Landscape of Extraction: A Comparative Study of Ecological violence in Abdul Rahman’s Cities of Salt and Helon Habila’s Oil on Water

The objective of this paper is to analyse the Cities of Salt (1984–89) by Abdul Rahman Munif and Helon Habila’s Oil on Water (2010) in the light of ecological violence. These novels use desert and delta as their primary setting. The two novels depict environments, whether desert or delta, as the primary victims of an economy which modifies eco-systems into zones of expropriation and conflict. The novels reveal the environmental damage, neo-imperial power, and capitalist modernity that are intertwined. Munif's vividly illustrated account of the desert depicts how the western oil interests invade and disrupt local communities and environment. Habila’s narrative of the Niger delta on the other hand captures the noxious effects of oil exploitation in a post-colonial world of graft and army. This paper uses Rob Nixon’s idea of slow violence, Anthony Nunes’s idea of ecological imperialism, and contemporary discussions in eco-materialist thought as a theoretical framework. This paper shows how ecological violence scars the boundaries between human suffering and environmental harm which create destruction all around.