44 pages • 1 hour read
How Beautiful We Were
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Chapters 10-11Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “Juba”
Juba would have been happy to keep going towards death if Jakani had not brought him back. He lost and gained something while on the other side. Since that day, he’s seen the world like a surrealist and made sense of it through drawing. Juba questions what it means to be free. He thinks that Thula’s face when she is protesting is freedom. He was with his sister when she first met with Kosawa’s new lawyer, Carlos. The lawyer agreed to work on a contingency—only getting paid a share of any winnings so the village could afford him. His idea is to use the Alien Tort Statute, claiming that Pexton was negligent in its approach to mining. Even if Kosawa wins, they will get little money.
Juba tells Thula that she could stop fighting now, but she does not want to. Juba feels that Thula is sacrificing her well-being, but Thula is more fulfilled by her mission than anything else. She illegally creates a Democratic political party in attempt to force His Excellency into an election. After Liberation Day, Juba untangles himself from Thula’s ambitions.
Once Thula left for America, Juba became close with his stepfather, who put him through the government leadership school. At first, Juba believed that he could effect change from within the government, but he quickly learned that this was impossible. Juba’s partner, Nubia, believes only in caring for oneself and assists Juba in becoming a rich, corrupt government official. Nubia’s father was killed while trying to kill His Excellency; after his death, her family lost everything. Juba and Nubia have a child whom they name Malabo Bongo in honor of Juba’s father and uncle. From Nubia, Juba learns that the Leader’s family died on a bridge that had not been fixed because the allocated funds had been pocketed by corrupt government officials. Juba, having become what he once despised, is still unhappy and cannot understand why humans fight.
Three years after Liberation Day, Carlos learns that the US Justice Department has been keeping a close eye on Pexton. Kosawa starts to wait for justice, again. Two years later, His Excellency is finally forced into having an election. Pexton has stopped talking about settlements. Juba does not often pray, but he prays for those still in Kosawa.
Chapter 11 Summary: “The Children”
This chapter is narrated by the Five—Thula’s five remaining peers—most of whom do not live in Kosawa. They say that Kosawa’s attempts at revolution must never have been taken seriously: Soldiers did not try to stop the marchers and the government let Thula teach children about corruption, dismissing the movement as “One angry woman did everything, and she failed” (343). After Kosawa’s lawsuit fails, Pexton sues Kosawa to recoup the money the company spent on lawyers.
A new violent situation has put Kosawa in the government’s crosshairs: the kidnapping of the overseer Mr. Fish and his wife. Those remaining in Kosawa suspect that the Five must have kidnapped the Fishes while everyone else slept. They kept the Fishes and Thula in Sahel’s unused hut for three days, while they waited for a reply to their ransom letters. It is unclear to what extent Thula was involved in the plot: Most villagers assume that Thula would not have wanted to hurt the Fishes and that her signature on the ransom letters was forged. Pexton wanted to pay the ransom, but His Excellency refused to concede to a woman. Instead, the government sent in troops to evacuate the village. Only later did those fleeing find out that the Five, Thula, four soldiers, and Mr. and Mrs. Fish had all died in an explosion.
Abroad, people believe that Thula acted alongside the Five, who were behind all the anonymous violence and killings. Following the explosion, His Excellency immediately declares Kosawa too contaminated for human life and burns it down. Kosawa evacuees ask for Thula’s remains, but His Excellency says they can’t be found.
After the twins admit to raping Thula, afraid that they caused the turmoil, villagers wonder if Thula’s baby would have been their savior. Sahel’s second husband dies, and her child Baby Malabo is born with sad eyes. Sahel wishes to return home, but Juba keeps her in Bezam. Austin, now a monk, writes to Juba that Thula wanted her death celebration to be in Big Papa’s ancestral town. Pexton creates a scholarship in honor of the Fishes and digs a new oil well in what was Kosawa’s village square. The younger generation moves to nearby villages, where they adopt Western values like driving cars and have forgotten their ancestors’ cultural practices. The elders wonder if Thula would have continued to fight if she were alive. The children ask the elders to tell them Kosawa’s story.
Chapters 10-11 Analysis
Multiple versions of how to conduct Protest and Rebellion in the face of hardship are offered throughout the book, and as it comes to a conclusion, the question of which one is the best arises. Thula and the Five attempt to make meaning out of fighting to attain freedom and peace. Ultimately, they all die. Juba and Nubia opt for safety and comfort as they create wealth, but they never achieve deep meaning or freedom. While the novel ends with elders reflecting on their fight for freedom, it shows the next generation forgetting Kosawa and using cars, making them active participants in the subjugation companies like Pexton bring. The novel raises the question: Is it better to live safely but not freely, or unsafely but moving towards freedom? Thula’s peers believe that even if there was a chance Thula would win her fight, the government would have stopped her. Knowing that she was never going to win against capitalism, the elders, and the reader, must ask themselves if the fight was worth it.
After death, Thula becomes more than human; her name takes on symbolic meaning, and she is talked about like a saint. When the twins reveal that they impregnated her, people wonder if her baby could have saved them—a belief that links Thula to sacred figures like the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, a comparison emphasized with a passage from the Bible that describes the birth of Christ: “For unto us a child is born” (354). However, this veneration does little to shift cultural beliefs around the value of women: The people do not acknowledge that Thula was forcibly impregnated, but rather continue to see the female body as a receptacle to carry the burden of society. They assume that the baby would have been a boy, implying that at best, Thula could have been the carrier of the true savior. However, her fame shows that her hope and undying belief in her country’s ability to change were impactful.
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