More images from Women Rule!

Here are my own pictures Women Rule!, which was attended by quite a few brave men. Shown above are Toni Kan, Simi Dosekun and Bibi Bakare Yusuf. Karen Patterson held the house captive for some 30 minutes, playing on a 274-year-old cello.

Writer and radio personality Wana Udobang (who read a poem during the open mic session) and musician, Ade Bantu in the Life House garden.

Olajide Bello, Oyiza Adaba and Kaine Agary at the event.

Kaine Dosekun and others listen to the oldest attendee, who gamely participated in the open mic by doing a reading.

Photos by MW.

Up the Gangirwal

Scene from a just concluded expedition up Mount Gangirwal in Nigeria, near the border with Cameroon. Here pairs of boots enjoy the ride as bare feet are put to work as the group crosses a river before confronting the mountain. Jide Bello (lawyer and culture enthusiast) is in the foreground. That figure on the left channelling Gandhi is Bibi Bakare-Yusuf of Cassava Republic Press.

See Jeremy Weate's posts on the hike over at Naijablog (see also, 'Mountain of Death'). Related post here.
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Image © Jeremy Weate

Sisi-Oge goes to Lagos

It’s the end of an era. At least that’s what my circle of friends are saying, as we try to come to terms with the move from the UK to Nigeria of Ireti Bakare-Yusuf, also known as ‘Sisi Oge’. London’s Loss is Lagos’ gain, and Ireti is going to be kicking it in Nigeria as a high-flyer in the telecommunications industry. Ireti is ready for Lagos; whether Lagos is ready for Ireti, is another matter entirely.

As has happened with some friends who have gone Nigeria way in the last few years, I expect I’ll be seeing Ireti on the style pages of some Nigerian publications from now on. She’s a great party goer (our friend, Yemi, laughed when I called Ireti “the social secretary of London”) and always knows where it’s at. More importantly, she knows ‘how’ you should go there, by that I mean ‘what to wear’.

When it comes to fashion, Ireti knows her stuff, not for no reason do we call her ‘Sisi Oge’. She has the fashionista’s required style certainty (which in lesser others would come with a dose of snobbery), exuberance, flamboyance and eccentricity. She’ll construct it and wear it, the hell with it. As a stylist, Ireti has been maintaining a studio in Hendon and an increasing number of style conscious Londoners have been making their way there and going away with custom made designs. So now that she’s leaving town, no few women are going to look around and say, ‘What on earth am I going to wear?’ Ireti designed the dress I wore to the literary wedding in The Gambia last July. She is also a fashion writer, something I hope she’ll do more and more of in Lagos – where we all know it’s really at. Ireti, who’s the sister of Cassava Republic publisher Bibi Bakare-Yusuf, will also be missed on London’s airwaves, especially the Vanessa Feltz radio show. Another thing she’d have been good at, broadcasting.

Oh well, while we try to get used to the new order of things, we the friends sent her off in a small do at the Soul Food Restaurant in Hendon on Saturday 5th January. I took my own photos of the event, blogged here. Our long-time friend, Yemi Sodipo (a professional photographer whose images are featured in UK Magazines like 'Heat', Yemi is the only black on the file of snappers who cover UK Big Brother evictions. He shot my profile image on the top-right corner of this blog, in February 2003) was also snapping away. Apart from Yemi, there were 3 ladies called Lola. And Maryam, Emma, Telemi and 'Labake – to name a few. I’ve known some of these people upwards of 20 years. We’ve seen ourselves through so many seasons, so many upheavals, so many pains and joys – our children have to be reminded that we are not blood relatives. That is one of the wonderful things about London; friends assume the position and responsibility of family, filling the void for blood relatives, the bulk of whom are back home in Nigeria.

In the last 10 years, people have married, divorced, had children, made distant by space and careers and what not. I for instance have become more reclusive because of my writing (one thing I won’t miss much about Ireti, is her habit of phoning me late in the night while I’m tapping away on the laptop, deep in the flow of some inspiration or other or even slave to some writing deadline or other. I pick up the phone and bark, “Five minutes, Ireti! I can talk for five minutes only!” She says,OK. But more often than not, I get sucked into whatever she wants to talk about, I add my own bit, we talk about this and that and argue about what happened on the news like it was at our doorsteps. By the time she rings off two hours later, the writing impetus is gone. But no friend has been more proud of my writing...). We’ve all remained friends, thanks to someone like Ireti who without knowing it, functioned as a bridge between many people. Now the bridge will be in Lagos and we’ll have to adapt to this sea-change.

As the send-off wound to a close on Saturday, we offered all manners of advice for Lagos life – not that we would know! We also told her, with all seriousness, that she’ll have to get a big place in Lagos, because we’ll be her regular house guests in Naija, from now on.

As the Yorubas say, 'Ogun omode ko lee s'ere f'ogun odun' (Twenty children cannot play together for twenty years.')

Holiday Reading

[O]n January 5, 2008 – Ngugi turns 70. The lived years, in this case, do not signify the mere passage of time, but mark the process of the making of a colossus. Such an anniversary does not simply have to be observed; it ought to be celebrated. It is only appropriate then to take brief stock of what it is in particular we are celebrating.

- So begins a tribute to Ngugi wa Thiong'o at 70 (by Emilia Ilieva) in the new, 'Holiday' issue of African Writing, now online. There's acres and acres of content, and I am beginning to pick my way through. Poetry, Tributes, Profiles, Fiction (lots of fiction), Photo Galleries, Reviews... The theme is Southern Africa.

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Might as well introduce a 'New Read' here... and here's the intro to a lovely short story in the issue, Eddie Fisher Won't Be Comin' In Today...

Viva McVee arrived that day at the tail end of a dust storm, and as the empty Simba chip packets settled back in the branches of the leafless hedge at the school gate, out of the grey dust appeared a woman. I sat on the lid of the dustbin outside of the airless staff room smoking a cigarette and as she emerged I felt my heart jump and knew, from the look of her, that we were in for something.

• Read the story, by Botswanan Lauri Kubuitsile here

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There is a gallery of Bibi Bakare-Yusuf (publisher at Cassava Republic) looking fierce at a talk she gave in South Africa last month. Contributed by Ntone Edjabe, editor of Chimurenga.

Doing the LBF

I merely dropped by at the last London Book Fair (these pics from 16 April) in the sense that I had no real business there. But I went there to fraternise with 3 Nigerian writers/publishers who were in town. My involvement, as it were, went no further than the front steps of the Earl's Court One venue. I hob-nobbed and 'met' with my people on this frontage. Muhtar Bakare (above left; publisher of some top Nigerian writers & Farafina Magazine) and Bibi Bakare-Yusuf (below; publisher @ Cassava Republic Press) had gruelling daylong engagements inside the fair. But writer Jude Dibia (right; author 'Walking With Shadows' & 'Unbridled') found it a bit hard-going, which made me relieved I never went inside.

• Since this blog is going to be taking a short break, how about we run a little competition?
• Win a copy of Jude Dibia's second novel 'Unbridled'.
• All you have to do is answer this simple question: In Walking With Shadows, what is the name of main character's wife?
• Answers by email to: laralara8@hotmail.com - first correct answer in my inbox, wins. Please include your name and city/address. Winner to be announced at the next blog update.

Bibi Bakare-Yusuf is the face behind Cassava Republic Press. She is the Nigerian publisher of Helon Habila & Abidemi Sanusi - with more writers being added to the roster. Diligent, soft-spoken and highly principled, books are not just a business for Bibi. She sits on the Roundtable at the Caine Prize Colloquium in London today.
Bibi and I have been friends for nearly 15 years, and it's been wonderful to evolve not just as friends on a personal level, but also as voices on the Nigerian literary scene. Whenever we get the chance to catch up these days (which is not often, since Bibi is based in Abuja and galivants all over the world in her spare time) we talk, talk, talk - until time itself runs out. Her sister & my friend Sisioge (aka Ireti Bakare-Yusuf; I am her son's godmother) stubbornly injects fashion and other matters into our 'literary' conversations; Bibi and I just roll our eyes and carry on talking, which infuriates Ireti.

When Bibi's day was done at the LBF, we sat on the front steps and talked, talked, talked - till the event closed and hundreds of bookfair goers flowed out of the venue, past us and into Earl's Court Station across the road. And there we were talking books. Ah, bless!