Blessings - Chukwuebuka Ibeh
“Just dance, Obi.” – Ekene (Obiefuna's brother)
Oh, how it must feel to live in a world where you can be anything but yourself.
Obi (Obiefuna) has always been queer; visibly so. As his father once remarked to his mother, “That boy, he is abnormal.” While his brother and peers loved football, Obi was quiet and self-effacing.
The one area he stood out in was dance and he wasn’t just good at it, he was brilliant. Crowds would gather wherever he performed, their cheers only deepening his father’s disapproval. In a moment of fury, his father once asked if he was “a woman in a man’s skin.” But in his mother’s eyes, Obi could do no wrong. She cherished his gentleness, his empathy; in him, she found a companion and a confidant.
Everything shifts when Obi’s father brings home a new apprentice, Aboy. Their closeness awakens something unfamiliar and frightening in Obi—feelings he’s never had to confront. When an intimate moment between them is discovered by his father, Obi’s fate is sealed. He is sent away to a remote Christian boarding school, abruptly torn from his mother and the only home he has ever known.
At school, Obi learns to survive by hiding. Fear and shame shape him into someone he can barely recognise. In trying to protect himself, he betrays not only himself but also those like him. His constant paranoia, the dread of being found out, is palpable. As readers, we’re drawn into his fear; we carry his anxiety, day after day, year after year.
Meanwhile, back home, his mother is quietly unravelling. She doesn’t understand why her son was taken from her, and while carrying that heartbreak, she also battles a serious illness she tells hides from Obi.
When Obi finally finishes school, we begin to hope for his liberation. He gradually finds a community of people like him; those who offer the kind of safety, understanding, and love he’s never known. But how does one fully love or breathe in a country that doesn’t just reject you, but hunts you?
Still, amid the brutality, Blessings offers glimmers of tenderness: acts of kindness, of friendship, of quiet resistance. There is pain, but also grace.
This book was a gut-wrenching, lyrical way to begin my year. Chukwuebuka Ibeh writes with the cadence of poetry, weaving together grief, shame, hope, and love into an unforgettable debut. Blessings deepened my empathy and reminded me what it means to be seen and what it costs not to be.
In the end, Ekene’s words, "Just dance, Obi", echo still, not just a brother’s encouragement, but a quiet insistence that Obi, despite everything, deserves joy.