Yesterday's BookJam

Chuma Nwokolo (standing) reads from his poetry collections, Memories of Stone, at yesterday's BookJam - the fourth edition also featuring (from left) Binyavanga Wainaina, Sade Adeniran and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Nwokolo followed his reading of a poem on old shirts with an excerpt from his book, 'Diaries of a Dead African'. The hilarious passage brought the house down and probably led to quite a few sales of the book for the author to autograph afterwards.

Wainaina was the first reader, followed by Sade Adeniran (who read a funny 'wormy' episode from Imagine This, after which the main character, Lola Ogunwole misguidedly plots her expulsion from a hated school by opening her legs).

Adichie read work the of two participants in the ongoing Farafina Writing workshop, the pieces actually produced during the sessions. The workshop writers were all at the event - and yes, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma did make it after all.

The BookJam packed them in, into the Lifestyle Bookstore of the Silverbird Galleria on Victoria Island. This being an event involving Adichie, BookJam 4 also had its share of the now familiar 'Chimamanda groupies' who can't ask a question or comment without beginning with 'Oh, I love you sooo much. You are so wonderful. I can't believe you're here in front of us etcetera etcetera'. The spontaneous burst of declared affection is now usually drowned out by the ohhhs and ahhhs of a knowing crowd - as yesterday's main contender discovered, while someone said 'pass the tissue!'

Usually held on the last Saturday of the month, BookJam was moved forward this month because the Farafina literary event of readings and music which traditionally closes Adichie's workshop, holds next Saturday (at the Civic Centre, Lagos).

Sade Adeniran continues her book tour at the House of Makeda today.

• Images by MW - see Igoni Barrett's photos here

Sade Adeniran's book tour

From a lucky scrape on the road to Ife earlier this week to today's BookJam, Sade Adeniran powers on with her book tour of Nigeria with a reading event tomorrow at the House of Makeda in Lagos, where she'll be supported with music by the sultry gospel of Sola Allyson (left), famous for the Yoruba hit, Eji Owuro.

House of Makeda

7 Manuwa Street, Off Keffi Street

Off Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos

4pm, Sunday 23 May, 2010

Sade Adeniran won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa Region) and her award winning novel, 'Imagine This', is now published in Nigeria (Cassava Republic). The book and Sola Allyson's latest CD, Imo Ore - will be on sale at a special price of N1.500 for the two.

Other dates on Sade Adeniran's tour

• Tuesday 25th May - Guest Writer at the Write Squad's monthly book club with 8 Abuja schools, event hosted by Minister of Education, Professor Adeniran (no relation).
• Wednesday 26th May - Nassarawa State University.
• Thursday 27th May - Reading at the University of Abuja
• Thursday 27th May @ 5.30pm - Sheraton Abuja reading alongside Lola Shoneyin (author of the poetry collection, For the Love of Flight).

Enquiries to: Plug Media (+234 8023 457 766 / plugnigeria@gmail.com).

Images: Publicity photos

A Caine Reader

I ran into Sade Adeniran yesterday and I remembered pictures from this reading of hers in April (Wednesday 16th April) I always meant to post. She read to a small but not insignificant audience at the Holborn Library, London. Sitting cross-legged on the right is Farafina (and Kachifo) publisher, Muhtar Bakare.

.

Sade Adeniran will read from the works of shortlisted writers in this year's Caine Prize at today's award ceremony at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. Yes, a new Caine winner will be unveiled tonight!

• Images by MW

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.

.

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.
.

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.

.
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.
.

• 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.

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

Imagine This & Word Power

How's this for an example of just how hard a writer has to work? You'd think she's packed and ready to hop off on a weekend to Prague, wouldn't you? Well, you'd be wrong.
This, left, is debut novelist Sade Adeniran - photographed by this blogger at her reading on Thursday 4 October inside London's Harlesden Library. Adeniran packs copies of her book, Imagine This, in this case and rolls it to readings around England - in the hope she can shift a few copies.

Having taken 5 years to write the novel and failing to find a publisher, the author (who began her writing career with a play on UK's Radio 4) put her money behind her talent and self-published. It hasn't been easy and she has had to contend with the stigma attached to self-publishing in the UK. But things are looking up. Carting her books around from reading to reading, Adeniran has managed to sell several hundred copies of Imagine This all due to her own direct efforts. The publishing industry in the UK is beginning to take notice; even a Nigerian publisher has been in touch since the writer's appearance on this blog last week.

Last week the writer read to members of the Harlesden Library Reading Group, shared her publishing experiences so far and sold some copies. At the end of the evening, she put the left-over copies in her roller-case and wheeled off into the night.

• Sade Adeniran appears at the Word Power Book Fair on Saturday 13 October, in a discussion with other writers on 'The Publishing Maze.'

~

• The Word Power Book Fair holds this weekend, Saturday 13 & Sunday 14 October at The Emirates, Arsenal Stadium Conference Hall, London N7
• Word Power Programme

Sade Adeniran reads for Black History Month

Sade Adeniran reads from her debut novel, Imagine This, as part of Black History Month. An Evening with Sade Adeniran is at the Harlesden Library, London NW10 at 7pm to 8.30pm on Thursday 4th October.

There'll be a reading, Q & A as well as book signing.

~

The event is free.

~

Visit Sade Adeniran's website