What is Lesley Arimah’s Skinned all about?

By now you know Skinned took the Caine Prize for writing, as the Nigerian author was announced as the winner at a ceremony held on Monday night in London, in which her story was described as a “a bold and unsettling tale of bodily autonomy and womanhood, and the fault lines along which solidarities are formed and broken.”

So what is the story all about?

Synopsis

Skinned revolves around Ejem, a lady trying to make her way around a world of have and have-nots, the covered, and the uncovered.

In her society, at around the time a girl gets into puberty, she gets uncovered. This means literally undressing her, and she will walk around stark naked until a man claims her as his wife. In this world, girls get their clothing from their fathers or from their husbands. It is a grave offense to buy your own clothes as a girl.

Ejem and her ilk have to endure the jeers and leers of men who are always clothed. And it’s hard to keep covered women as friends because their husbands could pop in any time.

While it is the law to remain naked, it is hard to remain employed in mainstream jobs when such workplaces are unwelcoming to such naked women, especially those who are advancing in years.

Most uncovered women are, ironically, said to be working in textile factories.

As the story unfolds, it emerges that these are problems only facing poor, uncovered girls; the parents of rich girls can clothe their daughters in “father-clothes” until they have “wife-clothes”.

Or, as one character puts it, “When you have as much money as I do, you exist above every law.”

The Osu

While the plight of these uncovered women is plain to see, there’s an even greater suffering.

There are people of the osu caste.

We need to get back to the real world for context here.

Among the Igbo of eastern Nigeria, there are two castes; the Nwadiala and the Osu. The former are the freeborn and masters, the latter outcasts if not slaves. If there were human sacrifices to be made, the Osu were used. For instance, two osus would be buried alongside a chief in ancient Igboland to serve him in the next life. During times of pestilence, animals or osus would be tied at the town’s gate to ward of pestilence. Often too, the osu were dedicated to the many deities the Igbo believed in. They and their descendants for all times belonged to the deity/shrine.  

Chinua Achebe wrote of it in No Longer at Ease, there have been attempts over the past many years to eradicate the caste system, but it clearly is a lingering issue in today’s eastern Nigeria.

Just last month, a governor was making yet another appeal to eradicate the caste system.  

Much like the real world osu, the osu in Skinned suffer silently; they are the ones relegated to the menial chores, they aren’t allowed to interact with others. They are neither meant to be seen, nor heard.

Africa Global News Publication