Furo Wariboko awoke this morning to find that dreams can lose their way and turn up on the wrong side of sleep.
That opening of the novel may ring a little familiar to some readers. Tonally, if not directly in terms of shared words, it carried with it the sense of the opening line of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. And well it should since, like that story, this book is about the consequences of a truly starring overnight transformation. Furo Wariboko has just awakened to discover that the black Nigerian who went to bed has woken still a Nigerian man, at least.
“Frank Whyte, Frank Whyte,” he repeated, blinking to clear his eyes.
He had found his name.
About two-thirds of the way through, Furo reaches a juncture in his experience as a black Nigerian with white skin at which he decides that this new point in his life with a new job and new identity it is time to adopt a new name - a name more appropriate to his circumstances. Frank has the same first initial as his first name and his immediate impression is that the same would hold true for his new last name. He tries out West and Williams before hitting up the most obviously perfect last name. The unusual use of the “y” instead of the “i” only adds a deeper layer to its exquisite perfection.
His idea of what he was, of who the world saw him as, was shaken by the blemish on his backside.
The title of the story does not exist merely on some metaphorical level, but is actually quite a literal representation of the Fur. He wakes up one day to find that his skin has turned from black to white; he is for all anyone knows on the surface of things, a white man. Because, of course, since he is a man with Caucasian skin pigmentation, he actually is a white man. Except, of course, he isn’t. But the only evidence—apart from the fact that his transformation was not extended to his personality, memory, shared cultural memories and experiences—of his blackness is his behind. Which, apparently, did not for some reason take part in the biological transmogrification.
“For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.”
Each new section of the novel commences with a quote from another writer. The opening section features a quote from Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, for example. The quote above commences the section that begins immediately after Furo has changed his name to Frank Whyte. It is wise to pay attention to these quotes because they acts as clues helping define the thematic course the book is taking in that particular section. Fritz Fanon was a psychiatrist among many other things and the book referenced here is an in-depth examination of black identity—the very concept of Blackness—is first constructed and then reproduced.
