The Function of Setting in Cyprian Ekwensi’s Burning Grass: Ecology and Culture on the Nigerian Savanna

This study analyses the literary function of setting in Cyprian Ekwensi's Burning Grass, examining how the novel constructs the Nigerian savanna landscape of the North Central region as an active narrative presence that shapes character psychology, cultural identity, and the dynamics of the nomadic Fulani community at the centre of the story. Burning Grass is an unusual work in the Nigerian literary canon in its focus on Northern Nigerian pastoral life and its sympathetic rendering of Fulani nomadic culture, which has received far less attention than the South Eastern and South Western cultural contexts that dominate discussions of Nigerian fiction. The study applies ecocritical theory and African cultural geography to a close reading of the novel, attending to Ekwensi's description of savanna landscape, seasonal change, cattle routes, and the ecological interdependence of the Fulani community with their cattle and their land. Analysis traces the ways in which the physical landscape functions as a moral and emotional weather system for the novel's characters, with drought and fire serving as external correlatives for the internal crises of the protagonist Mai Sunsaye's family. Findings reveal that Ekwensi's ecological imagination in Burning Grass anticipates contemporary ecocritical concerns with the relationship between land, culture, and identity. The study argues for greater attention to Northern Nigerian ecological settings in Nigerian literary criticism and recommends Burning Grass for inclusion in undergraduate environmental literature syllabi. Keywords: Cyprian Ekwensi, Burning Grass, ecocriticism, Fulani culture, savanna fiction.