Writers at 'Bring Back The Book'

Usual suspects you don't get in a police line-up everyday. L-R: Reuben Abati, Fatima Akilu, Jahman Anikulapo, Ayodele Olofintuade, Molara Wood, Sefi Atta, Ololade Otitoloju, Jumoke Verissimo, Toni Kan, Ken Wiwa Jr, Helon Habila and Lola Shoneyin.

Pushers of the pen all, we were at President Jonathan's 'Bring Back The Book' campaign at the Eko Hotel on Monday, December 20. Round about 7.30pm, Charles Okolo of The Guardian lined us up as above, and snapped.

The image was published in The Guardian of Monday, December 27 (The Guardian folks demurely cropped themselves out). Click on image for larger view.

• Related story 1


• Related story 2
  

Photo: Charles Okolo

Ikhide Ikheloa's explosive review of Ahmed Maiwada's 'Musdoki'

Ikhide R. Ikheloa cries foul about what he describes as the bigotry and misogyny of Ahmed Maiwada's debut novel, 'Musdoki'. The reviewer also reckons the novel is a pretty shoddy production all round.

Excerpt
At some point in the book’s journey, Musdoki is in a car filled with Northerners, fleeing the South and an alleged pogrom. This is Maiwada at his best, or some would say, at his worst. The reader is taken by Musdoki’s trip home to the North away from the vengeful Yorubas. It is harrowing and moving indeed, except that this is fiction. It did not happen. The dialogue in that car houses some of the worst bigotry against Southern ethnicities that I have ever heard or read in my lifetime. In any case, someone with a good grasp of the events of 1993 should educate me: What exactly did M.K.O. Abiola the presumptive winner of the elections say against the North after the annulment that was meant to incite Southerners into war?

This book is an inelegant expression of lingering resentment by Northerners against Southerners, a book that is almost dismissive, perhaps a rousing defense and justification, of the pogrom of the sixties against the Igbo, one that is curiously silent on the genocide that was the Nigerian civil war. It also seems devoted to glorifying T.Y. Danjuma’s counter coup, that bloody response to Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s 1966 one (p100). Hear one of the characters taunt the Yoruba. “They are indeed white hyenas. Otherwise, why have they deserted their towns and villages for their dogs and goats? See for yourself! How can white hyenas ever have the liver to declare a war, like Ojukwu did? (p99).” ‘Musdoki’ is a bipolar organism moving swiftly between narcissistic self-absorbent musings to a sweepingly false vista of Nigeria’s history, relentlessly blurring the border between truth and fantasy. It comes across as a partisan attempt to rewrite a most unfortunate portion of Nigeria’s history.

• Read the review here
  
  

Tonight: Shoneyin reads Baba Segi

“For a first novel, ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ surprises as a powerful, mature and absorbing work of fiction… This novel will continue to haunt the reader’s imagination with suggestive ripples of wonder, sadness and delight long after the last page has been turned.”
– Biodun Jeyifo

“Politely defiant Shoneyin bends every cultural artefact and taboo in her brainy sensual path. This is a soap opera between the covers. I love the author's bold use of language and imagery. She teases, she taunts, she soothes with her words.”
– Ikhide Ikheloa


Lola Shoneyin reads the travails of Bolanle in Baba Segi's household in Lagos, tonight. Details below.

Abule Café

33 Sinari Daranijo St

Off Younis Bashorun

Off Ajose Adeogun

Victoria Island, Lagos.

Time: 6.30pm

Entrance is free. RSVP: 0703 403 0683

Author's photograph: Habie Schwarz

Baba Segi in Lagos, Tuesday December 21

Plans are afoot for Lola Shoneyin to read from her novel 'The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives' tomorrow in Lagos.

Venue is The Life House, 33 Sinari Daranijo Street, Off Ligali Ayorinde, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Time is 6.30pm.

Come one, come all. More details shortly.

Meanwhile, it's off to Eko Hotel now. President Goodluck Jonathan launches his 'Bring Back The Book' campaign there today.

Nwaubani, Ngugi and the Nobel

The literary event of the last week has to be not so much the op-ed piece written by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani for the New York Times, but the reactions to it, of which there are many, the tones of which have been of the almost universally aghast kind.

My own reading of Nwaubani’s ‘In Africa, the Laureate’s Curse’ was predictably complicated. I am a great admirer of Mario Vargas Llosa (a worthy 2010 laureate) and many other Latin American writers, people in whose works I’ve found a world closest to that of the Yoruba, from among whom I’ve sprung.

That said, I wanted Ngugi to win the Nobel, it meant a lot to me. He has written great, visionary works. He’s an ideological writer, and without ideological grounding, a writer is just piffle, in my view. He has also demonstrated great courage over many decades and suffered terribly for his art and convictions. Ngugi’s ‘Decolonizing the Mind’ is one of the great theoretical works of African literature, or any literature for that matter. After reading it, you cannot be indifferent; you must take a stand, either you are for or against. I have always had great sympathy for Ngugi’s insistence that we should write in our mother tongues, controversial though the larger body of African writers say it is. And one cannot take from Ngugi the fact that he has put his writing post-1986 where his mouth is: writing first in Gikuyu then translating into English (he’s written his latest memoirs in English, but that is a matter for another day).

Ngugi has produced indestructible works in many genres: drama, novel, essay. ‘The Trial of Dedan Kimathi’ was a memorable playtext in my secondary school days. And what of ‘Weep Not Child’, which apart from introducing Njoroge and co, made me want to discover Walt Whitman’s ‘On The Beach At Night’ for myself? These are among the foundational works of my formative years. We used to chant the titles of Ngugi’s books as though they were mantras. I once thought that if I ever saw Ngugi, it would be like seeing man on the face of the moon. Great, almost mythical writer, who one later had the privilege of seeing in the flesh; and to see the radical writer so human, so aged, almost frail (from the detentions and cigarette torture burns). A beautiful mind surpasses the limitations of the physical body.

And to later discover 'A Grain of Wheat', ‘Petals of Blood’, ‘The River Between’ and of course, ‘Decolonizing The Mind’. Had Ms Nwaubani read enough Ngugi, she would never have written the following: ‘There’s actually reason to celebrate Mr. Ngugi’s loss.” There’s nothing to celebrate about Ngugi missing out on the Nobel, and it’s difficult to see how the prize going to someone else becomes a “loss” for Ngugi.

Furthemore, it’s baffling that, nearly 25 years after Nigeria bagged her own Nobel through Soyinka, a Nigerian writer saw nothing wrong in suggesting that a Kenyan should not get the prize. Ngugi, Soyinka and Achebe have since the 60s formed the great tripod of the humanising literature of Black Africa. Soyinka has his Nobel, Man International Booker winner Achebe has been celebrated to the heavens for ‘Things Fall Apart’, and suddenly it’s a Nobel for Ngugi that will spell the death of African writing?

Nwaubani’s argument is deeply flawed; and it is regrettable that someone with a platform like the New York Times to postulate about Africa, chose to use her new-found international voice in this manner. The author of ‘I Do Not Come To You By Chance’ must realise that it will not be by chance that her argument will play into Western prejudices about Africa and African writing. ‘Oh, let’s not give another African a Nobel because, knowing no better, they’ll only copy themselves.’ Might as well go the whole hog and cite Shakespeare’s Iago: “These Moors are changeable in their wills."

Arguing for the emergence of new styles of writing, Nwaubani lumps Achebe, Soyinka and Ngugi into a questionable sameness, purveyors of what she calls “an earnest and sober style”. But what is so “sober” about Soyinka’s plays, or his prison memoirs, ‘The Man Died’? Or indeed Achebe’s ‘A Man of the People’? Have the likes of Helon Habila, Chimamanda Adichie, Sefi Atta, Lola Shoneyin and Uzodimma Iweala come to prominence simply because they ‘copied’ Achebe and Soyinka? And which of these two has Nwaubani herself copied? Of the supposed sobriety of the triumvirate, Kinna says on the blog, “Soyinka is far from sober. And what of Ngugi’s ‘Wizard of the Crow’, which successfully mixes humour, satire and fantasy and is, in my opinion, one of the most entertaining books by an African author. Is sober the new word for old?”

The part of Nwaubani’s argument that has provoked the most consternation, is the suggestion that literature in the indigenous languages serve only to exacerbate “tribal differences”. She declares, “This is not the kind of variety we need.” Chielozona Eze issued an early rebuttal to Nwaubani’s “cowardly ideas, the core of which sought to suggest that it is separatist for a writer to write in his native language or even to claim that he is a writer from his ethnic group.” As for Carmen McCain, a Hausa literature enthusiast, writing in indigenous languages “is exactly the variety we need.”

My own imaginative universe has been formed to a significant extent by the works of D.O Fagunwa, which I devoured as a child and still marvel to read today, novels that form the bedrock of Yoruba literature, books which might not have had the same power written in English. And what of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and others, whose immortal works were not originally written in a Western European language? What of ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’, ‘Love in the Time of Cholera’ and other works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez? Their initial publication in Spanish has done nothing to prevent them being read the world over through translation.

I suspect Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani could not have intended to be understood as saying a writer should not identify with an ethnic group. The bio on the UK edition of ‘I Do Not Come To You By Chance’ informs that the author “grew up in the eastern part of Nigeria, among the Igbo speaking people” – a construction that reads more like an ethnography citation from 70 years ago, but which nonetheless serves the purpose. But if Ngugi must be denied just so we don’t write Igbo, Hausa or Yoruba literature, it’s fairly standard that Nwaubani’s New York Times piece is a hard sell.
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Sikiru Ayinde Barrister

The news broke today that he's off to Fuji heaven. Sikiru Ayinde Barrister, one of the greatest names in Fuji music, died this morning in St Mary Hospital in London. News now confirmed by a close family source. He was 62.

This piece of news has sent me back to my London days. How my generation of then young Nigerians raised on Juju and Western music back in Nigeria discovered Fuji as part of the hip crowd in London as we flowered into womanhood and in the case of some, manhood. Early 90s, we suddenly became proud wearers of iro-and-buba and gele, going to owambes in Hackney and Brent Park, Brixton Recreation Centre and Dalston and all sorts of other places. Fuji, which when I was a young lass in Nigeria I only ever heard in cars when I passed through some neighbourhoods, cut across class and background massively in the early nineties, such that we took great delight in playing Ayinde Barrister, Ayinla Kollington, Wasiu Ayinde; and at parties, we danced to them like there was no tomorrow, with what can only be described as excessive joy. We came fully into our Nigerianness; Nigeria 'found' her children in England; our worlds were expanded, and Ayinde Barrister was part of that wondrous transformation. Golden times. I remember a serious 'disco' party in Willesden in 1995, ladies in hot dresses and guys looking fly. Me, I wore an above the knee A-Line Karen Millen number; my hair (in my pre-natural hair days) was a bouyant bob. We danced to Hip-Hop, RnB and the usual usual.... We were Yorubas, Urhobo, Edo and what have you. Then, someone whispered Ayinde Barrister to the deejay, like some social experiment, just to see what would happen. And what do you know, all these hip, English-spouting, arty-farty people started to sing along! And boy, did we dance!

"Hiii Hiiii, ladies and gentlemen
Come and dance to Fujiii
Fuji sound is better for you
Because, Fuji sound is beautiful

E je ka jo ko [let's sing it together]

A a aaa.....
A a aaa....
A a aaa....
A a aaa....

All sung with the infectious 'YorubAmericanised lingo of that record, cut by Barrister as a tribute to a successful tour of the United States. It's a long album, the tracks all rolled into one, as was the norm in the indigenous music of the time. Serious joy-inducing music. Meaningful at the same time. Different parts of it speak to me at different times. Here's one:

Ti mo ba r'omobinrin to ni'se lapa
Ise lo'ogun 'se
To pretty pupo
Omoge agunleyinju Omoge eyinfunjowo

It goes on in playfully amorous fashion:

Je ka'jo wo yara ka mo'ra wa o [let's go into the bedroom and 'know' ourselves]
Je ka'jo wo yara ka mora wa.

But the bit about 'Omobinrin to ni'se lapa' (a young woman who works for herself) appeals to the feminist in me. 'Independent Woman' before Destiny's Child even knew what was what.

And that's the song playing in my brain today: 'Hi hi, Ladies and Gentlemen'. I don't even know if that's the correct title. We knew these songs in our souls, not as facts on paper.

Rest in peace, Chief Sikiru Ayinde Barrister.
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Photography Exhibition by 'Kayode Adegbola

From the 23rd to 31st of December 2010, ‘Kayode Adegbola will be exhibiting his debut collection of 20 photographs, hosted by The Address 21 - a boutique hotel in Bodija, a residential area in Ibadan, Oyo State.

Adegbola has earned his reputation as a promising new generation photographer - the 20 year-old was winner of the 2008 "Fifth Element of Bar Med" and the 2009 "Reflections of Queen Mary" Photo Contests, both in his University - Queen Mary, University of London where he is currently in the final year of a bachelor’s degree in Law.

His areas of specialization include portraiture, street, cultural and travel photography, political and music photo-documentation. He has worked on several projects such as covering political rallies and protests in Nigeria and England, documenting the growth and development of the Nigerian Music Industry - video shoots, live performances, backstage and behind the scenes - with artistes like Femi Kuti and Ayo on stage at the London Jazz Festival 2007, Dr Sid on the set of his “Something About You” video with the Mo’Hits all stars, and R. Kelly at the Thisday Music Festival in Lagos in 2009.

Some of his other personal photo projects presently being developed include “The Polo Diaries” - a photo-documentary on Polo in Nigeria and the rest of the world; and “Vagrants” - a series on homeless people around the world, as well as other cultural and travel photography projects.

Adegbola is presenting a collection of 20 limited edition prints for viewing and sale in his home base, Ibadan. He describes this collection as one in which every piece means something special to him, and says that he is proud to finally be presenting it for viewing and sale and will be happy to provide a private viewing of the collection to some of his clients.

The exhibition will begin with an opening ceremony and private viewing of the collection at 12 noon on the 23rd of December 2010, with His Excellency, Governor Kayode Fayemi, The Executive Governor of Ekiti State as special guest; at The Address 21, situated on number 21 Oba Olagbegi Avenue, Old Bodija, Ibadan. Thereafter the collection will remain open to the public at the same venue between 10 a.m and 6 p.m until the 31st of December 2010.

For additional information: e-mail info@adegbola.com, kayode@adegbola.com, visit http://www.adegbola.com/ or call +2348033245564

Baba Segi's welcome party

So here it is, folks! Lola Shoneyin’s flagrantly titled debut novel ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ is here in Nigeria at last. The book is already available to buy at Quintessence (Falomo Shopping Centre, Awolowo Road, Ikoyi, Lagos) and other places. Shoneyin launches ‘The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives’ at a Book Party organised in collaboration with the French Cultural Centre on Friday December 17 in Abuja. Details below.

The French Cultural Centre
Libreville Street
Off Aminu Kano
Wuse II, Abuja

Date: Friday, December 17

Time: 6pm.

Snapshots from AFRIFF 2

Here's Pakistani actor Adnan Siddiqui in the departure lounge of the Port Harcourt airport on December 5. He's in an upcoming film with Morgan Freeman directed by Clint Eastwood, 'The Athlete', coming out in the new year (great to hear of another onscreen partnership between Eastwood and Freeman, after 'Unforgiven' and 'Million Dollar Baby').

There were lots of actresses in the hall but most kept a low profile, leaving Rita Dominic to play the belle of the ball in the front row. At one point, P-Square came down from the stage to sing to her alone. And she was game, getting up to dance. After that, she hardly sat down. Although P-Square was so good, the whole hall was up dancing by the end of their set.

Here's Nollywood actress Dakore Egbuson, co-host on the night, dancing to P-Square on the side-aisle.

Here's me and African American actor Rockmond Dunbar at the AFRIFF award gala on December 4. Dunbar was the festival's special guest along with Malcolm Jamal Warner (I couldn't look at him without thinking: Theo!). Both were seated way in front with Rita Dominic, and presented an award as well as being featured in many of co-host IK's wisecracks, and Dunbar was very good at playing along. IK said he hated Dunbar because his wife was totally into the man. So later when IK asked if Dunbar was married, the actor replied to much laughter in the audience: "I'm not married, but tell your wife I said Hello" - to which IK had no comeback. It was a long night and Malcolm Jamal Warner made a quiet exit almost an hour before the end of the show. But Rockmond Dunbar totally got into the groove (he wants to collaborate with Nollywood filmmakers and everything), left his special seat and joined the AFRIFF group (Peace Anyiam-Osigwe, Chioma Ude, Ilaria Chessa and co) on the front side aisle, dancing the night away as P-Square brought the house down. I went up to take his picture and ended up posing for a shot with him. The next day I sent a text to my son to ask: "Do you know the actor Rockmond Dunbar from 'Prison Break'?" The reply was swift: "Benjamin a.k.a C-Note". And so because some young man somewhere thinks it's cool, I'm posting this picture.

Relentless trailer

RELENTLESS from Lluís Prieto on Vimeo.

Snapshots from AFRIFF

3 outstanding scripts from Tyger Williams' lab were selected for AFRIFF's Script-to-Screen project. Pictured here with Williams (in white) are, from left, Adeyemi Ayoyemi Adeniyi (for 'One Window'), Abiola Hameed ('Task') and Iliyasu Kassim (for 'Tsangaya'). They will be assisted with funding by the festival organisation to turn their scripts into short films that will be shown at next year's AFRIFF.

Tyger Williams wrote the script for 'Menace II Society', a fact that made me go 'Wow!' when I discovered. In the background is Soledad Grognett, Technical Director of the First African Film Festival. Along with Sandra Obiago and Jahman Anikulapo, I was on the Scriptwriting Advisory Board for AFRIFF. Our task was to select the 12 short scripts that made it into Tyger Williams' scriptwriting lab, which he taught for 3 days.

Actress Omoni Oboli, last seen in Kunle Afolayan's The Figurine, is out with a new film, 'Anchor Baby'. She's seen here with the film's director, Lonzo Nzekwe. 'Anchor Baby was shown at AFRIFF. It premieres in Lagos on December 9 and opens to the public on the 10th.

After the screening of the festival's opening film 'Relentless' on December 2, its stars, Gideon Okeke and Nneka Egbuna sit down for a Q&A with Kunle Afolayan and the film's director, Andy Amadi Okoroafor.

African Time, an exhibition

Victor Ehikhamenor and I are recent returnees into the ever churning vortex that is the metropolis of Lagos. How he manages to stay so prolific as a visual artist, is a neat trick that I as a fiction writer have not mastered. Ehikhamenor's last exhibition, 'Roforofo Fight', held as recently as October, as part of Felabration. Now he's back with another exhibition, this time exploring Nigerians' complicated grasp of time, their invention of 'African Time', which necessitates a perpetual lateness.

African Time opens at 6pm on December 11 and runs till Christmas Day. It's at The Life House, 33 Sinari Daranijo Street, Off Ligali Ayorinde, Victoria Island, Lagos.

3rd Garden City Literary Festival, December 8 to 11

The third Garden City Literary Festival starts in Port Harcourt tomorrow and goes on till Saturday, December 11. Two Nobel laureates, Wole Soyinka and J.M.G Le Clezio, will hold a historic conversation in front of a festival audience, in what promises to be the golden ticket of the GCLF.

Helon Habila, Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani and Zainabu Jallo will hold workshops, there'll be a book fair, photo exhibition, role models will read to children, and 50 writers will be honoured as a special gala for their contribution to Nigerian literature. There are 2 stage plays, including Odia Ofeimun's dance drama 'A Feast of Return' which will be performed at Government House, Port Harcourt on the 11th. It's a packed programme.

Here's something I wrote ahead of this year's festival. And my reports from last year's festival are here and here.

Festival organisers have also released information about a Literature Conference taking place during the GCLF. See below:


INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE CONFERENCE
THEME: NIGERIAN LITERATURE AT 50: CHALLENGES AND PROSPECTS

Key note speaker: Prof. Olu Obafemi, University of Ilorin

In keeping with our vision to create a forum where great minds converge to deliberate on pertinent literary topics, we would be organising a literature conference to be facilitated by the Rivers State chapter of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) which will feature a cross-section of seasoned writers specialising in different genres. The conference will be one of the opening events of the Garden City Literary Festival and will take place on Wednesday the 8th of December at the Hotel Presidential in Port Harcourt. Participants at the conference will examine how Nigerian writing has evolved in the post-colonial era; looking at the highs and lows of the last five decades, while also looking ahead to what the future has in store for the next generation of writers, publishers and indeed readers.

The focus of this one-day conference will be the vast and varied genres of Nigerian writing; from fiction to non-fiction, poetry to drama, children’s literature to works written in local languages and literature that has sprung out of the Niger Delta region.

This conference will be a veritable melting pot of knowledge and ideas and the audience will have the unique opportunity to debate on the issues raised by speakers in order to form a consensus on the way forward for Nigerian writing based on lessons learned from the challenges and triumphs outlined in the discussion.

Experts who would be delivering papers at the conference are:

• Convener; Miesoinuma Minimah Chairman, Rivers State Branch, ANA
• Chairman (paper panel): Dr Wale Okediran, immediate past National President, ANA
• Dr Chima Anyadike of OAU (fiction)
• Prof. Sam Ukala of Delta State University (Niger Delta literature)
• Prof. Abdu Salleh of Bayero University (poetry)
• Prof. Ahmed Yerimah of Kwara State Uni. (Drama)
• Prof. Ibrahim Malumfashi of Uthman Danfodio Uni. (Hausa literature)
• Prof. G.G. Darah of Delta State Uni. (Pidgin literature)
• Prof. Akachi Ezeigbo of the University of Lagos (Children’s literature)
• Prof. Innocent Nwadike of UNN, (Igbo literature)
• Dr Jare Ajayi, Author, Association of Nigerian Authors Oyo Chapter (Yoruba literature)
• Rappporteur: Prof. Martin Bestman, French Department, University of Port Harcourt
• Di. Dennis Ekpo, French Department, University of Port Harcourt
• Mr Seiyifa Koroye, English Department, University of Port Harcourt
  

UPDATE J.M.G Le Clezio will not make it to Port Harcourt after all. His doctors advised against the trip, after he fell ill in Mexico. So there you have it. But we're all here, as are tons of other writers. And the Great Soyinka will still make it.

Blogging as a bourgeois pipe dream

Hello, patient blog readers, who have watched uncomplainingly while Wordsbody took a long snooze.

The failure to update this blog is never intentional. It's just that Lagos life throws a lot of challenges in one's way, like you get home and there's no light and you have to power your generator, which breaks down sometimes, leaving you clutching in the dark for rechargable torches or candles. Other times, there's no fuel because you've exhausted your supply or there's a fuel crisis. At times you get home very late at night after battling through traffic. Or you've paid for a month's unlimited internet supply and it just won't connect or it will take till tomorrow morning to upload the smallest file. At times like this, the furthest thing from your mind is the updating of a blog.

What am I trying to say? In the unending struggles of day-to-day existence in Nigeria, blogging can become a bourgeois pipe dream...

Lagos is an amazing city and there's always stuff happening on the arts scene there. One never has enough body or legs to make all the events. Like last Saturday I attended two art exhibtion openings: Resurgence, a two-man show by artists Gbenga Ajiboye and Ayoola Mudasiru at the Wangbojes Gallery in Ikoyi; and Ablode by Beninoise artist Midahuen Yves (known as Midy for short) at Quintessence. After the exhibitions I caught a play, Ahmed Yerima's 'Little Drops', produced by Lufodo Productions in collaboration with TW Magazine (Tosan Edremoda-Ugbeye, Joke Silva, Ropo Ewenla and Kate Henshaw-Nuttal gave their all in the play, which is about the plight of women in the Niger Delta crisis). Earlier in the week, November 22, I was at the ArtHouse Contemporary auction at the Civic Centre when Demas Nwoko's sitting wood sculpture of 'The Wise Man' went for a cool 9 million naira. Gotta love it. There was a hush as the bidding went into 5, 6, 7 million; and we all clapped when the hammer went down. Exciting stuff, and it happens in Lagos every day - pity one can't blog it all.

For a fortnight however, it seems many are going Rivers way, myself included. I'm posting this from Port Harcourt and my internet modem is cooperating. Above is the view of Port Harcourt from my sixth floor balcony at the Hotel Presidential.

I'm attending the Africa International Film Festival, which started on December 1 and ends tomorrow.
Taking over will be the Garden City Literary Festival which will have in attendance Wole Soyinka, J.M.G Le Clezio, Helon Habila and scores of others (December 8 to 11).
After that will be the CARNIRIV, Rivers State's own carnival, from December 13 to 18. I'm here till the close of the Garden City Literary Festival at least. I'll have to read about the carnival.