Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations: Plot Analysis and Characters: A Study Guide to Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations, #1
    Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations: Plot Analysis and Characters: A Study Guide to Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations, #1
    Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations: Plot Analysis and Characters: A Study Guide to Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations, #1
    Ebook90 pages1 hour

    Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations: Plot Analysis and Characters: A Study Guide to Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations, #1

    By Jorges P. Lopez

    4/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Africa has had a myriad of problems mostly caused by foreigners - from slavery to modern interference in governance through copu d' etats to intereference in government admistrations. For years, African writers have added their voices to the criticism of this. Paul B Vitta adds to these voices in his modern novel Fathers of Nations. This book, Plot Analysis and characters atempts to make the reader of this novel understand the conflicts(s) in the novel by seeing how the novel is crafted and the interreletionships between the characters which make them who they are. An understanding of this is crucial to the literary study of any novel.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJorges P. Lopez
    Release dateNov 20, 2023
    ISBN9798223352747
    Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations: Plot Analysis and Characters: A Study Guide to Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations, #1
    Author

    Jorges P. Lopez

    Jorges P. Lopez has been teaching Literature in high schools in Kenya and Communication at The Cooperative University in Nairobi. He has been writing Literary Criticism for more than fifteen years and fiction for just over ten years. He has contributed significantly to the perspective of teaching English as a Second Language in high school and to Communication Skills at the college level. He has developed humorous novellas in the Jimmy Karda Diaries Series for ages 9 to 13 which make it easier for learners of English to learn the language and the St. Maryan Seven Series for ages 13 to 16 which challenge them to improve spoken and written language. His interests in writing also spill into Poetry, Drama and Literary Fiction. He has written literary criticism books on Henrik Ibsen, Margaret Ogola, Bertolt Brecht, John Steinbeck, John Lara, Adipo Sidang' and many others.

    Read more from Jorges P. Lopez

    Related authors

    Related to Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations

    Titles in the series (3)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    General Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Related categories

    Reviews for Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations

    4/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Paul B. Vitta's Fathers of Nations - Jorges P. Lopez

      READING PAUL B. VITTA’S FATHERS OF NATIONS

      Introduction

      For decades, Africa has suffered from both foreign invasion and influence as well as under autocratic regimes of its own rulers. For centuries, Africa suffered enslavement through which her resources, material and human were mercilessly plundered and exploited to enrich foreign thieves. These resources built up empires in Europe and the Americas, enhanced the industrial revolution and funded two world wars. The appetites of these thieves led to colonization. After the so-called independence, most African governments, directly or by proxy, fell under the tutelage of former colonizers, often unwillingly. Later, they were forced to align with either side during the Western-capitalist versus Eastern-socialist icy period of the cold war, both of which sides were interested in the wanton exploitation of Africa’s resources in one way or another. This has little changed a hundred years after the First World War during which Africans properly became involved in the affairs of the rest of the world.  Over the unbelievable hundred and thirty-seven years during which foreign powers have competed to cannibalize Africa, the continent has continued to be a rudderless, directionless victim of greed. Literary writers – both African and foreign - have tried to diagnose – or misdiagnose, depending on your perspective - and prescribe remedies for the continent, the latter often with egocentric motives which make Africa’s problems even worse. African writers have either misdiagnosed her problems or been bought off to teach in the colonizer’s universities when it appears they are close to hitting the mark about Africa’s real problem – the continued cannibalization of her resources by one greedy ‘donor’ after another.

      In Fathers of Nations, Paul B. Vitta visits this issue and adds his voice to this general fray. His voice is a satirical criticism of African leaders and the role they play in adding to Africa’s problems. Many African heads of state have little idea of what their jobs are or ought to be. The rest deliberately do the opposite of what they ought to do. Foreigners actively help to distort the idea of ‘development’ by taking advantage of the situation – and often sabotaging Africa’s development agenda. Highlighting this is Paul B. Vitta’s mission in the satire, Fathers of Nations.

      The Author

      Paul B. Vitta was born in Tanzania. He studied for a PhD at the Emory University, later becoming a professor of Physics at the University of Dar es Salaam. For most of his life, he lived in Nairobi where he worked for the International Development Research Centre, IDRC as a regional senior program officer, later as Deputy Director. Later still, he worked for the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, UNESCO’s Nairobi office as director of the regional office for science and technology.

      The Plot

      In Summary

      A group of African experts, all Nobel laureates, are tasked with coming up with a solution to Africa’s problems – and they do. They come up with Way Omega, a guarantee that will free Africa of its endemic problems; poverty, coups, corruption and misrule. All African heads of state assemble at a summit in Banjul, the Gambia, to formally adopt Way Omega. Owing to his reputation on African matters, Dr. Abiola Afolabi, a Nigerian lecturer at the University of Ibadan, is invited to the summit to give advice on the adoption of Way Omega. Prior to this summit, while on a trip from America, Abiola meets Tad Longway, Director of Special Projects at the Agency for Governance and Development in Africa, AGDA, who convinces him to examine Path Alpha, an alternative to Way Omega. This, unlike Way Omega, emphasizes ‘agency...and will to change’ without which, Longway feels, Way Omega will just be an empty prescription for Africa’s problems, like many others before it. Longway also recruits Prof Karanja Kimani, Seif Tahir, Ngobile Melusi and Pastor Chineke Chiamaka, all disgruntled Africans from various countries with a bone to pick with their governments at home and their presidents thereof, to come to the Banjul summit to persuade the African heads of state to adopt Path Alpha in place of Way Omega. As it turns out, Longway wins but through that win, the author manages to lay bare the idiosyncrasies that have stymied and will continue to hinder development in Africa.

      Foreword

      The foreword foreshadows the events of the summit meeting to adopt Way Omega – a recent discovery by African experts on how to end African socio-economic woes. Confidential documents for the African leaders at the summit have leaked – and the guy caught with them has disappeared – but that is not the issue. The issue is that the African leaders have boycotted the closing ceremony for the summit due to disagreements had during the summit. Critics still feel that the summit was a success, especially because, the fact that the leaders could express what they felt proves the freedom of expression in the country. And that is a great thing! To use an oxymoron, it is one of the successes of the failed summit! This being the case, the narrator goes ahead to give his opinion of the summit in the story that unfolds. The story is therefore told in flashback.

      Chapter One – the summit

      Four strangers check into The Seamount Hotel in Banjul, the capital city of The Gambia, where a summit of leaders from all African countries is underway. The first is sixty-year-old Karanja Kimani, a Professor at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Nairobi. The second is Comrade Ngobile Melusi from Zimbabwe who is around seventy years old. The third is fifty-year-old Chineke Chiamaka, a pastor from Church Inside Africa in Lagos, Nigeria. The last is Engineer Seif Tahir, former employee of Ministry of Defense in Tripoli, Libya. All have a common mission unknown to each other and are unknowingly in different rooms at the same hotel. Karanja Kimani receives a strange call from a Nigerian who has left him a briefcase in his hotel room – as he does with the other four guests. The Nigerian tells him how to get the case open and asks him to acquaint himself with the contents of the briefcase.

      On his way to the summit, forty-five-year-old Nigerian author, Dr. Afolabi, is

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1