Images from BookJam3

The third monthly BookJam took place at the Silverbird Galleria in Lagos on Saturday April 24. Here's writer Igoni Barrett who started the BookJam series (left) with 'God of Poetry' author Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, one of the featured writers at the latest event. Author of short story collection 'From Caves of Rotten Teeth', Barrett has become a leading advocate for writers and writing in the last year. 2009's highly successful Nine Writers Tour, was his brainchild. I guess we'd call Igoni Barrett a literary activist now.



Uzor Maxim Uzoatu greets Toyin Akinosho, the General Secretary of arts advocacy group CORA (the Committee for Relevant Art). Akinosho maintains the popular Artsville column in Nigeria's Sunday Guardian. In the background is playwright Wole Oguntokun whose theatre company lays on Theatre @Terra. Thanks to him, a play is performed twice every Sunday at Terra Kulture, Lagos. The play for May is Oguntokun's 'The Other Side'.



The BookJam is packing them in on the last Saturday of every month and features 3 writers every time. On the programme for April were Karen King-Aribisala (lecturer at the University of Lagos and author of 'The Hangman's Game' as well as 'Our Wife and Other Stories'), Uzor Maxim Uzoatu and Wole Oguntokun, who read from his playtext, Gbanja Roulette.

Among the poems read at the event by Uzor Maxim Uzoatu was 'We Will Vote With Stones', which has extra resonance now, given that one of Nigeria's most reviled military dictators, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, has had the gall to reveal he's gunning for the presidency - to rule Nigeria again! - in 2011. Here's hoping a hail of stones drives IBB the evil genius back to his hilltop mansion in Minna, and that he stays there not showing his face, for the rest of his days. That's the hope, the reality in Nigeria nearly always trumps logical conclusions. If only this were fiction and one could fix the ending.

Images courtesy QF Photos.

More from Word From Africa

A couple more images from Word From Africa. Here I am stepping up to the mic for my reading during the 'Imagine This...' session of Word From Africa on 31st May 2008. Also in the picture are my fellow panelists: Karen King-Aribisala (middle) and Sade Adeniran.

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Pictures thanks to my friend Ade Omoloja of HarrisonLoj Photography.

• Images © Ade Omoloja

Word From Africa 2008

Word From Africa 2008 has come and gone. It was very well attended and immensely enjoyable, and at the end of the day (after the launch of the new anthology Dreams Miracles and Jazz: Adventure in African Fiction) we downed some Guinness Foreign Extra Stout in the British Museum to, as we say back home, “wash it”. I had one small glass of the dark stuff only, as I didn’t want to walk back to the tube station seeing stars.

It was a bit of a family affair for me, as several members of my family were in the audience, including one or two who just happened to be in town for brief visits from Nigeria – as were my kids. The panel I was involved in, came after ‘What Kind of English is That?, in which Ben Amunwa, Biram Mboob and Uchenna Izundu read and discussed Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy. 2004 Caine Winner Brian Chikwava had come out to support fellow African writers, and was in the audience. I really enjoyed the session I was involved in, Imagine This... Prize-Winning Women Writers –featuring myself, Sade Adeniran and Karen King-Aribisala. I went first, with an excerpt from my story, ‘Written in Stone’. Karen King Aribisala read a short excerpt from her novel, The Hangman’s Game (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Africa Region, 2008). Then she put her book down and gave probably the most dramatic performance of the day by bursting into song. And poetry. And song. Hardly surprising, the first thing Sade Adeniran said on taking the stage to read (from her book, Imagine This, winner of the Best First Book, Africa Region in the Commonwealth Writers' Prize) was to declare that, “I can tell you now, I won’t be singing.” The question and answer session that followed was very interesting, and all three of us had this and that to say in dialogue with the audience. This session clashed with the storytelling (in Twi and Fante) session by Nana-Essi Casely-Hayford, which I heard was very popular with children.

Next session was Off the page translations, with readings from new books of African poetry as translated from one language to another. I was a late addition to the line-up of this session, as the Yoruba reader of 3 poems translated by Mark de Brito in his new anthology, The Trickster’s Tongue: An Anthology of Poetry in Translation From Africa and the African Diaspora. Other participants were Bashir al Gamar, Fathieh Saudi – and Isabelle Romaine (born in Cameroon and raised in Senegal, Romaine read poems by 3 Francophone African women writers including Werewere Liking – in English and French. The French renditions were especially powerful). Mark de Brito and I went first, and I had to read the Yoruba first, and Mark would read them in English. I read the following: Oriki Esu (Praise-poem for Esu); Oriki Orunmila (Praise-poem for Orunmila); and Ofo Abudi (Incantation). I really got into the spirit of the Yoruba poetry – especially on Ofo Abudi – so much so that I forgot I was in front of an audience. Wonderful. Mark de Brito (poet, critic, translator and musician) was born in London of Trinidadian parentage. He is a bridge builder, and has travelled extensively in Yorubaland, knows priests in Ile-Ife, Osogbo and other ancient towns, right up to the Yoruba of Benin Republic – building bridges between Africa and the Caribbean.

I was being interviewed by Vox Africa TV (3 ladies from Ghana, the 'big' Congo & the 'small' Congo – who conducted interviews with participants throughout the day) while the Dreams Miracles and Jazz launch readings were going on – so I missed it. Participating in this session were Ken Kamoche, Sefi Atta, Tony Adam Mochama, Mamle Kabu (who I was meeting for the first time; I’ve heard so much about you, I told her; I’ve heard so much about you, she told me) and Gitta Sumner.
Music was provided by the likes of Modeste Hugues; and Yoruba talking-drummer Ayan Ayandosu was in charge of one of the many art and craft and book stalls. Ensuring that all went smoothly for the rest of us were Africa Beyond’s Tessa Watt and the tireless Kadija George. And a lovely day was had by all.

• These here are my pictures. My photographer-friend, Ade Omoloja took lots of images on the day, in addition to the official photos. Will upload some of these other images and do links when they become available.

Fly Girl

This is Sade Adeniran photographed by the blogger at Goldsmiths College, London, on 13 March 2008 at the 'On Whose Terms' conference. Earlier that day in Kampala, she had been announced as this year's Africa Regional winner of the Best First Book (it was an all-Nigerian affair, as Karen King-Aribisala also won the Regional Best Book Prize for her novel, 'The Hangman's Game). This, for a debut novel, Imagine This, that she self-published. Things could have been a whole lot worse. Earlier last week my interview with Sade Adeniran was published on BBC Africa Beyond. Excerpt below.
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Sade Adeniran, talking about the her road to (self) publishing.

Where to start? The manuscript took 5 years to write and when I finished, I gave it to friends and acquaintances to read. Their feedback gave me the courage to submit to publishers. I did this with little success, however some of the replies were encouraging. I figured I needed a new strategy; so I went into self-publishing. I remember reading about GP Taylor who self-published, then got a book deal. I thought, that could be me. I knew nothing about the business; I was just focused on getting the book out. So I got myself an ISBN number, found a printer, learnt about book formats and paper, got an editor and proof-reader and cajoled a friend into designing not only the book but also my website.

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That was the easy bit. Getting 'Imagine This' into bookshops was a Herculean task that I never managed to solve. So I called up Independent bookshops like Crockatt & Powell, Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights and The Pan Bookshop (before it closed). After seeing the finished product and reading 'Imagine This', C&P and Mr B’s ordered copies and are pushing the book. It's available on Amazon; and you can place orders for copies from WH Smiths, Borders and Waterstones.
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• Read the full interview.

• Author's website

2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize Shortlists

Congratulations to Sade Adeniran (above) who is shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize (Africa Region) for her first novel, Imagine This. Remarkable, considering that Adeniran self-published herself as a last ditch effort to get her book out there.

Congratulations too to Dayo Forster who's also shortlisted for Reading the Ceiling. Forster joins Adeniran and 4 others on the shortlist in the Best First Book category. Zakes Mda (South Africa; for 'Cion') and Karen King-Aribisala (Nigeria; for 'The Hangman's Mistake') are shortlisted in the Best Book category.

Full shortlists available online. Regional winners will be announced on 13th March, and Overall winners on 18th May.

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  Image - Sade Adeniran photographed by MW @ The Harlesden Library, London; 4 October 2007.