The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma is set in Akure, Nigeria and revolves around the relationships of four adolescent brothers. While their father is travelling for work, the boys take up a secret hobby -- fishing. They keep their mother in the dark about how they spend their time. One day the town crazy accosts them and tells Ikenna, the oldest, that he will suffer greatly and a fisherman will kill him. Unable to forget this ominous prophecy, the superstitious Ikenna becomes convinced that one of his brothers, newly fishermen, is the foretold murderer. He suffers from extreme paranoia and retreats into himself, eventually dividing his entire family.
The power of Abulu, the old man's, prophecy is astonishing. In a culture which commonly propagates superstition, Ikenna's preoccupation with the omen is understandable, but he is the one who decides to believe his brothers would murder him. He takes Abulu's idea and adopts it into his imagination, allowing fear complete control of his decisions. Rather than logically protecting himself from any potential threat presented by a specific brother, Ikenna considers them all equally guilty already, turning on them as if potential qualifies as action. Although Abulu plants the idea in his mind, Ikenna is ultimately responsible for how he responds.
The theme of fatherlessness connects the various facets of this narrative. Seeing as the inciting incident -- the brothers encountering Abulu -- occurs when their father is away, the arc of the plot revolves around this concept of fatherlessness. In other words, the boys get into mischief because suddenly they have no authority commanding them. They take advantage of the opportunity to seek out new experiences, a perfectly natural response, but when Ikenna gets in too deep in his paranoia he still feels as isolated as when his father was gone and he was in charge on his own. As the eldest, Ikenna bears the responsibility when his father is away. Having encountered a terrifying vision of his death while his father was unavailable, Ikenna continues to feel alone in dealing with his fear because he's ashamed to involve his dad, or worse yet he doesn't trust his dad either.
