New Read

In Anietie Isong's Playing Games (published by Gowanus), a woman fears her young son may have joined a group of militants, but she may have more to fear from the gossip mongers in the Ibok Women's Progressive Association.

Excerpt

Nene, my cousin, called the gossip session the real meeting. I watched her closely as she mingled with the other women. I noticed for the first time how bony her hand was, how all the veins that ought to have been covered with healthy flesh stood out like the drawing of a school child. But Nene was not an old woman. It was too much hard work that had aged her. As the bread winner, she supported her family with sales of akara and other petty goods. As in my own case, her husband had left her for the world beyond.

“Are you all right?” I asked Nene after she had disentangled herself from the other women and we were making our way home.

“I am all right,” she said, laughing.

But there was something in the sound, something hidden, which troubled me. Near the village square Nene let it out: “I think Nsima has joined the Ibok Youth Movement.”

She said it quickly, as though the words scalded her tongue, spat the words out as one would spit out hot yam. And she did not look at me.

• Read Playing Games.

New Reads

One of the new reads this week, is mine. I am one of two Nigerians featured in the new issue of In Posse Review. Here's an excerpt from my story, Efita's End, in which a local beauty is washed up by the river...

Iya Alake hurried back to the market, beating at herself, biting a finger in regret, untying and retying her gele and wrapper in turns. Death, especially the tragically untimely kind, holds much spectacle, and Iya Alake rose to the occasion. At the entrance to the market, it suddenly occurred to her that the news was best broken with loud weeping. So, she let out a ringing cry that made storekeepers stand bolt upright, knocking over their wares.

"Sisi Teacher is dead!"

A running clatter of overturned goods, scattered stalls and the bleating of goats for sale, collided with women's cries and turned the market into a riot of noise. The market was deserted within minutes as the women formed a chorus of laments in the direction of the river. Iya Sikira broke away unnoticed and headed for home, eager to tell her husband of the fate that had befallen his beloved—and her rival. Her two other rivals were on hand to witness Chief Mayokun's reaction.

"Our husband! Our husband!" Iya Sikira called after him as he dashed out, leaving behind wives shocked at the dawning realization that they were jealous still, of a woman lately turned into a ghost.

- Efita's End... (read on).

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In Anietie Isong's The Last Messenger, a charismatic African Religious leader comes to London to give a talk and meets the disbelieving Professor Ralph, in an encounter the latter is never likely to forget. Here's an excerpt...

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"An African mask with whiskers. That mask is in your bedroom now. It does not belong there."

The professor fell to the floor. (Later when he reported this to his friends, they said it must have been his knees. Professor Joe said he suspected Ralph had always had arthritis.)

"You may think that a mask is just a mask," The Last Messenger said. "But I am afraid it is not. A mask has its own soul. It has the capacity to hold and evoke memories, to build bridges to past times, peoples and places."

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- The Last Messenger...(read on).