Filmmaker James Amuta has released Last Bride of the River as a literary fiction novel, adapting his original screenplay into a 251-page narrative now available on Amazon KDP.
The novel expands a mythological universe Amuta began developing with Last Son of the River, his original screenplay. The Nollywood Reporter previously reported the project as a film in development exploring African mythology and folklore.
Set in Mbammili, a hidden river village where daughters are bound to a god and sons are born to die, the story follows Nkoli, a woman who does not resist the system but studies it. Her defiance is not loud but precise, according to the synopsis.
The novel functions as the official novelisation of the prequel to Last Son of the River. Amuta describes the transition from screenplay to novel as an opportunity to explore psychological depth that is less accessible in film format.
“This story began with a question about power—how it sustains itself, and why it is so rarely questioned when it is inherited,” Amuta said in his author statement. “I was drawn to the idea of a system so deeply embedded in belief that it no longer requires enforcement.”
The narrative examines ritual as governance, silence as inheritance, and the mechanics of belief systems that persist through repetition rather than force. Amuta also employs what he describes as a unique twist on the unreliable narrator technique, allowing readers to interpret and process the story independently.
Amuta is an award-winning filmmaker whose work includes Collision Course, which won Best Movie West Africa at the Africa Magic Viewers’ Choice Awards, and Nightfall in Lagos, which received Best Documentary by an African at the Toronto International Nollywood Film Festival.
He has also served as producer and associate producer on Netflix original titles including Oloture, Blood Sisters, Man of God, Elesin Oba, and A Sunday Affair.
The novel explores themes of power, gender, agency, and inherited consequence. The bodies of women become sites of negotiation between the human and the divine, while the fate of men is predetermined by a system they neither control nor escape, according to the press materials.
Amuta positions the work within a larger narrative world designed for cross-medium storytelling. The novel is available in paperback and ebook formats via Amazon KDP.