''Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria'' is a 2012 non-fiction memoir and travelogue by

Noo Saro-Wiwa Noo Saro-Wiwa is a British-Nigerian author, noted for her travel writing. She is the daughter of Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. Education Noo Saro-Wiwa was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, and grew up in Ewell, Surrey in England. She attended ...

. In it Saro-Wiwa travels across

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

, re-discovering the country of her birth. The book has been compared to those of many other diasporic writers.

Plot

The journey is made in the shadow of the death of her father

Ken Saro-Wiwa Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa (10 October 1941 – 10 November 1995) was a Nigerians, Nigerian writer, teacher, television producer, and social rights activist. Saro-Wiwa was a member of the Ogoni people, an ethnic minority in Nigeria whose homeland ...

, an environmental activist who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995. One of the places that Saro-Wiwa visits is the books eponymous Trans Wonderland - an amusement park created as a Nigerian counter to Disney World. Beyond the poignant frivolity of the amusement park, Saro-Wiwa visits Nigeria's major cities -

Lagos Lagos ( ; ), or Lagos City, is a large metropolitan city in southwestern Nigeria. With an upper population estimated above 21 million dwellers, it is the largest city in Nigeria, the most populous urban area on the African continent, and on ...

Ibadan Ibadan (, ; ) is the Capital city, capital and most populous city of Oyo State, in Nigeria. It is the List of Nigerian cities by population, third-largest city by population in Nigeria after Lagos and Kano (city), Kano, with a total populatio ...

Kano Kano may refer to: Places *Kano State, a state in Northern Nigeria *Kano (city), a city in Nigeria, and the capital of Kano State ** Kingdom of Kano, a Hausa kingdom between the 10th and 14th centuries ** Sultanate of Kano, a Hausa kingdom betwee ...

Maiduguri Maiduguri ( ) is the capital and the largest city of Borno State in north-eastern Nigeria, on the continent of Africa. The city sits along the seasonal Ngadda River which disappears into the ''Firki'' swamps in the areas around Lake Chad. Maid ...

Port Harcourt Port Harcourt (Pidgin: ''Po-ta-kot or Pi-ta-kwa)'' is the capital and largest city of Rivers State in Nigeria. It is the fifth most populous city in Nigeria after Lagos, Kano, Ibadan and Benin. It lies along the Bonny River and is locate ...

. She also describes trips to the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Sukur, as well as visiting the

National Museum A national museum can be a museum maintained and funded by a national government. In many countries it denotes a museum run by the central government, while other museums are run by regional or local governments. In the United States, most nati ...

, the restored shrine in

Osogbo Osogbo (also known as ''Oṣogbo'', and seldomly as ''Oshogbo'') is a city in Nigeria. It became the capital city of Osun State in 1991. Osogbo city seats the Headquarters of both Osogbo Local Government Area (situated at Oke-Baale Area of th ...

, and the Slave Relic Museum in

Badagry Badagry, also spelled Badagri, (Gun language, Gun: Gbagli) is a coastal town and Local Government Areas of Nigeria, Local Government Area (LGA) in Lagos State, Nigeria. It is quite close to the city of Lagos, and located on the north bank of Po ...

. The book also focuses on everyday details, such as riding okadas. It is also critical of the oil industry.

Reception

Parallels have been drawn between ''Looking for Transwonderland'' and ''

Americanah ''Americanah'' is the third novel by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It was published on May 14, 2013, by Alfred A. Knopf. It won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 2013. ''Americanah'' recounts the story of a youn ...

'' by

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (born Grace Ngozi Adichie; 15 September 1977) is a Nigerians, Nigerian writer of novels, short stories, poem, and children's books; she is also a book reviewer and literary critic. Her most famous works include ''Purple ...

and '' Travellers'' by Helon Habila, as well as '' The Atlantic Sound'' by

Caryl Phillips Caryl Phillips (born 13 March 1958) is a Kittitian-British novelist, playwright and essayist. Best known for his novels (for which he has won multiple awards), Phillips is often described as a Black Atlantic writer, since much of his fictional ...

, as well as '' All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes'' by

Maya Angelou Maya Angelou ( ; born Marguerite Annie Johnson; April 4, 1928 – May 28, 2014) was an American memoirist, poet, and civil rights activist. She published seven autobiographies, three books of essays, several books of poetry, and is credi ...

, '' The Devil that Danced on the Water'' by

Aminatta Forna Aminatta Forna is a British writer of Scottish and Sierra Leonean ancestry. Her first book was a memoir, '' The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest'' (2002). Since then she has written four novels: '' Ancestor Stones'' (2006), ...

and '' Red Dust Road'' by

Jackie Kay Jacqueline Margaret Kay (born 9 November 1961) is a Scottish poet, playwright, and novelist, known for her works ''Other Lovers'' (1993), ''Trumpet'' (1998) and ''Red Dust Road'' (2011). Kay has won many awards, including the Somerset Maugham A ...

. Saro-Wiwa has also described how they are in a vanguard of European writers publishing travelogues on African countries; however other African writers have used the form, including Pẹlu Awofẹsọ. Her approach has also been characterised as a "diasporic travel-writer", whose views are formed by the

liminality In anthropology, liminality () is the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they ...

of their experience as a Nigerian who grew up in England. The book has also been characterised as a work of Afropolitanism.

Recognition

In 2012, the work was featured as BBC Radio 4's

Book of the Week ''Book of the Week'' is a long-running BBC Radio 4 series, first broadcast in 1998. It features daily readings from an abridged version of a selected book read over five or occasionally ten weekday episodes. Each episode is approximately 15 min ...

. The same year it was featured by the ''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...

'' as one of their travel books of the year. In 2017, the book featured on

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

's list "365 Books by Women Authors to Celebrate International Women's Day All Year2.

Translations

* . Rome: 66thand2nd. 9 July 2015. .

References

{{Authority control 2012 non-fiction books Nigerian non-fiction books