2014 (including the recent ones last year in Kebbi and Niger States).
Ajeluorou does not name Boko Haram, but the allusion is unmistakable. By refusing to anchor the story to a specific group, he universalises the experience, suggesting that the ideology of terror, whatever its particular banner or flag, thrives on the same logic of domination, control, coercion, and dehumanisation.
Where the novel gains its emotional depth is in its portrayal of the abducted girls and women. Ajeluorou is acutely aware of the gendered nature of extremist violence.
The female body becomes a battleground, a site where ideological wars are fought and patriarchal fantasies enacted. The title itself, Brides of Infidels, is a bitter irony: the captors claim religious purity, yet their actions reveal a profound moral corruption. The girls are not brides in any meaningful sense; they are spoils of war (if you can call it that), forced into marriages that are little more than sanctioned violations.
Yet Ajeluorou resists the temptation to portray his female characters solely as victims. Within the confines of captivity, they find ways to assert their humanity through whispered prayers, shared memories, and other small acts of defiance.
These moments of resistance are not grand or heroic in the conventional sense, but they are deeply moving. They remind the reader that survival itself can be an act of rebellion.
One of the strengths of the novella is its ability to balance the personal with the political. Ajeluorou does not sermonise; he allows the story to speak for itself. But the implications are clear.
The attack on Akwaga is not an isolated incident; it is part of a broader pattern of state failure. The security forces are nowhere to be found. The government’s promises of protection ring hollow. The villagers are left to fend for themselves in a landscape where the rule of law has become a distant memory. Wale Okediran’s Madagali (2022) feels like a template for analysing the failure of Nigeria in combating insurgency or banditry, or to call it by its proper name – terrorism.
This critique is delivered with a light touch, but it is unmistakable. Ajeluorou’s background in journalism gives him a keen understanding of the systemic issues that underpin Nigeria’s insecurity. He knows that behind every headline about an attack lies a web of political negligence, economic deprivation, and ideological manipulation. Brides of Infidels is, in many ways, a fictionalised distillation of years of reportage on these issues.
Stylistically, the novel is accessible and direct. Ajeluorou writes in clear, unadorned prose, allowing the gravity of the subject matter to carry the emotional weight. There are moments of lyricism, particularly in the descriptions of village life before the attack, but these are used sparingly.
The contrast between the pastoral calm of Akwaga and the violence that follows is stark, and Ajeluorou uses this contrast to underscore the fragility of peace.
The pacing is brisk, almost breathless at times. This works well in the early chapters, where the suddenness of the attack demands a rapid narrative tempo. In the later sections, particularly those set in the terrorists’ camp, the pace slows, mirroring the oppressive monotony of captivity (or perhaps a lack of familiarity with the space of oppression by the author!). Nonetheless, Ajeluorou is adept at modulating the rhythm of the story to reflect the psychological states of his characters.
If the novel has a weakness, it is that some of the secondary characters feel underdeveloped. The focus is understandably on the central family and the abducted girls, but the broader community of Akwaga sometimes fades into the background.
This is perhaps a consequence of the book’s brevity; at just over a hundred pages, it does not have the space to explore every narrative thread in depth. Yet even this limitation can be read as a deliberate choice. The attack is so sudden, so overwhelming, that it leaves little room for the kind of leisurely character development found in longer works.
In the context of African conflict literature, Brides of Infidels sits alongside works such as Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation (2005), which explores the brutalisation of child soldiers, and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun (2006), which examines the human cost of the Biafran War (something we don’t usually like talking about as a country, alas!).
Ajeluorou’s contribution is distinct in its focus on gendered violence and the specific dynamics of contemporary terrorism in Nigeria. It also shares thematic affinities with memoirs like Clemantine Wamariya’s The Girl Who Smiled Beads(2018), which grapples with trauma, displacement, and the struggle to rebuild a life after violence.
What sets Ajeluorou’s work apart is its accessibility. While many novels about conflict are aimed at adult readers, Brides of Infidels has been marketed in some contexts as suitable for young adults. This raises interesting questions about how societies educate their youth about violence.
Ajeluorou seems to believe that shielding young people from harsh realities does them no favours. Instead, he offers a narrative that is honest but not gratuitous, painful but not despairing. It is a delicate balance, and he manages it with considerable skill.
The novel’s closing chapters gesture toward the possibility of healing, though Ajeluorou does not offer easy resolutions. Trauma lingers. Communities do not simply “move on”.
The survivors must confront not only their memories but also the social stigma that often accompanies return from captivity as well as the inadequacies of re-humanisation. In this sense, the novel is as much about the aftermath of violence as it is about the violence itself. It asks what it means to rebuild a life when the foundations have been shattered.
Ultimately, Brides of Infidels is a powerful, necessary book. It forces readers to confront uncomfortable truths about the world we live in, truths that are often obscured by the distance of geography or the numbing effect of repeated headlines, revived only when the country receives new appellations as a ‘country of concern’. Ajeluorou writes with compassion and clarity, refusing to sensationalise the suffering of his characters. Instead, he honours their humanity, their resilience, and their right to be remembered.
In a country where the news cycle moves quickly and tragedies are too often forgotten, Brides of Infidels stands as a reminder that behind every statistic lies a story. Ajeluorou has given voice to those stories, and in doing so, he has created a work that is both timely and timeless. It deserves to be read widely wherever readers are willing to engage with the difficult, necessary work of bearing witness.
- Dr Adeyemi, Editor, playwright, Theatre Director, Lecturer, and Publisher, is a theatre scholar and teacher with the University of East Anglia, London, UK. He is also President/Trustee of the African Theatre Association, AfTA. He can be reached at [email protected]