“Someday, when you're old, you'll see that the ones who came to kill us and the ones who'll run to save us are the same. No matter their pretenses, they all arrive here believing they have the power to take from us or give to us whatever will satisfy their endless wants.” With these words, Imbolo Mbue warns her readers about a questionable crisis as a result of oil corporate pollution in already raging conversations of environmental change. Through her novel How Beautiful We Were, Mbue describes the powerful negative impact that huge corporations have over the environment and the extent that they will go to get away with it.

Told from the perspective of a little girl, the novel brings attention to the post-colonial world of Africa, which the media often fails to represent. How Beautiful We Were is the story of a fictional village whose people live in fear due to the environmental catastrophe that is keenly observed with their eyes, all brought on by an American oil company. It depicts the harrowing past of how colonialism has influenced countries and why most countries today are still developing and thus easily exploited.

Oil pipeline spills, toxic water filled with heavy metals, and false promises of clean-ups fill the plot with the tragic realities that often constitute developing cities and countries. Thus, a little girl called Thula explores the haunting ghost of colonialism that has put capitalist corporations at the top of the societal hierarchy. She understands that the greedy desire for profit is what leads to the destruction of her village. However, her determination to drive the stubborn community against the oil company demonstrates her willingness to give up everything in order to save her people and gain freedom from the unfairness and lies given by the Western power.

Through her unique narrative style befitting that of a small child, Mbue expresses how one person can have the power to change huge decisions at both a personal and social level. One might believe that a person is powerless against big organizations and that people are chained to power, but through pressure and nonviolent protest, positive changes can be made. For example, the traumas that are passed down to each generation because of water pollution affects all generations, but the younger people are the ones acting to change.

The theme of being brave and using the crowd against injustice plays an important role in this novel. However, the most important detail is how the environment is portrayed: it must be protected at all costs if humanity wants to advance forward. All actions have consequences on the environment. If the people on the planet pollute the only sources of groundwater to feed the population, then there will be serious conflicts that produce irreversible changes such as wars over water.

How Beautiful We Were, however, stands out from many other books because it tells the story of an underrepresented crowd that is eventually successful at fighting against Western greed, giving an answer to one of the most urgent questions the environment is facing today. Mbue does not hesitate to enthrall her readers by showing them that all dreams can come true if an individual is brave enough. This makes the readers themselves the main characters of the story, sending the message that if a person wants to think ahead, they must look at their past and do what is right. Remember, the show must go on, but it is our collective decisions that will affect the future.

Book Information

Title: How Beautiful We Were

Author: Imbolo Mbue

Publisher: Random House Publishing Group

Publication Year: 2021

Pages: 384