Author(s): Oso Olusola Olasunkanmi

Abstract: Love and war are two evergreen subject matters whose significance transcends literature. These two themes are major thematic preoccupations of several novelists, playwrights and poets in literary works from different parts of the globe. Previous studies on Akachi-Adimora Ezeigbo’s Roses and Bullets have examined it as war literature as it is a representative example of Nigerian novels which are inspired by the Nigerian Civil War (1967-1970). This study was, therefore, designed to critically evaluate the treatment of love and war in the novel with a view to filling the gap in literary scholarship of the paucity of studies which have concurrently analysed the motifs of love and war in the novel. Radical feminism was adopted as the theoretical framework. The interpretive design was employed. Akachi-Adimora Ezeigbo’s Roses and Bullets was subjected to literary analysis. The novelist makes the point that during war-fares, people still manage to fall in love and out of love. The intensity of war cannot prevent people from expressing their innate feelings of love, and even getting married. In the novel, war meets ordinary people like Ginika, Eloka, and Nwakire, disrupting their personal plans. Conditional love and dysfunctional love such as love between Ginika and her father, Eloka’s mother and Ginika, and Auntie Lizzy and Ginika are all demonstrated. The study makes the point the themes of love and war are so glaring in Adimora-Ezeigbo’s Roses and Bullets that studying them concurrently is a rewarding literary enterprise.

Keywords: Love, War, Radical feminism, Nigerian novel, Roses and Bullets

Article Info: Received: 19 Sep 2024; Received in revised form: 16 Oct 2024; Accepted: 23 Oct 2025; Available online: 20 Feb 2026

DOI: 10.22161/ijels.111.57