Felix N. Ogoanah's novel, The Return of Ameze, has the potentiality of stamping its authority on the Nigerian literary landscape sooner than later. This is not only because of the quality of the novel's topicality, but for the sheer virtuoso and pathos with which events in the novel are woven.

While many artists have 'often sacrificed art in pursuit of topicality, a great many have exhibited craftsmanship in the handling of events in their society. They have deployed considerable stylistic tour de force and shown a penchant for harmonizing the why with the how. Ogoanah belongs to the latter. It’s significant that the novel calls for restraint in our pursuit of lucre.

The author in the novel addresses the disturbing issue of “ Trafficking Women to Europe for prostitution purposes.” But more than anything else, he focuses on the horrific and intense psychological trauma that women are subjected to in the process. And the need to discourage this psychological and moral subjection determines the author’s narrative vision. He also creates a young woman called Ameze who has big dreams of a wonderful future. Ameze vows to remain a virgin until she gets married. Against the background.

of poverty, disease and squalor, Ameze lives her dreams, falls in love with a young
graduate called Frank who vows to marry no other person than her. But because dreams, like roses, do die under the elephant grass, people and events conspire against her and she is soon forced against her wish to go to Europe-Italy, she travels to become the breadwinner of her family; comprising her ailing father, her mother and her two sisters. Told by a society woman, sponsor and trafficker, Madam Vee, that her daughter would be involved in a decent work in Italy to bail the family out of poverty, Ameze's fathcr, Okoro, is too blind to read between the lines. Even if he does, the fact that other people's children had travelled abroad and brought fortunes to their families makes him allow Ameze travel to the European country. Madam Vee takes on every responsibility of sponsoring Ameze to Italy because she is convinced that Amezc's beauty is worth putting huge stakes on.

When Ameze arrives Italy, the story about a decent job changed. Rather, she is introduced to prostitution. But unlike other girls, she refuses to cooperate with the men Madam Vee brings to her for sex. She goes through a tortuous process when she is gang-raped by three men as facilitated by Madam Vee who also records the action with a camera.

The picture Ogoanah paints of this episode invokes pity.
Ameze is thus violated, with stains of blood all over her. And as she groans in pain, she thinks and realizes she has eventually lost her virginity.

'They have taken it! She cries. 'Nothing is left. I'm no longer different from the girl in the street!' (p243)
Ogoanah's narrative style in The Return of Ameze is quite intricate. Also, the author weaves his tale like a spider weaves his web, creating labyrinthine patterns, which often gleam like a mirror in the sun. But the narrative is deliberately fragmented, with episodes from the past brought in at intervals.

Much of the suspense in the novel derives from the author’s ability to sustain the reader’s interest. Although coming from a different linguistic background from the characters in the novel, the author achieves considerable approximation in his treatment of linguistic nuances. The choice of certain words from the characters' linguistic repertoire is quite helpful to the reader who may be encountering the cultural background of the novel for the first time.

The Return of Ameze is a simple tale told mightily. It is as disturbing and haunting talc which, like the reality of its source, is most deserving of our attention. It is hoped that those who read the novel would not only see something personal to take away with them, but would also have the larger conviction that with a paradigm shift, the nightmare of female trafficking which has for almost two decades haunted Nigeria would one day be eradicated.