Measuring Time is Helon Habila’s most complete novel. Beautifully crafted and complex, the novel is set in rural Keti, Northern Nigeria and tells the story of twin brothers Mamo and Lamamo, who grow up together in the village, but whose lives eventually follow very different trajectories. Mamo, the first born, the thoughtful, the “silent observer”, who inherited his mother’s sickle cell anemia (an illness that puts him in a precarious relation with time), becomes a history teacher at Keti community school and also a local historian. Lamamo, the healthier, stronger, and more adventurous one, leaves his hometown to become a soldier, a rebel, a fighter in the service of different liberation armies across the African …
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Citation: Nnodim, Rita. "Measuring Time". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 19 July 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=24875, accessed 22 November 2024.]
