The Asili Store
Available November 2007
O Se Sango, which means in Yorùbá, “Thank you, Shango,” is my first novel and has been three years in the making. It began as a series of short stories developed around the idea of the descent of a deity to the earth in an incarnate form. As this is by no means a unique idea, my particular twist on the subject was to select an Òrìshà from the pantheon of Yorùbá deities and charge him with the task of opening up a newer, straighter spiritual path to oneness or unity, the ultimate aim of all spiritual journeys, with “All there is,” Olódùmaré, the Great Mystery.
Olódùmaré is described by the faithful as the source of Odu (the entire corpus of two hundred and fifty-six sections of Ifá scripture), the source of form in the universe, the “creator, cause and origin of all things.” Olódùmaré is All There Is, and is believed to be the most powerful force in the universe for whom “nothing is too great or too small, below or beyond to accomplish.” The powers of Obas (kings or chiefs), ancestors, elders, witches, sorcerers, herbalists, medicine men, spirit beings, demons, etc., are all derived from Olódùmaré and are limited and limitable by the Great Mystery. The Yorùbá believe that all good and bad take their origin from Olódùmaré. Olódùmaré’s knowledge is incomparable and has no equal.
The Òrìshà Shango (Shango) also known as the Spirit of Lightning and the Òrìshà of thunder and lightning is an elevated ancestor of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. One of the most prominent Òrìshàs in Yoruba culture, especially in the African Diaspora, he is the original owner of the tablets of Ifa (the Odu) and traded them to the Òrìsà Orúnmìlà, the Witness of destiny, for the gift of dance. He is Olódùmaré’s prosecutor and dispenser of justice. Shango is seen as one of the most powerful of all Yoruba Òrìshàs. A former Oyo (Nigeria) Oba (king) and warrior, Shango was a powerful, successful, and perhaps capricious and unreliable ruler who had the amazing ability to throw lightning bolts during battle. On one occasion, while practicing his magic, Shango accidentally hit his own palace and killed many of his own people, including several wives and children. In his remorse, he committed suicide and descended into the realm of Death. He became an Òrìshà after seducing and impregnating the eternal virgin daughter of the original ancestor of the Yoruba people in the domain of death, thus, it was said, bringing life from death.
It is this Shango, who by legend was a profligate debaucher, wife-stealer, and abuser of magic, who incarnates as Olódùmaré’s avatar in a little village in a parallel universe that bears a remarkable resemblance to north central Louisiana in the mid 19th century. He is born aware of who he is, but requires time to complete the merger of his human and Òrìshà natures. He is raised by the village wise woman, Maggie, who brought him into the world. His mother did not survive his birth and his grieving father disowned him. Maggie, who was the leader of an African wisdom teaching community and a “child” (a devotee) of the Òrìshà Eshu Elegbara, becomes aware that this child is much more than he seems.
What people are saying about O Se Sango!
…I couldn't stop reading until I was done--which means I lost an entire day’s work--but it was well worth it. It was perfect! The "surprise" ending was so beautiful that it changed my entire day. Baba (Shango) is the invigorating force behind change...so it is fitting that he would be the harbinger of it in this novel. I think it is beautiful, from both a spiritual standpoint, and from an intellectual one. Anytime you can excite a corporate tax attorney, who doesn't read fiction at all (although I do keep a copy of [Octavia Butler's] Fledgling on my bookcase), consider it a red letter day.
--Veronica Bennu, Esq.,Tax Attorney, Findlay, Ohio
…I couldn’t put the book down. Professor McNair has told an engaging story and in doing so, has provide so much information for those of us hungry for African spirituality. The Orisha come alive in this book. In the context of a coming of age drama, McNair has outlined steps for coming of age spiritually in the expanding worldview of African Cosmogony. This is a great read!
--Dr. Morris R. Johnson, Professor History and African American History, Miami, Florida
…there is so much in this story that makes it hard to set down—the extended development of characters, the careful setting of the scenery, location and places, and the detailed explanation of and working up of the dual nature of each of the significant characters throughout the story. All of these things, along, of course, with the development of the storyline—the “plot” of the story, make for compelling reading.…the continued expansion of each of the characters’ development as each one is blended with its spirit figure and the resulting necessary explanation of the nature and meaning of each thus ‘new’ dual personality creates an interesting, if complex, revealing of the story’s development… It was a privilege to have been able to read this book.
--Fred Wolven, Poet, Professor of English (Retired), Homestead, Florida
"It couldn't be an easy task to blend the often ornate mysticism of the African pantheon with the earthbound life of people close to the land; but Professor Joseph McNair has done just that in his novel 'O Se Shango'. In an amazing tale that juxtaposes real-life individuals and their Orisha counterparts, Professor McNair conjures an unfolding drama the reader can't resist witnessing. And the characters -- whether as divinities or as ordinary men and women -- serve to remind us continually of our own weaknesses, as well as the strengths we all can summon, if we choose.
--Dr. C.M. Clark, Poet and Professor of English, Miami, Florida
"In Oshe Shango, Joseph McNair takes us back to the roots with Orisha worship that sustained and strengthened our ancestors throughout the Middle Passage and their captivity on plantations in the Antebellum South. McNair contributes to an original African-based North American magical realism and fantasy that shines with the work of Henry Dumas, Randall Kenan, Nalo Hopkinson, and Octavia Butler."
--Reginald L. Lockett, Poet, Professor of English, Oakland, California
Great praise for O Se Sango! Joseph McNair is a scholar, a novelist, and more importantly a maker of myths, and there are many good things to say about his new book O Se Sango. It has adventure and magic. It takes us on a journey of the unknown. The text itself is a creative embroidery of present day adventure informed by ancient and mythic rediscoveries, and it has as its two primary protagonists Maggie and Shango, the latter being a man-god, the modern incarnation of the Orisha deity Sango and the former the sympathetic and beloved diviner, or perhaps medicine woman, who adopts and raises this special child to manhood, whereupon he grows into, or rather learns to accept, the birthright and responsibility of his human Godhood. This is the adventure, then, of the African god as man. And that is the key to what makes this book not only a good read but important. It sits at the top of a very special list, being the only one of its kind for the African Diaspora. With its necessary back stories, its dependence on and allusions to Yoruba archetypes, and yes even its scholarly glossary, O Se Sango retells, or actually reclaims, in lively fictive prose the primary Orisha myth of cosmogony whence came many of the myriad and diverse extant and ancestral Afro-centric religions—Ifa, Voodoo, Obeah, Santaeria, and the host of others. In other words, this book does for the Orisha what the Arturian legends do for England and the dark ages, collects the important myths and belief systems in a single archetypal narrative context.
--Preston L. Allen, Novelist, Professor of English, Miami Florida
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