DEDICATION
Dedicated to Tina Su Cooper, a U.S. woman whose husband, my editor Douglas Winslow Cooper, in his article entitled “Like a Plaintive Melody” wrote [in 2014] the following words expressing his profound grief though full of love to Tina Su Cooper, his wife:
Most mornings I sing to my beloved wife, as she lies immobile in the hospital bed we have at our home:
You were meant for me. I was meant for you.
Nature patterned you and when she was done,
You were all the sweet things rolled up in one.
You’re like a plaintive melody
That never lets me free,
For I’m content the angels must have sent you
And they meant you just for me.
******************
*“You Were Meant for Me (Broadway Melody of 1940)” by Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed; lyrics © EMI Music Publishing Co.
******************
This song captures the bitter-sweet nature of our current situation, happy to be together, sometimes sad that Tina’s ill-health has limited her so greatly. She has been quadriplegic and ventilator-dependent, fed and medicated through a gastric tube, for the past ten years, and she will be so for as long as she lives.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to express my profound gratitude to my editor, Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D., a former Harvard University professor, for his valuable contribution and support in editing this literary piece through his company, WriteYourBookWithMe.com
I also thank David Chidi Eberechi and his wife Esther Dave-Eberechi, for their financial support and encouragement offered to me which enabled me to realize this creative work of artistry.
Above all, I thank my lovely mother, Nwaiwu Juliana, and my wife, Chidinma Nwaiwu, who have helped me, encouraging me to write even when there was no hope of realizing this huge dream. Also thanks to my siblings Nwaiwu Gift, Nwaiwu Promise Nnamdi, Nwaiwu ThankGod Uchenna, Nwaiwu Temple Chizuru, Nwaiwu Confidence, Nwaiwu Happiness Chinyere, and my sister in-law Ogechi Nwaiwu and her children.
International Acclaim for Prisoners of Hope
In this well-crafted novella, minister and teacher Fortune E.C. Nwaiwu tells of the last days of respected Elder Levi, a man whose faith inspired many of his fellow church-goers, a man doomed to a premature death due to lung cancer and pneumonia, likely caused by his smoking habits.
Fortune Nwaiwu writes easily, clearly, wisely, and prolifically.
Dr. Douglas Winslow Cooper, USA
The author has really put a lot of effort into this piece of work. There seems to be a really multi-layered world developing here with unique characters and a hint of mystery to the plot. The text is quite moving and engaging. Such a moving piece of work, very scary! Well done.
Lee Ann from First Editing, USA.
Fortune E.C. Nwaiwu has an interesting story to tell with some incredibly compelling characters.
Adanta and Mildred have a lot of potential as characters. Levi is also interesting, and his illness/near death state provides a solid foundation for the story – and is an ideal springboard to let the other characters shine/tell their stories.
Ingrid Hall, Newcastle Upon Tyne UK.
The author's passion for the Christian doctrine, which shines so wonderfully throughout his text, provides the reader with a comforting balm against Levi's many earthly trials. It truly speaks to the fortitude of both Levi's character and faith that he can endure so much, yet ultimately declare in his sermon in Chapter 7, "Within this period of my suffering, I have learnt a lesson that sickness and pains are very significant in human existence for men to turn to God for salvation."
The elevated tone of the dialogue fits Levi's sermon so well. For instance, during the raid on Levi's house in the beginning of Chapter Seven, one of the hoodlums orders the wrongful murder of Rodwell by saying, "See the father of the bridegroom." A bit later, when Bianca is being stabbed to death, she shouts, "You are a cursed beast!" before dying. Readers are taken along the chaos of the attack when the characters are speaking so eloquently. The hoodlum may be more likely to just say, "Kill him," and Bianca would perhaps be more likely to be screaming in pain at the knife in her body. In this way, the tone matches the brutality of the scene, drawing the readers in more easily. The more emotional investment the readers have in the scenes, and thus in Levi's story overall, the more powerfully they can be inspired by the strength of Levi's faith in the face of adversity.
Erin McKnight, USA
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
Fortune Emerence Chinemerem Nwaiwu is a published author of both literary and religious books.
He did not come into writing because he was good at writing or he knew what to write. His writing skill came up as a manifestation of God's benevolent gift bestowed on him.
When he was an undergraduate student reading works written by people, especially Horace Walpole, Wole Soyika, and William Shakespeare, he desired to be a great author like them, and then he prayed to God to make him a great author.
If he has nothing to write about and puts his pen on paper, some ideas and novel thoughts flow out from his imagination. After writing a Bible study guide titled Echoes of the Widows, he was touched, having felt the pains and agony of widowhood, then he set out to extend such sufferings and griefs of which widows experience into his novella titled Widows In The Web Of Grief.
He has written many unpublished books. Due to lack of funds, he is unable to publish some of them them. The Devil in the Cathedral: A Shadow of Death was published in 2016, along with Echoes of the Widows with 400 copies produced for each.
Since there was no finance or help, he decided not to write anymore…until Dr. Douglas Winslow Cooper, a former professor at Harvard University, USA, helped by writing the Foreword to Widows in The Web of Grief. Dr. Cooper’s assistance then motivated the author to write this heart-rending novella, Prisoners of Hope, a book Dr. Cooper has edited according to American conventions, for which the author thanks him.
The author can be reached at:
F.E.C. Nwaiwu
Port Harcourt
Nigeria
Fortune.nwaiwu.fn@gmail.com
FOREWORD
We are all going to die, eventually. Even though we are hoping for heaven, we are not eager to die immediately. We still have much to do while here on Earth, and we hope it will meet with favor in God’s eyes. We are strengthened by hope and yet confined within the limits our hopes and beliefs set for us; we are “prisoners of hope,” in author Fortune Nwaiwu’s captivating phrase.
In this well-crafted novella, minister and teacher Fortune E.C. Nwaiwu tells of the last days of respected Elder Levi, a man whose faith inspired many of his fellow church-goers, a man doomed to a premature death due to lung cancer and pneumonia, likely caused by his smoking habits.
During Levi’s last days, much occurs, including the sexual abuse of a God-fearing woman, the making and breaking of marriage plans, and a shoot-out between the police and some murderous kidnappers. In the end, the wisdom of her parents is confirmed for one of the central characters.
Fortune Nwaiwu writes easily, clearly, wisely, and prolifically. I have been pleased to edit his book to fit the format expected by American readers, which I hope will be attractive to others all over the world.
Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D.
Former Faculty Member, Harvard University
WriteYourBookWithMe.com
Walden, NY, USA
If you want to read the main text, contact the author via: fortune.nwaiwu.fn@gmail.com or
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
FOREWORD
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
COMMENTARY
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMMENTARY
PRISONERS OF HOPE is a title alluding to what is communicated in Scripture, Zechariah 9:11-12, where God in His filial love proclaims freedom and deliverance of “prisoners of hope” from a dungeon. We see that everyman is a prisoner hoping for good, seeking to be disentangled from undesirable circumstances of life. More important is the attitude that a man displays during the period of his optimism. Trials and troubles of life can disorganize man and blur his vision. He can either survive such odds or die in perilous circumstances, but his hope to do no wrong should be a center for all consolation.
This heart-rending story of Levi depicts him as a man afflicted by his love for smoking, snorting of snuff, and drinking of hard gin. He, in fact, suffers from drug addiction which has drastically depleted his strength. He is then diagnosed to be a lung cancer patient and is later discovered to be suffering a memory loss as well. Despite that medical experts have predicted a specific day Levi would die, it is his hope of seeing his Maker face-to-face that keeps him living. Though the journey may bear him to a very far distance, he expects no sad farewell from his relatives. This idea seems to allude to Alfred Lord Tennyson's poem, "Crossing the Bar, where the poet-persona expresses his profound hope and willingness to embrace death, believing that there is existence of life after death.
One may feel sad for Levi's life when he was asked to go back home from the hospital to die due to his poor health, and one may sympathize with other patients in the hospital who see themselves prejudiced and muted in a segregated room of the medical center as “soon-to-be-dying” patients. These patients suffer along with Levi, and they hope to be healed along with him as well. They're portrayed as people with only a thematic function, causing the tragic coarseness in the story. The author seems to include them in the story to stimulate grief and make his readers have intense sorrows. The author, Fortune E.C. Nwaiwu, uses multiple sensory reporting techniques in writing, telling and description. He allows his characters to express their feelings, telling each other how they feel about an issue through dialogues, and then he describes what each of the characters feels through the voice of Venerable Peterson. For instance:
"Sir, is there no other thing to do to save his life?" Fabian cried.
"What I told you is the best thing your father can do to regain his life in heaven.... He who fails to repent in his sick bed has failed to secure a place in heaven," Dr. Smart advised.
Though the entire work is reported by a first-person narrator, there seems to be an intrusion of an omniscient narrator's voice in some parts of the text. This supports the thesis that the author uses multiple voices in narrating his story, a fine stylistic technique judiciously utilised to report that pain affects virtually all in this literary heart-wrenching piece.
Having a limited time to live on Earth, Levi then surrenders to God. He is seen as a realistic man, seizing what little opportunity he has to reconcile with God; he does not want to miss heaven.
The author emphasizes that every patient, technically termed "prisoners," should ponder their lives, making conscious efforts to repent and be ready to meet their God. This idea of man reconciling with his Maker before breathing his last is conveyed by Venerable Peterson, who has played a prime role in encouraging and praying for Levi during his dire heath challenges. Even when members of his church estranged themselves from Levi, Peterson does not abandon Levi.
Peterson helps in discovering the root cause of Levi's problem, fraud. As a banker, Levi has defrauded CODERABIA Bank, and run away. He was then cursed by his boss, a curse that has devastated his life and his family. Levi’s ill-gotten money was used to build his house, buy a car, and add to his property. He then developed the habits of drinking and smoking. But now his life has retrogressed, and most of his valuable properties, including his car, are sold to pay off the hospital bills. And yet his heath is deteriorating. Immediately, Levi is discharged from the hospital, and it then becomes apparent to him that he would soon die.
A story can change at the last, dying minute, either for good or for bad. In all, Levi's story could be told in either way. At a dying minute, he receives a divine healing after delivering a powerfully touching homily, and at his latter days, as fate may have it, he is abducted and killed during the period of gun-shot-exchange between police and the kidnappers.
The latter days of Levi’s life are full of pain and grief, transmitted even to the nerves of the readers. He had died twice before receiving the final fatal gunshot that claims his life. This mode of Levi’s dying and resurrection does not depict him as a coward, but a man God's favor is upon. The only thing he gains out of his excruciating pain in his last hours is making himself ready to cross to the other realm of life, where he anticipates seeing his Creator face-to-face. With such faith, Levi hopes, although like a prisoner in a dungeon, that there is life after death.
Levi is a tragic hero, one portrayed to fit in classical and modern characterization with his tragic flaws such as drug abuse and inordinate passion – such a refusing to grant Cornell's desire of marrying his daughter, Mildred.
This powerful heart-rending story has been read by over 5000 people all over the world. Enjoy!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fortune Emerence Chinemerem Nwaiwu is a fertile writer of both literary and religious texts, a professional tutor of Literature-in-English and a clergyman born to the family of Rev. Sampson Nwaiwu in Umuezu Egbeke Etche Rivers State of Nigeria. He earned his Master of Arts (MA) in Applied English Linguistics from University of Calabar, Cross River State and was also educated at Rivers State College of Education, Port-Harcourt, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree in English Education. His works include: The Weeping Voice: A Basket of Injustice, The Whispering Hope: A Liturgic Compendium of Sermons on Pulpit, The Devil in the Cathedral, Echoes of Widows, Widows in the Web of Grief, and Tragic Errors of the Christians.
The author has passion for reading and teaching. He is zealous in all his writing endeavors to speak for the masses, the downtrodden who are marooned in frustration and grief, uplifting their hopes to get out of the condition in which fate has trapped them.
The author is currently working with Rivers State Ministry of Education.
Contact him via:
Email: fortune.nwaiwu.fn@gmail.com
Blog Site: https:// fortuneemerencechinemerem.blogspot.com
Blog Site for his Sermons: https:// fortuneemerence.blogspot.com
The Blurb
We are all going to die, eventually. Even though we are hoping for heaven, we are not eager to die immediately. We still have much to do while here on Earth, and we hope it will meet with favor in God’s eyes. We are strengthened by hope and yet confined within the limits our hopes and beliefs set for us; we are “prisoners of hope,” in author Fortune Nwaiwu’s captivating phrase.
In this well-crafted novella, minister and teacher Fortune E.C. Nwaiwu tells of the last days of respected Elder Levi, a man whose faith inspired many of his fellow church-goers, a man doomed to a premature death due to lung cancer and pneumonia, likely caused by his smoking habits.
During Levi’s last days, much occurs, including the sexual abuse of a God-fearing woman, the making and breaking of marriage plans, and a shoot-out between the police and some murderous kidnappers. In the end, the wisdom of her parents is confirmed for one of the central characters.
I have been pleased to edit his book to fit the format expected by American readers, which I hope will be attractive to others all over the world.
Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D.
Former professor at Harvard University
WriteYourBookWithMe.com
Walden, NY, USA
A Brief Survey of Books Written by the Author
_ The Devil in the Cathedral: A Shadow of Death is a metaphor of lamentation that bemoans the failure of a much looked-up-to leader and that of the led who fail to keep a code of Ten Commandments. This leader Dr. EJANG, who emerges with the rare opportunity which providence gives the minority, squanders it leaving his people not any better than he met them. The play is then a political satire just as it uses the Christian religious parlance to periscope the acts of the individual and the society at large as the cathedral. The irony is that whereas it is Christians that should worship in the cathedral, the people are possessed by the devil himself who rules over their hearts and therefore calls the shots that happen in the universe of discourse of the play to wit, bloodletting, violence, rape, prostitution, political intrigues, betrayal and vendetta. The repercussion is that ʹRABIA, the Niger Delta which should have been benefitted by the facts that it is an oil-producing political sub zone and that it produced the president, is worse off. Events in the play show that neither fact is a point of advantage to the ʹRABIANS.
The play, like the biblical John the Baptist poses the question, is Dr. EJANG the one who is to come, the chosen one, the Messiah, or the ʹRABIANS are to look for another? This question hangs on the lips of everybody till the end when it becomes apparent that the Messiah is yet to come.
DR. GODWIN USHIE
Department of English and Literary Studies
University of Calabar, Cross River State.
_‘My God, my God! Why have you forsaken us?’ Paralleling the words of Jesus Christ when on the cross, the plea of three African widows sentenced to death seemed to go unheard by their God. Just as the psalm from which those words arose, Psalm 22, ends by re-affirming God’s care and protection, so does this powerful novel give its readers hope that God’s will shall be done, and it shall be to the good.
The author has set out to show the terrible injustices heaped upon women who become widows in certain backward areas of the country. As the story unfolds, the reader is struck by the multitude of foolish beliefs held by the members of such communities. One can only hope that education and Christianity can off-set the terrible influence of certain tribal traditions. As such traditions are displaced and replaced, allowance must be made for the impacts of those changes on the lives of those who have been faithful to their early upbringing. Here, a man with four wives must separate from three of them to fulfil his Christian duty, but the remaining three are cast into the base status of widows. In advanced societies, such women are not discriminated against, but in parts of Africa, they still are, and their fates can be horrible.
Fortune Emerence Chinemerem Nwaiwu deserves much credit for bringing the plight of such widows to the attention of his audience in a novel that is enlightened, enlightening, and engaging. These women should not, shall not, be forsaken.
Douglas Winslow Cooper, Ph.D.
Writer, Author Coach, Former Harvard University Professor
Walden, NY, USA
_
_
_
No comments:
Post a Comment