Binyavanga Wainaina in Granta

It's been argued in some quarters that Binyavanga Wainaina is the best thing that ever happened to the Caine Prize. It would seem Granta's views aren't that far off, as the journal now tells everyone who cares to listen that the Kenyan writer's essay, 'How to Write About Africa' is the most popular ever on its website. It will be recalled that the essay went viral after it was published years back, for its lampooning of European Africanists. Is there anyone left that hasn't read it?

Originally print-only, Wainaina's latest essay for Granta has now been made available on the magazine's website, so many more than freely enjoy it. Low viral potential, but a wonderfully observed piece all the same. ''One Day I Will Write About This Place' is from the writer's forthcoming memoirs of the same title.


An excerpt

A well-known dombolo song starts, and a ripple of excitement overtakes the crowd. This communal goosebump wakes a rhythm in us, and we all get up to dance. A guy with a cast on one leg is using his crutch as a dancing aid, bouncing around like a string puppet. The cars all have their interior lights on; inside, couples do what they do. The windows seem like eyes, glowing with excitement as they watch us onstage.

Everybody is doing the dombolo, a Congolese dance where your hips (and only your hips) are supposed to move like a ball bearing made of mercury. To do it right, you wiggle your pelvis from side to side while your upper body remains as casual as if you were lunching with Nelson Mandela.

I have struggled to get this dance right for years. I just can’t get my hips to roll in circles like they should. Until tonight. The booze is helping, I think. I have decided to imagine that I have an itch deep in my bum, and I have to scratch it without using my hands, or rubbing against anything.

My body finds a rhythmic map quickly and I build my movements to fluency, before letting my limbs improvise. Everybody is doing this, a solo thing – yet we are bound, like one creature, in one rhythm.

Any dombolo song has this section where, having reached a small peak of hip-wiggling frenzy, the music stops and one is supposed to pull one’s hips to the side and pause, in anticipation of an explosion of music faster and more frenzied than before. When this happens, you are supposed to stretch out your arms and do some complicated kung-fu manoeuvres. Or keep the hips rolling, and slowly make your way down to your haunches, then work yourself back up. If you watch a well-endowed woman doing this, you will understand why skinny women are not popular among many in East Africa.

• Read the whole essay.

Related: How to Write About Africa

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

Farafina Trust Creative Writing Workshop

Press Release

Farafina Trust will be holding a creative writing workshop in Lagos, organized by award-winning writer and creative director of Farafina Trust, Chimamanda Adichie, from May 20 to May 29 2010. The workshop is sponsored by Nigerian Breweries Plc. Guest writers who will co-teach the workshop alongside Adichie are the Caine Prize Winning Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina, Chika Unigwe winner of a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship for creative writing, South African writer Niq Mhlongo and celebrated Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo.

The workshop will take the form of a class. Participants will be assigned a wide range of reading exercises, as well as daily writing exercises. The aim of the workshop is to improve the craft of Nigerian writers and to encourage published and unpublished writers by bringing different perspectives to the art of storytelling. Participation is limited only to those who apply and are accepted.

To apply, send an e-mail to Udonandu2010@gmail.com

Your e-mail subject should read ‘Workshop Application.’

The body of the e-mail should contain the following:

1. Your Name
2. Your address
3. A few sentences about yourself
4. A writing sample of between 200 and 800 words. The sample must be either fiction or non-fiction.

All material must be pasted or written in the body of the e-mail. Please Do NOT include any attachments in your e-mail. Applications with attachments will be automatically disqualified. Deadline for submissions is April 22 2010. Only those accepted to the workshop will be notified by May 6 2010. Accommodation in Lagos will be provided for all accepted applicants who are able to attend for the ten-day duration of the workshop. A literary evening of readings, open to the public, will be held at the end of the workshop.


Okey Adichie
Programme Officer
Farafina Trust

Letter from Nairobi

I am safe and my immediate family is safe. We were holed at a house on the coast, an idyllic place, far from the mayhem - the only inconveniences being a shortage of phone credit, fuel and tonic water. I even managed to use the internet at a hotel at the end of our strip of beach. It was the horrific images on TV that had us glued to the screen and distressing phone calls that enjoined us in what was happening. We kept saying this is not happening, this is not Kenya. We reeled from disbelief to horror and back again. Distant relatives fleeing the mayhem in the northern Rift are still camping at my brother's house in Nakuru. For four days, my best friend was holed up like a prisoner at her mother's house in Kisumu - site of some of the worst rioting, fearful to step outside for the sound of screaming and gunfire. I heard the fear in her voice, the disjointed background noises. Two days ago, she said it had quietened but that she could not leave as there was no fuel available. I myself had tried to return to Nairobi last Thursday, but the road to the airport in Mombasa was closed. I made it back to Nairobi yesterday and 'enjoyed' the fastest drive ever to the city centre on an eerily empty highway. On that one street, I saw more police than I have ever seen my whole life.

These have been the most traumatic times in Kenyan history. We've put together a coalition of writers to try and put words to it. But I suspect it is too recent for us to truly grapple with the nature of the beast unleashed.

Muthoni Garland

Nairobi, Saturday 5 January 2008

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• At times like this, nations are forged - Binyavanga Wainaina
• Kenya on the BBC

New Reads

Extract from A. Igoni Barrett's novel in progress

Daoju Abrakasa--who until she came to depend on it for the courage to face up to each day’s challenges had steered clear of even the whiff of alcohol--had taken to the bottle not long after she and her three children were forced to abandon the comfort of her husband’s house. Prior to her removal she had for five long months been engaged in a tooth-and-nail battle to secure what was hers by right of marriage. Pa Abrakasa, eighty-two years old but still hale and hearty enough to drain five calabashes of palm wine at a sitting and then make the bedsprings squeal every night as he played house with his fourth and youngest wife, had one day thrown a quizzical glance at his chest, scratched his grizzled chin, and died. His death struck his household like a thunderclap: no one had seen it coming.

• Read the extract, Eyes of a Barren Witch...

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And courtesy of 'The Binj', a new story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, My American Jon, exclusively on Binyavanga Wainaina's blog. A narrative of 'race, writing and difference'. Oh, plus sex and romantic love. Amaka has been with white Jon for 2 years. Are they headed for the altar, or will 'complexity' get in the way? Put another way, will Amaka do something to shake that 'certainty' with which Jon regards everything and everyone? Here's an excerpt...

Who says we were not lying all those times we clung to the comforting idea of complexity? It wasn’t about race, we would say, it was complex – Jon speaking first and me promptly agreeing. What if the reasons for most things didn’t require blurred lines? What about the day we walked into a Maine restaurant with white-linen-covered tables, and the waiter looked at us and asked Jon, “table for one?” Or when the new Indian girlfriend of Jon’s golf partner Ashish said she had enjoyed her graduate experience at Yale but had disliked how close the ghetto was and then her hand flew to her mouth after ‘ghetto’ and she turned to me and said, “oh, I’m so sorry” and Jon nodded as if to accept the apology on my behalf. What about when he, Jon, said he hated the predatory way a black man had looked at me in Central Park, and I realized I had never heard him use the word predatory before? Or the long weekend in Montreal when the strawberry-haired owner of the bed and breakfast refused to acknowledge me and spoke and smiled at Jon and I was not sure whether she disliked black people or simply liked Jon and later in the room, for the first time I did not agree that it was complex, at least not in the way I had agreed all the other times. I shouted at Jon – the worst thing is never being sure when it is race and not race and you’ll never have this baggage!

• Doesn't bode well, does it? Read My American Jon...

Chimamanda in Ile-Ife

When the Orange Lady Came to Ife

Words & Images by Adedotun Eyinade

Not even the organizers expected the massive turnout that the event witnessed; perhaps that was what informed the recourse to the thespian venue. Examinations, though winding to a close, were still very much in the air and students were already exiting the campus for the weekend. In spite of these odds, students, lecturers and art enthusiasts in general, trooped out in their hundreds to watch Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the Orange-prize winning author read from her acclaimed works.

Pit Theatre, venue of the book reading, was on Friday August 3, 2007 filled with an enthusiastic audience who had started trickling into the venue hours before the arrival of the author. The author, clad in a snazzy light-green top on a black skirt, sauntered into the venue at about 4.00pm in company with Binyavanga Wainana, the Kenyan founding editor of Kwani?, the literary magazine that has produced other Caine-prize winning authors like him.

The duo who had recently facilitated a creative writing workshop in Lagos were the guests of the Faculty of Arts, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.


In his opening remarks, Dr Chima Anyadike, lecturer in the Department of English said the hosting of the author was in sync with the tradition of the Faculty in creating a platform for celebrated authors to showcase their works. He reeled out a list of revered literary figures- Amos Tutola, Nadine Gordimer- who had been hosted in the past. He expressed delight that the audience trooped out in throngs to grace the event.At exactly 4.40pm, Chimamanda Adichie mounted the soapbox to read from her two books. She commenced with Purple Hibiscus, a novel that launched her into literary reckoning, regaling her listeners with the haunting tale of Jaja and Kambili. The audience, many of whom were attending a reading for the first time, equally followed with keen attention, the reading of the rave-making Half of a Yellow Sun. With a voice that throbbed with passion and vim, she read snatches of the house-boy story, connecting with a responsive audience that did not allow the riveting details of Ugwu, and other larger than life characters of the book elude them.

The sublimity of her work was brought closer to her audience whom could not help but be immersed in her reading. Binyavanga Wainaina, who wrote the seminal satire, How to Write About Africa, was invited to read excerpts from his forthcoming novel, Discovering Home. Binyavanga, whom Adichie described as “a writer for whom I have deep respect” took the audience through memorable moments of growing up in post-independence Kenya. Discovering Home, a mini-biography, is a novelistic adaptation of the short- story that won him the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002. The magazine Kwani? which he established after winning the prize has also produced another winner, Kenyan Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, who won in 2003.

Binyavanga, who was in the news recently for rejecting the World Economic Forum’s “Youth Global Leader” award commented on the aesthetic beauty of the University. “I am happy to be in Nigeria. Everything here is beautiful.”

Everything was not all books and literature, the event was interspersed with a dance performance by the dance troupe of the Department of Dramatic Arts. In an entrancing performance, the graceful dancers thrilled both the guest writers and the audience. Binyavanya appeared particularly enthralled by the dexterity with which the drummers beat the drums.

The enthusiasm with which the audience embraced the writers’ works was reflected in the myriad of question directed at them during the question and answer session. Binyavanga was asked why he rejected the WEF award. To this he replied that “I didn’t know what the initiative was about .The letter announcing my nomination was extremely vague.” He further added that he got to hear about the nomination in the press before he got the letter. In reacting to why he made his rejection a public issue, he reasoned that he didn’t send the letter to the public “but to my mailing list.”

Chimamanda Adichie on her part didn’t shy away from the issue that has been raised as regards her obsession with the colours. ”It is not a deliberate thing.” She credited her editor with coming up with the title “Purple Hibiscus” while Half of a Yellow Sun stemmed from the Biafran flag. “I don’t know if I will set my future books in Nsukka. My work is informed by my background. Nsukka will always influence my writing,” she added, when she was asked about her fixation with the university town of Nsukka.At about 6.33pm, the Faculty of Arts added a fresh award to the growing list of her laurels. The award was presented by Professor Remi Sonaiya of the Department of Foreign Languages. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, beaming with her trademark smile, thanked the Faculty for the warm reception accorded her.

Members of the intelligentsia who graced the occasion include Professor Y. K.Yusuf, Head of Department, Department of English, Prof. Adebayo Lamikanra, convener of the Ife Festival of Poetry, Dr Lere Oladitan, author of Bolekaja and other stories, Dr Funke Ogunleye, head of department, Department of Dramatic Arts.By the time the programme wound to a close, literary enthusiasts filed into a queue to have their copies autographed by the author. It was indeed a yellow day for Ife’s literati.

• Words & Images © Adedotun Eyinade
  
  

Binyavanga @ the Sable Litfest

Amran Gaye (a young Gambian writer who reminds me of Nigeria's Tolu Ogunlesi), is seen here in a post Sable Litfest discussion with Binyavanga Wainaina (right) who was quite the maverick during the festival. Every time a young writer wanted tips on getting published or how to become a better scribbler, someone always said: Go to Binyavanga. Fresh from the PEN conference in Dakar, the 2002 Caine winner was among a busload of us literary travellers (including Doreen Baingana, Mariama Khan, Dorothea Smartt, Maureen Roberts & Kadija George) who came down on a road-trip from Senegal to The Gambia for the Litfest, which opened on Friday 13th July.

Wainaina read from his work during the festival, and sat on a 'How to get Published' panel with writers including Courttia Newland (Britain), Fodeh Baldeh (Gambia), Rosemarie Hudson and many others.

After the Litfest, Binyavanga Wainaina was off on his first trip to Nigeria, where co-led with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writing workshops for up-and-coming Nigerian writers. The Kenyan also gave a reading @ Bookworm, Victoria Island, Lagos, on 28 July 2007.
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More from the Sable Litfest @ the next update.

• Images by MW
• Amran Gaye's Blog
• Binyavanga Wainaina's Blog
• Gambian Literature

Chimamanda-Binyavanga Workshop

Caine Winner & founding editor of Kwani? Binyavanga Wainaina (middle) with journalist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown & Brian Chikwava (Caine winner, 2004) - photographed by the blogger @ the British Museum on October 15th, 2005. Wainaina teams up with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to run a creative writing Workshop planned for July in Lagos, Nigeria. Details in Farafina's press notice - below

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Creative Writing Workshop in July

Chimamanda Adichie and the Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina will be teaching a creative writing class in Lagos in July.

The class will be run as an informal workshop and will meet for a fewhours every day to discuss assigned readings as well as the writing ofthe workshop participants. The idea is to encourage and promote reading and imaginative writing. To apply, please send a sample of fiction or non-fiction to udonandu@gmail. com No poetry please.

You will be notified by e-mail if you are selected as part of the workshop and will receive further information about the dates and venue. Entries must be pasted in the body of the e-mail. No attachments please.

Deadline for submission is June 15. Notifications will be sent by July 10.

--FARAFINA