Book Review: Yellow Yellow, Kaine Agary

Yellow Yellow by Kaine Agary captures the environmental and sexual exploitation that occurs in the Niger Delta, which affects both the land and women. The book chronicles the story of a mixed-race girl, Zilayefa, also known as Yellow Yellow, who is committed to becoming a better version of her mother, who became pregnant with her at a young age and was forced by life's circumstances not to complete her education. Zilayefa is charged with fulfilling her mother's dreams: never to get pregnant out of wedlock, to go to university, and to become a person of importance in society. Amidst the challenge of achieving these lofty goals, other themes emerge in this work. They include environmental and resource exploitation, gendered oppression and identity, and health survival. In order to capture the nuances of this work and how they reflect ecofeminism and Afro-ecofeminist realities, these themes are interrogated.

1. Environmental and Resource Exploitation

One of the major themes that emerges from the novel is environmental and resource exploitation, which is portrayed in two major forms affecting both people and resources. Exploitation is a dominant theme that runs throughout Yellow Yellow, highlighting how both the natural environment and the local people, particularly women, are unfairly used and disadvantaged.

One of the major problems faced by the Niger Deltans is environmental degradation, which sets the stage for environmental exploitation. This story opens with the protagonist, Zilayefa, recounting her first experience of an oil spill, which her mother and her village become victims of. In her words:

“I left them and ran to my mother’s farm. It was the first time I saw what crude oil looked like. I watched as the thick liquid spread out, covering more land and drowning small animals in its path” (Agary, 2006, p. 4).

2. Gendered Oppression and Identity

Gendered oppression and identity issues are enabled by patriarchy. This is a theme that resonates strongly in this novel. In this excerpt:

“The men claimed that, according to tradition, it was their exclusive right to make all the decisions inside and outside the home. Most times, because they did not succeed in the home, they drew the line at women participating in communal meetings on serious town issues. ‘If we allowed women free access to these meetings,’ they reasoned, ‘where would it end? The next thing they would want to do is mount their men in the bedroom!’

No real man could accept that. It just wasn't done!” (Agary, 2006, p. 40).

This passage offers a clear and concentrated depiction of how patriarchy operates as a system of control, both within the household and in the wider community. At the most obvious level, patriarchy is expressed through the men’s claim to exclusive authority: “it was their exclusive right to make all the decisions inside and outside the home.”

This establishes a rigid gender hierarchy where men occupy positions of power and women are systematically excluded from decision-making processes. Authority is not negotiated or shared, it is presented as natural and unquestionable, grounded in “tradition.”

3. Health Survival

Health concerns are a recurring theme in the novel, and they are a consequence of environmental and socio-political exploitation.

“The tension and conflicts in the village borne out of frustration were familiar to me. Some women walked around deaf in one ear because they had dared to question their husband's wisdom in spending the last kobo in the house on booze. Women with distended bellies that resembled pregnancies, caused by uterine fibroids, were confined to their rooms because a diviner had investigated and confirmed them to be witches. Young boys threatened to rough up the Amananaowei and his elders because rumours, probably true, had reached their ears that the Amananaowei and his elders had received monetary compensation, meant for the village, from the oil company and shared it amongst themselves. These images darkened the canvas of my village life” (Agary, 2006, p. 40).

This passage presents health challenges as deeply intertwined with violence, poverty, cultural beliefs, and governance failure, rather than as purely medical issues. The novel suggests that illness in the community is not just biological, but socially produced and politically reinforced.

First, there is the issue of physical violence and its health consequences. The image of women “walking around deaf in one ear” points to domestic abuse as a normalized response to women questioning male authority. Hearing loss here becomes a visible marker of patriarchal violence, showing how women’s bodies bear the cost of male frustration and economic irresponsibility. Health, in this sense, is directly shaped by gender inequality.

Second, the passage highlights untreated reproductive health conditions, particularly uterine fibroids, described through “distended bellies that resembled pregnancies.” Instead of receiving medical care, these women are labelled as witches and socially isolated. This reflects a critical health challenge: the misinterpretation of medical conditions through spiritual or cultural frameworks, which prevents proper diagnosis and treatment. The consequence is both physical suffering and psychological trauma, as women are stigmatized and confined.

Ecofeminist Significance of the Themes

The themes of environmental and resource exploitation, gendered oppression and identity, and health survival in Yellow Yellow (Agary, 2006) are not isolated concerns. They are interconnected through structures of power that affect both the environment and the people who depend on it. This interconnectedness is central to ecofeminist thought, which examines how the domination of nature is often linked to the domination of women and other marginalized groups. In the Niger Delta context, the novel demonstrates that environmental degradation cannot be separated from questions of gender, power, social inequality, and human well-being.

The theme of environmental and resource exploitation reflects an ecofeminist concern because the exploitation of the Niger Delta environment is simultaneously an exploitation of the communities whose livelihoods depend on the land and water. The oil spill witnessed by Zilayefa is not an ordinary ecological event. It affects farms, animals, livelihoods, and the material conditions of community life. Women are particularly implicated because their everyday survival is closely connected to natural resources through farming, fishing, food production, and household responsibilities (Agary, 2006; Osiobe & Eda, 2026).  The degradation of the environment consequently threatens not only ecological systems but also the social and economic foundations of women's lives. From an ecofeminist perspective, the treatment of nature as a resource to be extracted without adequate regard for its regenerative capacity parallels systems that treat marginalized people as resources whose labour, bodies, and knowledge can also be exploited Agary, 2006; Ojarikre, 2026; Osiobe & Eda, 2026).

Gendered oppression and identity constitute another significant ecofeminist concern in the novel. The exclusion of women from communal decision-making reveals a patriarchal structure that determines who has the authority to speak, participate, and exercise power. The restriction of women's voices is particularly significant in an environmentally vulnerable community because decisions concerning land, resources, compensation, and community welfare are also decisions about women's lives and livelihoods (Agary, 2006; Osiobe & Eda, 2026). When women are excluded from these processes, their experiences and knowledge of environmental change are equally marginalized. The novel therefore presents patriarchy not merely as a domestic or cultural problem but as a structure that influences wider relations of power within the community. This connects gender justice with environmental justice: meaningful responses to environmental exploitation require attention to whose voices are recognized in decisions concerning the environment.

The theme of health survival further strengthens this connection. The experiences of women who suffer physical violence, reproductive health problems, and social stigmatization demonstrate that the effects of unequal social and environmental conditions are ultimately embodied. Women's bodies become sites on which multiple forms of vulnerability are expressed (Agary, 2006; Ojarikre, 2026). Domestic violence exposes women to direct physical harm, while the stigmatization of women with uterine fibroids illustrates how cultural interpretations can compound existing health challenges (Agary, 2006). When these experiences are considered alongside environmental degradation and resource exploitation, health emerges as part of a broader question of ecological and social well-being. Ecofeminism is concerned with precisely this relationship between the condition of bodies, communities, and environments (Agary, 2006; Ojarikre, 2026).

The themes are therefore ecofeminist not simply because women appear in an environmentally damaged setting, but because the novel reveals relationships among environmental exploitation, patriarchal power, bodily vulnerability, and survival. Yellow Yellow demonstrates that the degradation of the natural environment has social consequences and that these consequences are experienced differently according to gender and social position. It also shows that the exclusion of women from structures of authority can limit their ability to respond to the conditions affecting their communities. The novel consequently provides a literary space for examining how environmental and gendered forms of domination intersect in the Niger Delta (Agary, 2006; Ojarikre, 2026; Osiobe & Eda, 2026).

References

Agary, K. (2006). Yellow-yellow: A novel. Dtalkshop.

Ojarikre, A. (2026). Environmental exploitation of women using Kaine Agary's Yellow-Yellow. Journal of Gender and Power, 22(2). https://gender-power.amu.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/JGP_Vol_22_No_2_C.pdf

Osiobe, P., & Eda, O. (2026). Environmental justice and women as vulnerable group: Advocating for the environmental rights of women in the Niger Delta of Nigeria. Global Journal of Politics and Law Research, 14(1), 70–88.

 

About the Author

Francisca Okwulehie is a Nigerian author, philosopher, and founder of the Ecofem Tales Environmental Foundation. Through her work, she explores African women’s environmental stories and the role of storytelling in ecological restoration, environmental awareness, and collective action.