To the Reader

Zadie Smith has written her tips on how to be a good writer & reader - or rather, how to 'fail better'. More tips to come next week. She ends for now with a word for the reader: gotta work.

Excerpt
10. Note to readers: a novel is a two-way street

A novel is a two-way street, in which the labour required on either side is, in the end, equal. Reading, done properly, is every bit as tough as writing - I really believe that. As for those people who align reading with the essentially passive experience of watching television, they only wish to debase reading and readers. The more accurate analogy is that of the amateur musician placing her sheet music on the stand and preparing to play. She must use her own, hard-won, skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift she gives the composer and the composer gives her. This is a conception of "reading" we rarely hear now. And yet, when you practise reading, when you spend time with a book, the old moral of effort and reward is undeniable. Reading is a skill and an art and readers should take pride in their abilities and have no shame in cultivating them if for no other reason than the fact that writers need you. To respond to the ideal writer takes an ideal reader, the type of reader who is open enough to allow into their own mind a picture of human consciousness so radically different from their own as to be almost offensive to reason. The ideal reader steps up to the plate of the writer's style so that together writer and reader might hit the ball out of the park. What I'm saying is, a reader must have talent. Quite a lot of talent, actually, because even the most talented reader will find much of the land of literature tricky terrain. For how many of us feel the world to be as Kafka felt it, too impossibly foreshortened to ride from one village to the next? Or can imagine a world without nouns, as Borges did? How many are willing to be as emotionally generous as Dickens, or to take religious faith as seriously as did Graham Greene? Who among us have Zora Neale Hurston's capacity for joy or Douglas Coupland's strong stomach for the future? Who has the delicacy to tease out Flaubert's faintest nuance, or the patience and the will to follow David Foster Wallace down his intricate recursive spirals of thought? The skills that it takes to write it are required to read it. Readers fail writers just as often as writers fail readers. Readers fail when they allow themselves to believe the old mantra that fiction is the thing you relate to and writers the amenable people you seek out when you want to have your own version of the world confirmed and reinforced. That is certainly one of the many things fiction can do, but it's a conjurer's trick within a far deeper magic. To become better readers and writers we have to ask of each other a little bit more.

Read all the tips...


Update 22 January
Fail better, read better...
"I have said that when I open a book I feel the shape of another human being's brain" - from the concluding part of Zadie Smith's tips.

New Reads

Nigeria has recently witnessed a plethora of writers from the diaspora doing reading tours in that country and this is supported by a new generation of young publishers who are linking up with metropolitan publishers to co-publish African editions of books by African writers first published abroad. African publishers like Farafina Books on the ground acquire the rights to publish them locally in order to make them available and affordable in Africa. In addition, they have toured these writers to several cities in Nigeria and recent tours have included Sefi Atta (winner of the inaugural Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature in Africa 2006) with her book Everything Good Will Come, Diana Evans with her book 26A (winner of the Orange Prize for New Writers 2005) and Ogaga Ifowodo, one of the most respected of a younger generation of poets and a major poetic voice, appeared at The Jazzhole in Lagos with his latest publication entitled 'Pouring Words on Troubled Waters: The Writer and His Nation' in September 2006.

• The above is extracted from Becky Clarke's introduction to the current issue of Crossing Borders Magazine, which offers up new short stories by African writers including Jackee Budesta Batanda and Blessing Musariri. Read it all here.

In a new story by Nadine Gordimer published in The New Yorker, a South African woman contends with a sense that her husband, a cellist, is having an affair. In this excerpt, she wonders who the other woman might be...

Or was the woman nearer home? A member of the national orchestra in which he and his cello were star performers? That was an identification she found hard to look for, considering their company of friends in this way. A young woman, of course, a younger woman than herself. But wasn’t that just the inevitable decided at her mother’s tea-table forum? The clarinet player was in her late forties, endowed with fine breasts in décolleté and a delightful wit. There was often repartee between them, the clarinet and the cello, over drinks. The pianist, young with waist-length red-out-of-the-bottle hair, was a lesbian kept under strict guard by her woman. The third and last female musician in the orchestra was also the last whom one would be crass enough to think of: her name was Khomotso; she was the second violinist of extraordinary talent, one of the two black musicians. She was so young; she had given birth to an adored baby, who, for the first few months of life, had been brought to rehearsals in the car of Khomotso’s sister so that the mother could suckle the infant there. The director of the orchestra gave an interview to a Sunday newspaper about this, as an example of the orchestra’s adaptation to the human values of the new South Africa. The violinist was certainly the prettiest, the most desirable, of the women in whose company the cellist spent the intense part of his days and nights, but respect, his human feeling, would be stronger than sexual attraction, his identification with her as a musician would make distracting her from that taboo. As for him, wouldn’t it look like the old South Africa—a white man “taking advantage of” the precariously balanced life of a young black woman?

Read 'The First Sense'...

Remembering Chukura

Writers honour late ANA judge, Lynn Chukura
By Uduma Kalu http

GRADUALLY, and unexpectedly, a white body of a woman washed ashore. The crowd at the Labadi beach, Ghana, took a close look at it. It was the body of the poet, lecturer and former literary judge of the Association Nigerian Authors, (ANA), Lynn Chukura. She was teaching English at the University of Legon, Ghana.

Just recently, a member of a listserve had inquired about her. Lynn had also sent a poem, "Identity" for an anthology being edited by a Nigerian lady living in the United States of America. She was thinking of publishing her novel, "The Man", in the United States of America. Her earlier collection of poems, Archetyping, got an ANA honourable mention.

If there was any doubt among the onlookers at the beach that it was Lynn, the press statement that followed entitled" Obituary Notice: Re: Ms. Mary Lynn Olisa Chukura", wiped all that thinking away.

The statement, released by Kofi Anyidoho, Professor and Head of the English Department, University of Legon, Ghana remarked that "It is with deep regret that I write to announce the death of our colleague Ms. Mary Lynn Olisa Chukura, Senior Lecturer in the Department of English. Ms. Chukura drowned in the ocean at Labadi on Tuesday 21st November 2006.
"Ms. Chukura joined the English Department of University of Ghana as a Senior Lecturer on 17th February, 2003, from Nigeria, where she had had a long and active career at the University of Lagos. She has been a very dedicated and effective member of the faculty, with responsibility for a number of our core courses. Her death comes as a great loss to the department and the university.

"An American citizen from Lancaster in Pennsylvania, Ms. Chukura was born on 14th June, 1950, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, with Kilheffer as her family name. She is survived by Mr. Udemezuo Onuora Nwuneli of Lagos, aged 32, and his two sisters Nkem and Nancy Nwuneli, currently living in the USA."

Arrangements for the funeral, he continued, showed that Lynn's body was laid in state last Saturday, December 9, from 7:00 - 9:45 am, at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, University of Ghana, Legon. Burial Mass was at the same day at the St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, University of Ghana, Legon, while the Final Funeral Rites held same day also, at The University Guest Centre, Legon. The Thanksgiving Mass was yesterday, Sunday, December 10, at 9:00 am. St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church, University of Ghana, Legon.
Another press statement also appeared last week. Entitled, "Tears Drop..." the message came from Lookman Sanusi and Nike Adesuyi, For The Lynn Chukura Committee.

The duo while announcing "Ms. Lynn Chukura (Nee Kilheffer) writer, literary critic and university teacher, mother, grandmother, sister and aunty, who passed away on Tuesday 21st November 2006 in Legon Ghana," went on to say that Lynn served for several years on the selection panel for Association of Nigerian Authors Literature Prizes where she contributed in no small measure in advancing the cause and course of Modern Nigerian writing.

"A Thanksgiving Mass will hold in her honour in Lagos Nigeria, on Tuesday, 12th December at St Dominic Catholic Church, Yaba Lagos. All friends, well wishers, former students, colleagues , most especially the Lagos/Ibadan literary community are enjoined to attend and pay their final respect to this great woman who gave so much of herself and her endowments towards the development of literature in Nigeria."

Lynn was a good swimmer and would often boast about it. She preferred to swim in the open sea because she felt natural waters have spiritual effect.

Since these announcements, writers, the world over, as expected, have been paying tributes to her. Some of the tributes remember the assistance she rendered to the writers and their associations. One in particular mentioned her political activism. Lynn resigned her appointment at the University of Lagos because her branch of Academic Staff Union of Universities, (ASUU), betrayed the struggle of the union in 1996.

Also Dr. Wumi Raji was sacked along with his colleagues by the University of Ilorin in 2001, Lynn tried her best to get Raji placed at the University of Lagos.

The bulk of the tributes to Lynn emphasise her literary contributions and achievements. She reviewed Maik Nwosu's Alpha Song at the French Cultural Centre, at the presentation some years back. ANA former scribe, Nduka Otiono, remembered "that Lynn just wasn't one of the most reliable judges ANA ever had, she lived a life of sacrifice for others, and was always ready to help. As Gen Sec of ANA, I sought and received her co-operation to prepare that comprehensive Guidelines for ANA Prizes on ANA website, which was adapted for the NLNG Prize and other prizes. And when she relocated to Ghana while her tenure as Judge was still valid, she accepted to complete her term if I could ship entries for the year's ANA Prizes to her in Accra.

"Clearly, she deserves an honour from ANA and WRITA for her selfless contributions to new Nigerian writing--as Judge, teacher, mentor, thoroughbred Editor, exemplary membership, etc, " he wrote.

Lynn was a regular presence at most literary activities. She was an executive member at the Women Writers of Nigeria (WRITA) and Lagos branch of ANA. Some of the national conventions she attended are also remembered by some of the writers. The writers expressed her commitment to literature, literary meetings in Benin City, Jos, Asaba, Kaduna, since 1994, and her editorial helps and as MUSON judge. Lynn shared some of her writings too, one of them said. One of the works was "The Man".

Those that were teachers also said they read and taught Lynn's story at the University of Jos, adding that Lynn would be remembered for her feminist vision in Nigerian literature.

• Culled from The Guardian, Lagos - Monday 11 December, 2006.

He Claims To Be A Writer

One indignity regularly suffered by African writers and artists planning to visit the UK and the US is the denial of entry visa. It happens even when they are to feature in high profile UK events. And not even prominent, well-travelled ones are immune. Earlier this year, the poet Odia Ofeimun applied for 4 years' visa - for multiple short visits to the UK. The British Consulate in Lagos denied him a visa. You'd have thought any educated person in Nigeria would be aware of Ofeimun's status as a major Nigerian poet, but no. The consulate official compounded the insult by noting down in writing: "He claims to be a writer." The experience led to Ofeimun's poem, 'I Am A Writer'. It didn't end there. Adefayi Martins, in a victory for the power of the pen, wrote a piece in TheNeWS on the visa insult. And as if by magic, the British Consulate invited Odia Ofeimun back and instead of the 4 years applied for, they granted him leave to enter for 10 years. Adefayi Martin's opinion piece, below...

Rebutting the British… and their Visas, in Verse

Acclaimed poet and writer, Odia Ofeimun, one of Nigeria’s finest public intellectuals, disclaims the conceit of the British Consulate – that denied him visa – because "he claims to be a writer". Adefayi Martins reports

Oscar Wilde, the late Irish playwright, and iconoclast par excellence, did not suffer fools gladly, both is his art and in real life. He had, like many Europeans of his age, an understated continental disdain for the United States, the political, economic and spatial behemoth that always fancied itself as "the world". When he visited the United States, long before the current age of the finger-prints and other indignities that the US forces visitors to experience at her entry points under the guise of keeping out unwanted guests, Wilde was asked if he had anything to declare. "Nothing", the witty and deprecating Wilde replied, "except my genius"!

The US Customs official must have had a sense of humour. He allowed Wilde to pass. The officer at the British Consulate that attended to Odia Ofeimun, acclaimed poet, writer, journalist, political scientist, polemist and public intellectual, when he applied to renew his UK visitor’s visa must have been humourless. They often are, at any rate. The official denied Ofeimun, who lived in the United Kingdom as a scholar at the oldest British University, Oxford, for a few years in the 1980s, and has visited the UK many times since returning home, entry visa last month. He must have thought the poet lied. Incidentally, the latter phrase is the title of the affable Ofeimun’s celebrated poetry collection. The official stated in denying Odia visa – in a sticker attached to his passport - that "he claims to be a writer". A most condescending insult added to the injury of visa denial.

Ofeimun is not one to take such insult, which many Nigerians regularly take - with equanimity from the British and other consulates in Nigeria - lying low. The denial comes exactly ten years after the same British High Commission denied him visa to enjoy a facility provided by their own cultural agency, the British Council, for the poet to see the London Book Fair. The Consulate later relented when challenged, only for the more humourless General Sani Abacha’s goons at the airport to seize Odia’s passport.

In his poetic response to the recent British conceit entitled, "I am a Writer…", Ofeimun tells the joyless consuls,

I do not claim to be, I am a writer

As my passport insists

across decades, and still counting.

If the grating visa-granting official is still unconvinced, the poet adds that the years he has spent bearing that passport as a writer draws

humus from Year Twelve
When school bells added my name
To the throng gamboling along
With the Pied Piper of Hamellin
And, the Ancient Mariner
Whose magic, and the bamboo flutes
Of Martin Carter in Guyana jail
Took me by hand to know Ogun
when Okigbo’s road was famished.

If the British Consulate is unaware of the poet’s accomplishments, or what another poet, Okinba Launko describes in his poem, We are Climbing Still, as the "several prizes we were showered with/and the congratulations we wear like mendallions!", Ofeimun sings of his possession of a cultural capital which the British themselves claim to value, but have devalued "through the syllabus of errors…(that) set no column to my stripe" marking the denial of visa to him, this second time. He tells the consulate in the poem that, at 18, his "waify poems" were already "elevating siblings" at the West African Examination Council examinations, that is the General Certificate of Examination (GCE) and the School Certificate exams, popularly called School Cert and even university thesis, long "before stamps hit the pad at the Passport Office".

The poet presses his claims further. For the avoidance of doubt, he advertises his artistic victories that link with world cultures at famous cultural centres of the world, including the British cultural centres:

I do not claim to be, I am a writer
Whose trip under African skies
Took Sun-dance to Sadler’s well
Queen Elizabeth Hall by the Thames
And Fleet Street of glancing nods
with poesy of the body’s rhythm
rounding the Cape of Good Hope
and toasting five hundred years
above visa-gripe, truth’s fibre
as art for life vouchsafes it
setting navel closer to navel
to keep fellow-feeling in grace.

As he tells friends, Ofeimun will soon journey to South America where, if the poet can be unveiled, he has some honey, who - as he croons in his poem, "Oyin" -

breathes a quiet ardour
against a calculus of (perhaps, British) nerves.

Ofeimun, who, a few years ago, predicted the terrible fate that General Abacha met in one of his poems – Thighs fall apart, the General (dis)appears – insists that though

the division of spoils
encumbering the earth with visas

can stop his travel to Britain, it cannot encumber his spirit, because

I’m happy, beyond mere fashion
for trips that visas can’t deny.

The British consulate can deny Odia Ofeimun visa, but it cannot deny him his voice – his verse.

• Odia Ofeimun has since travelled through Britain.