Realism and Social Commitment in Emeka Ukwuaba’s Benign Pain and Hypnotising Minefield in Dialogue with the Tradition of Achebe and Ekwensi

The tradition of socially committed realism in Nigerian fiction, inaugurated by writers such as Chinua Achebe and Cyprian Ekwensi, established a mode of literary engagement that prioritises the faithful representation of social conditions as a means of political and moral critique. This study situates Emeka Ukwuaba's Benign Pain (2021) and Hypnotising Minefield (2025) within this tradition, examining the extent to which Ukwuaba's fiction continues, revises, and extends the realist social commitment of his literary predecessors. The study is anchored on the theoretical framework of critical realism, drawing on Georg Lukacs's concept of the typicality of character and situation as markers of serious realist fiction. A comparative textual analysis methodology is employed, supplemented by recent scholarship on the Nigerian literary tradition published within the last five years. Findings demonstrate that Ukwuaba inherits the documentary impulse of Achebe and Ekwensi while updating it to address the specific social crises of twenty-first century Nigeria, including drug trafficking, human trafficking, and campus crime. The study also identifies significant differences in narrative technique and tonal register, noting Ukwuaba's greater use of dark humour and allegorical distancing. The study concludes that Ukwuaba represents an important voice in the third generation of committed Nigerian realists and recommends comparative studies that trace the evolution of social realism across three generations of Nigerian fiction.

Keywords: Social realism, Emeka Ukwuaba, Achebe, Ekwensi, Nigerian literary tradition