Idzorah-Ulka, the main character in Alisha Nurse’s soon to be released novel, Wild Child, is headstrong and defiant and was deemed a rebel from as early as the day of her naming ceremony.

“But Idzorah-Ulka’s defying nature will bring about her demise. She will be no more when she cradles a babe in her womb...” the officiating oracle at the ceremony had proclaimed of the then baby.

Set in the fictional Grand Baiuchi Forest, Nurse gives vivid details of the life of Idzorah-Ulka, a member of one of the “old Amazon” tribes that refused to be sucked into the fantasy world of modern technology, but instead chose to hold fast to its beliefs and traditions. But even these customs, among them the great value placed on procreation, arranged marriages, and the roles and functions of women, are not viewed as cut and dried by Idzorah-Ulka. She questions everything.

Nurse, a former journalist, uses her creative writing skills to breathe life into the themes of trauma, loss, violence, abuse and slavery entwined in Wild Child.

During a deadly invasion of her village by soldiers from a faraway land, Idzorah-Ulka witnesses her mother’s refusal to succumb to slavery by taking her own life. This adds fuel to her fighting spirit and she too is prepared to give her own life for her people and culture. When she sees the life drain out of her father’s eyes after he was shot trying to save her, she becomes consumed by her grief and her quest for revenge, at any cost.

“Seeing your whole life unravelled before you, being wantonly pulled apart, thread by thread, is destabilising. Would it matter at all if you stayed or left? Either way, things would be lost, that you couldn’t recover. And even if you could stitch back fragments of your life, nothing would ever be the same again. The pieces you’re left with never quite fit in the same good way,” Nurse writes of her protagonist’s thoughts on her experiences.

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Nurse describes the horror Idzorah-Ulka endures at the hands of her captors, taken from her her home and having to live in captivity in unfamiliar territory, being forced to adopt new “clean” customs and beliefs or pay with her life.

“…You are made new. You can have all these things here ... anew. We will give them to you if you obey. You will have new wives, new children. Whatever you desire! But you cannot have a new life without discarding the old. How else will you integrate into our clean society?” she and her fellow captives are told at the orientation at their new home.

Still as defiant as ever and with her father’s wisdom guiding her every step, Idzorah-Ulka makes the ultimate sacrifice to achieve her end game – blending in and following orders until she could find an opportunity to exact her vengeance and find her way back home.

Incorporating a blend of old and contemporary concepts, this evocative publication conjures memories of biblical principles and slavery, and puts a spotlight on how women can use their wit and voices to get to w