Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu by Abioseh Nicol: Summary, Themes and Questions
Quick answer: Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu by Abioseh Nicol: full summary with the ending, Bola, Meji and the marked finger, the returning spirit child, grief and belief, exam questions.
An old woman in a Sierra Leonean village is visited without warning by her grown son, who keeps the shutters closed, will not stay long, and leaves before she learns that he was already dead when he arrived. Abioseh Nicol published Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu in his 1965 collection The Truly Married Woman and Other Stories. At about 3,500 words it is a standard West African anthology piece.
The story in brief, ending included
Bola lives in Kumansenu with her husband and her small granddaughter Asi, the child of her son Meji, who works as a clerk in the town. Bola's history is one of loss. Her first children all died in infancy, one after another, and she came to believe that a single spirit child kept returning to be born and to die. In her grief she marked one of the dead babies, cutting a finger, so that the returning spirit would carry the sign. The next child, Meji, was born with a damaged finger and lived.
One afternoon Meji arrives unannounced. He is quiet, keeps his scarf on and the shutters closed. He eats, rests, spends time with Asi and speaks of how good his life has been, telling his mother that life is sweet. Early the next morning he leaves, saying he must get back. Later that day a messenger brings word from the town: Meji died suddenly the day before and has already been buried. Bola understands that her son came home one last time to say goodbye. The story ends not in terror but in her acceptance, and in the words he left her with, which give the story its title.
Who is who
A mother, a son, and the dead children between them.
- Bola: the mother whose faith in the returning spirit child has been proved by a living son and is now proved again by a dead one.
- Meji: the son born with the mark, gentle and strange in his last visit, the ghost who behaves like a good man paying a call.
- Asi: the granddaughter, the future the visit is really about.
Themes and meaning
Exam readings: traditional belief and the spirit child, the relation of the living to the dead, motherhood and grief, and the coexistence of Christian and indigenous understandings in a colonial-era village.
The sharper observation is that Nicol never confirms the ghost. Everything Meji does could be done by a living man with a secret, and the story lets belief supply the explanation.
The craft: the visit that reads twice
The turn is the messenger, placed at the very end, and it forces a second reading of every detail of the visit: the scarf, the shutters, the tenderness, the early departure. The technique to steal is the scene that is ordinary on first reading and uncanny on second, achieved by giving the visitor reasons that are plausible in life and necessary in death.
For class and essays
Questions with two-line answers, then terms and one misreading.
- What is the significance of the marked finger? It is Bola's attempt to bind the returning spirit child, and Meji's damaged finger is her proof that belief works; it also identifies him beyond doubt in the visit.
- Is Meji a ghost? The story implies it strongly through timing but never states it; his visit makes sense only if he has come to say goodbye.
- Why is the story called Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu? Because Meji tells his mother that life has been sweet, and the story asks us to accept that a life can be complete even when it is short.
- Terms: spirit child (a child believed to die and return repeatedly), Kumansenu (the fictional village), shutters, messenger, colonial Sierra Leone.
- Common misreading: that the story is a horror tale. Its tone is tender throughout; the dead son comes with comfort, not menace.
What writers can take from this
- Structure an essay around the two readings of the visit, before and after the messenger.
- Cite the finger as the detail that links belief, identity and proof.
- Argue that the story neither endorses nor debunks the spirit child; it lets the belief organise the narrative.
- For writers, give a visitor reasons that work in life and mean something else in death.
- Deliver the revelation through a third party in a single sentence, then end on the survivor's response.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a loved one pays a short, slightly odd visit, and everything they do is explained only by a piece of news that arrives after they have gone. Keep the tone warm, give the visitor one physical mark that identifies them beyond doubt, and end with what the person left behind chooses to believe.
Questions
What happens at the end of Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu?
After Meji's brief visit and early departure, a messenger arrives to say he died suddenly in the town the day before and has been buried. Bola understands that her son came to say goodbye, and accepts it.
What is the theme of Life Is Sweet at Kumansenu?
The bond between the living and the dead, a mother's grief and faith, and the belief in the spirit child who returns; the story treats traditional belief as the frame that makes events make sense.
Why does Bola cut the dead baby's finger?
She believes the same spirit child keeps being born and dying, and marks the body so the returning child will bear the sign. Meji is born with the damaged finger and survives.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 30 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.