Cover

About the Author

PENGUIN BOOKS

WAITING FOR AN ANGEL

Helon Habila won the Caine Prize for African Writing 2001 (the ‘African Booker’) for the opening section of this, his first book. He is Writer-in-Residence at the University of East Anglia.

Title Page

Waiting for an Angel

HELON HABILA

PENGUIN BOOKS

Dedication

Dedication

For my family:

My mother, Alheri Habila,

My sisters, Ruth and Briskilla,

My brothers, Dauda, Sulaiman, Ezra, Obed, Filibus, Bitrus and Andrew,

And the memory of my father, Habila Ngalabak.

And for Sue.

Publisher’s Note

Parts of this book first appeared in somewhat different form in Prison Stories, first published in 2000 by Epik Books in Lagos. The opening section, under the title ‘Love Poems’, won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2001.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank certain people for their support in the course of bringing this book to reality. My cousin Bada, and his wife, Janet, and his mother-in-law, Ms Shatu Garba, thanks for your love and encouragement; Hannah Griffiths, thanks for being so indispensible; Simon Prosser, thanks for your invaluable suggestions and patience. I must also thank Nick and Helen Elam, Dan Jacobson, Baroness Nicholson, Jonathan Taylor, Jason Cowley, Huma Huarayan, and all the Caine Prize people for taking such a special interest in my writing. Thank you all.

Lomba

In the middle of his second year in prison, Lomba got access to pencil and paper and he started a diary. It was not easy. He had to write in secret, mostly in the early mornings when the night warders, tired of peeping through the door bars, waited impatiently for the morning shift. Most of the entries he simply headed with the days of the week; the exact dates, when he used them, were often incorrect. The first entry was in July 1997, a Friday.

Friday, July 1997

Today I begin a diary, to say all the things I want to say, to myself, because here in prison there is no one to listen. I express myself. It stops me from standing in the centre of this narrow cell and screaming at the top of my voice. It stops me from jumping up suddenly and bashing my head repeatedly against the wall. Prison chains not so much your hands and feet as it does your voice.