The E.C has landed

2009 Caine Prize winner E.C Osondu is in Lagos for a series of readings for his book, Voice of America, a collection of short stories published locally by Farafina. Here he is photographed earlier today by Femi Adebesin-Kuti. Artist/writer Victor Ehikhamenor and I were on hand to join in series of fun photographs with E.C and his friend, Emeka.

The real business starts Friday when Osondu kicks off his book tour with a reading event at The Life House. He will have 2 more readings in Lagos and one in Port Harcourt with Koko Kalango's Rainbow Book Club. Details below.

Friday July 22: Abule Book Club, The Life House, 33 Sinari Daranijo Street, Victoria Island, Lagos. 6pm.
Saturday July 23: Patabah Bookshop, Shoprite Mall, Surulere, Lagos. 3pm.
Sunday July 24: Rainbow Book Club, Le Meridien, Ogeyi Place, Port Harcourt. 4pm.
Saturday July 30: Terra Kulture, Tiamiyu Savage, Victoria Island, Lagos. 3pm.

Photos by Femi Adebesin-Kuti

Soyinka Child of the Forest

Akin Omotoso's 2008 documentary film, Soyinka, Child of the Forest, once shown on DSTV as part of the Great Africans Series, is showing at The Life House, Lagos, this Thursday.

I'm actually in this film... Details of Thursday's screening, below.

EVENT- Screening of The Great African Series - Wole Soyinka
DATE - 21 July 2011 Thursday
TIME- 7.30pm
VENUE - The Life House, 33 Sinari Daranijo Street, off Ligali Ayorinde Street, Victoria Island, Lagos.

A film is shown at The Life House every Thursday evening as part of their Reel Life programme, often in collaboration with the Alliance Francaise.

Two came from Botswana

Lauri Kubuitsile and Wame Molefhe flew down (or it is up?) together from Botswana to Lagos to participate in the Farafina Workshop. My interviews with the duo - published today. Excerpts below.

Lauri Kubuitsile: ready for the big time
Lauri Kubuitsile's short story, ‘In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata' was shortlisted for the 2011 Caine Prize, bringing to new height a writing career forged doggedly for the last seven years from Mahalapye, a town north of Gaborone, Botwana's capital.

The story is set in Nokanyana, a village "named after a small river that no one had yet been able to discover," where a legendary lothario, McPhineas Lata has just died, leaving married couples in a tizzy, as hapless husbands plot to win back the attention of unfaithful wives. Kubuitsile had written the piece for ‘The Bed Book of Short Stories', an anthology published in 2010 by Modjaji Books... The writer was not sure of the story's chances when it was entered for the Caine. "I told [the publisher], this story has no chance. It's a bit of an oddball," she recalls. "Humour can sometimes be undermined - they think literary fiction has to be serious."


Wame Molefhe: writing to the sun
Molefhe's new book is titled ‘Go Tell The Sun' because, "The sun is always present in Botswana." But there is a deeper resonance. "The society in which I live has set standards that come from culture and tradition," such that many issues cannot be discussed openly. "If you have issues and you can't tell anyone, tell it to the sun." The stories in the collection deal with one single female character, Sethunya. One of the stories, ‘Sethunya Is Our Bride' was published in the Africa Portfolio of the US journal, Agni, late last year.

"Sethunya means ‘Flower' in Setswana," her creator explains. "What I've always wanted to do is take this Flower and plant it in different soils and see if it flowers or dies. That's what I've done in this collection." In one situation, Sethunya is married; will it work? In another, she is placed with another woman; can she love a woman?

Souleymane Cisse in retrospect

I promised to post my 2005 article on the Souleymane Cisse film retrospective, and how British Consulate officials rained on the Malian director's parade and denied him a visa to attend a screening of his modern classic, Yeelen, at the Barbican in London.

This below was originally published in The Guardian, Lagos, on November 27, 2005...


Souleymane Cisse Film Season… in Retrospect
By Molara Wood

A film retrospective on Souleymane Cisse at the Barbican Centre, London, was much anticipated, coming as it did on the heels of Ousmane Sembene’s appearance in the city earlier this year. Although not nearly on the same scale as the Sembene programme at the National Film Theatre, the short season of five films by Cisse was nevertheless significant. It was to include a stage appearance by the director, following the special screening of his international hit film, Yeelen (The Light).

Winner of the Cannes Jury Prize 1987, Yeelen is one of the most acclaimed and widely seen African films ever made.

Born in Bamako, Mali, in 1940, Cisse studied in Moscow under the Soviet director Mark Donskoi, and on return to his country, worked as a documentary filmmaker for the Ministry of Information before embarking on his own cinematic career. The director’s first short film, Five Days in a Life, was made in 1972; his first feature length movie, Den Muso (The Young Girl), followed in 1975.

Den Muso - about a young mute woman who is raped and becomes pregnant, with disastrous consequences for her family - formed part of the Barbican season of Cisse’s work. Also on the programme were: Baara (Work, 1978), about the condition of workers in the city; Finye (The Wind, 1982), about a love affair between an army commander‘s daughter and the grandson of a tribal chief; and Waati (1995), a rarely-seen work about racial politics in South Africa. The season was to kick off with Yeelen, then the director would take the stage to discuss his work.

Africa at the Pictures, an organisation that seeks to promote and enhance the distribution and exhibition of African films in Europe - organised the event. The Barbican described Cisse as someone who “crafted a body of films that combine visual elegance with Marxist ideology and allegorical storytelling. Drawing on traditional indigenous lifestyles and Malian folklore, Cisse attempts to explore the conflicts in Mali society, particularly the conflicts that emerge between the desire for change and the need to preserve tradition.”

The first sign that all might not be well, came on the Thursday on which Cisse was due to be making his Barbican appearance. The venue’s website confused matters, indicating that the event would take place on the following day - Friday. Those who turned up on Friday, were in for a disappointment. Indeed, Yeelen would be shown, but the director himself would not now appear - an assistant at the ticket desk informed. He revealed that this was because Souleymane Cisse had not been granted a visa to travel to Britain. One wondered whether the assistant had gone beyond his brief, and went into the cinema hall hoping the report would turn out to be a piece of misinformation.

Another sign that perhaps all was not well, was an unusual sign just at the entrance to the auditorium. Unusual, because one does not normally encounter such at a prestigious venue like the Barbican. The sign apologised in advance for the ‘poor print quality’ of the film we were about to see. Inside, a sizeable audience awaited the entrance of Souleymane Cisse, only for another man to saunter onto the stage, looking like he would have preferred to be elsewhere. It was Keith Shiri, the director of Africa at the Pictures. An apologetic Shiri informed that Cisse would not give the Screen Talk as expected, due “to a lot of complications with getting people from Africa, especially from Mali.” The ticketing assistant had been right afterall: a Cannes Award winning filmmaker, one of Africa’s best, had been refused a visa to enter Britain - in the year of Africa 05.

A clearly disappointed Shiri said: “We wanted him to be here. This (Yeelen) is one of my favourite films and Cisse is one of my favourite film-directors, one whose work I always refer to.” He explained further, that African filmmakers always carry their own films when they travel, and Cisse was to have done the same. His inability to travel scuppered the whole arrangement. Africa at the Pictures therefore had to get a less-than-perfect print of the film as a last resort, from distributors Artificial Eye, and Cisse consented for this to be shown instead, hence the poor quality of the film we were about to see. Shiri hopes he will succeed in bringing the director over to the UK next year.

"Knowledge is built and consolidated by one generation, it is destroyed by another, and recreated by a new generation," Cisse once said, on the role of indigenous film and culture. And in Yeelen, a young warrior, Nianankoro, must face his destiny by destroying a corrupt older elite represented by the secret Komo cult. A leading figure of that cult is Nianankoro‘s own father and his greatest enemy, Soma. Often described as “an oedipal story mixed with magic,” Yeelen is an adaptation of an ancient oral legend from Mali.



Cisse takes his audience to the powerful Mali Empire of the 13th century, where Nianankoro and his aged, wizened mother have been on the run for ten years from his father, an evil sorcerer who does not want his son as an equal, and so seeks to destroy him. With the aid of a magic post (used in ancient Mali to find lost things), Soma goes up and down the land in search of the son he wants to kill. Two bumbling servants carry - or are driven to distraction - by the wilful post, to great comic effect. Nianankoro too, is sent to seek the help of his blind uncle, Soma’s twin brother. Along the way, the young warrior learns to use his magic powers for good, discovers himself, and acquires a wife in traumatic circumstances.

All the while, he readies for the confrontation with the father, which may end in the “luminous death” of one or both of them. “I think one can die without ceasing to exist,” goes a line in the film; and Souleymane Cisse, in depicting the death of one culture, makes way for the birth of a new one.

Nianankoro is played by Issiaka Kane, an actor whose stark physical grace carries the film - through scenes of war, magic, hallucinations and full-frontal nudity. But the real star of the film is the West African landscape, as the warrior journeys through arid lands of the ancient Bambara and Fulani peoples. Not even the ‘poor print quality’ could detract from the landscape, which, thanks to the excellent cinematography, astonishes the viewer with its parched beauty.

Yeelen is regarded by some as Africa’s greatest film. Pity the British Consulate in Africa was not impressed enough to grant its maker a visa. At the end of the Barbican screening, the audience gave the absent director a respectful applause. By this simple gesture, cinema goers gave their own verdict - both on the director and his work, and those who would not allow him into Britain.

Keith Shiri (right) photographed with actress Kate Henshaw-Nuttal at the Africa Movie Academy Awards Nominations Night in Nairobi on February 25, 2011 - Photo by MW.

Ben Okri & Sarah Ladipo Manyika talk Bars

My recent post about Ben Okri's appearance on CNN's African Voices got me thinking back with fondness to my one encounter with the Booker Prize winner. A very special encounter at that - a filmed interview at the Random House building on Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, on November 28, 2007.

There's an hour-long film of the interview, commissioned by Farafina to coincide with their publication of Okri's 'Starbook' and I have a 7000-word transcript of the same. One of the great surprises of the interview was Okri's insistence that The Famished Road is not Magical Realism, since the magical elements are what Azaro the spirit child sees in the 'I' of the narrative, and not part of the poetic world of the story, as would obtain in, say, One Hundred Years of Solitute. As I understood his argument, the idea of a spirit child is an authentic Nigeria belief - "We believe this," Okri told me - rather than something the author plucks from the air. In other words, the Abiku is 'real'.

We had an "alchemy" during the interview, to borrow one of Okri's favourite words - we got along. He asked which part of Yorubaland I was from and I told him 'the Ilesa axis - Ijesaland' and he told me he'd been in those parts before. It was a fun and inspiring afternoon. Many months later, a couple of weeks before my relocation to Lagos from London, I got a call from him; and when I told him of my intended return to Nigeria, he was encouraging, warm and generous in his praise of my humble talents. Coming from the author of one of the seminal works of my reading life, 'The Famished Road', it was, shall we say, enchanting. "Enchantment" is another of Ben Okri's frequently used words, and I asked him about it during the interview. When you asked him some questions he would smile and say: "You're going to get a riff!" and that was what you got - worlds invoked by words that flowed like the strains of a rhythm guitar.

I had some treasured pictures I took with him at Random House. But a move across continents, one desktop and two laptops and myriad flash drives later (some with corrupted folders), the pictures are gone in the wind, cant be found. I shall keep looking... but there's this mugshot of me that sometimes accompanies my published work, taken with my camera by Okri himself (see the pic at the bottom of my story 'Smoking Bamboo' here).

I recount all this now because the memory alone sure makes me wish I were in London for tomorrow's African Writers Evening discussion between Okri and Sarah Ladipo Manyika. It should be quite something, as the two writers discuss the role of the Bar in literature. There's Madam Koto's bar in 'The Famished Road', of course; and if I remember correctly, there are bar scenes in the Jos section of Manyika's debut novel, 'In Dependence'.

I have some pictures of Manyika reading in Lagos in 2009; will add them to this post tomorrow if I can locate them. Until then, here are excerpts from my 2010 interview with Manyika, followed by my review of her book...

'Africa needs good writers'
‘In Dependence' is published in the UK by Legend Press and in a West African edition by Abuja-based Cassava Republic Press. A blurb on the book notes, in a complimentary tone, that "even the sex is well mannered." Why has Ladipo Manyika not gone with roaring sex scenes, as is de rigueur in contemporary novels by Nigerian female writers? "Just wait till my next book!" she jokes, then adds, "I personally find some of the most enticing... a lot can be left to the reader's imagination." The allure of many a romantic scene, she suggests, "is not about the roaring sex but the anticipation of what is to come."

Love in the swing of time
“One could begin with the dust, the heat and the purple bougainvillea” - so reads the languorous first sentence of Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s novel, ‘In Dependence’. It sets the pace for the evocative narrative journey that the reader embarks upon in this self assured first novel. The first chapter is over very quickly, but not before introducing many of the side characters in the Nigerian leg of the continent-hopping story of Tayo and Vanessa, the lovers in Manyika’s tale.

Event Details:

Ben Okri & Sarah Ladipo Manyika

African Writers Evening, Level 5 Function Room, South Bank Centre, London SE1.

Thursday, 7 July, 2011. 7.45pm.

With the Farafina Workshop folks

What a fun evening I've had, surrounded by writers known and on the way to being known. Spent some 3 hours with participants in the Farafina Trust Writing Workshop at their lagoon-front Lagos hotel talking about all sorts of things flowing from and leading to the art of writing. I'm seated 2nd left next to Elnathan John (in the striped shirt) and 1st right seated is Gboyega Otolorin. These writers have come from all over Nigeria to attend and one (Olumide, at the back in the middle) came all the way from New York for the workshop. And we've got Wame Molefhe from Botwana and her countrywoman, the 2011 Caine shortlisted Lauri Kubuitsile. Among the group is a Nigerian writer from Niger State, Gimba Kakanda, who presented me with a copy of his poetry collection, Safari Pants (Kraft Books).

I'd gone up to meet with Lauri Kubuitsile, with whom I'd collaborated on the One World Anthology, along with notable others on Zoetrope some years back. Lauri lives, blogs and writes full time from Mahalapye, Botswana; and is among 5 writers shortlisted for this year's Caine Prize for her short story, 'In the Spirit of McPhineas Lata'. From the Farafina workshop in Lagos, she heads straight to London for the Caine readings and the award proper, to be held on July 11.

Lauri is first left in the picture on the right; I'm next to her. Next to me is Wame Molefhe. Also from Botswana, Wame's been making strides in writing for quite some time. She used to be in the Crossing Borders project; we were both commended in the Commonwealth Short Story Competition in 2007 (African regional winner that year was Ellen Banda-Aaku, now the Penguin African Fiction winner). Wame is the author of the new short story collection, 'Go Tell it to the Sun'. For good measure, I was also meeting my fellow Nigerian, Chinyere Obi-Obasi, for the first time.

The Farafina Trust Workshop reading that closes this year's edition takes place next weekend, details to be confirmed.

Ehikhamenor's 'Entrances & Exits' exhibition

Artist Statement by Victor Ehikhamenor on his new solo exhibition 'Entrances & Exits: In Search of Not Forgetting' - opening at the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos on Saturday:

Entrances and exits: A personal journey

In December of 2010, I left Lagos for a week to go back to my village, the scenes of my childhood and my ‘primary colours’, with the sole purpose of discovering what has influenced my art over the years. Some things I could pull from memory, but there were many I had forgotten or never really experienced. With a keen eye and a camera, I set to work; and what I discovered about my heritage and ancestral home was shocking to me. Until then, I did not realise that, over the decades of my art practice, I have unconsciously been feeding off of what was always there as part of my everyday life when I was growing up, which I never paid much attention to. The numerous shrine walls in neighbouring villages, the painted mud walls of my grandmothers, my uncles’ decorated rooms and other villagers’ walls were all beaming with different kinds of art. I photographed as many as possible, because it was obvious that many people no longer care about these ‘primitive and pagan’ arts.

With some of the walls and art already gone, and a very few left, I set to work on what remained. Some of the bold use of earth tone colours on walls reminded me of Mark Rothko’s large canvases. The valour with which colours, patterns and designs were engraved or drawn on walls, doors and other surfaces, fueled my drawings with chalks on the bare, dilapidated walls. Because I considered the chalk on wall drawings temporary, I decided to photograph them for posterity; and perhaps in so doing, I could show the world things that may not ordinarily be seen in their natural state.

I thought I would stop at the drawings on walls and doorways. However, I found myself thinking about the history behind the walls and the doors I drew on in the village, and so I decided to extend the experience to my studio in Lagos. People that have come and gone in my life over time through the passageways kept playing in my memory. My grandmothers, my father and many of my uncles that have left, came alive again. The doors I rejuvenated through art, were the same ones they traversed while alive. I began to look at the duality of the doorway, a passageway for entry and exit, life and death, night and day. Life itself is full of doors, whether real or imagined. I am yet to see any human that hasn’t gone through a door. Whatever we do when we enter or exit from any door in life is what shapes our lives as human on earth.

It is also pertinent to say that the works in Entrances and Exits go beyond physical doors; they signify transitions in life. In between the comings and goings, memories are built constantly. Memories of how we move from one phase of life to another, from childhood to adulthood, boy to man, girl to woman, life to death etc. The events that orchestrate these transitions are mystical, not physical and sometimes invisible, yet they manifest as some kind of doors.

All materials used in producing these paintings and drawings are physically cut in the shape of doors, in order to reveal another side of the same work. This is symbolic of the openings and closings that are associated with doors. Birth and death have doorways, be it a woman’s birth canal or the gaping grave on the earth.

Victor Ehikhamenor
Lagos, May 2011

It's been 2 years since Ehikhamenor's first exhibition on return to Nigeria. Here below is a video of my interview with him on Mirrors & Mirages which opened at Terra Kulture in Lagos on May 24, 2009.

• Entrances & Exits: In Search of Not Forgetting is at the Centre for Contemporary Art, Sabo, Yaba, Lagos from Saturday May 7 to May 28.

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.

Unoma Azuah interview

Unoma Azuah, Molara Wood and Victor Ehikhamenor - photographed May 2009 in Lagos

Here's a picture that would have qualified for a 'While Wordsbody was sleeping' slot... US based writer Unoma Azuah with two of her constituency - myself and Victor Ehikhamenor - both of whom were not long returned from the UK and the US respectively. Azuah was around for the summer last year; it's a year on and she's in Nigeria for the summer again, doing writing workshops up and down. Here's a recently published interview of mine with her.

• Writing as a way of relating to others

Sammy and Ignatius, nice guys

Here in the middle is Sammy, one of the key officers on the Gallmann Memorial Foundation conservancy. Here he's flanked by Mamle Kabu and MW. The amiable Sammy was a lovely presence at Ol Ari Nyiro, attending to the participants' needs with good humour. We in turn made him into an avid reader of our writings; he read many of our draft stories and engaged with the themes therein.

Sammy's here flanked by Mamle Kabu and Jude Dibia. Kabu who lives in Accra, was shortlisted for the 2009 Caine Prize for her short story, The End of Skill. Dibia is the author of two novels, Walking With Shadows and Unbridled. The pavillion in this photo was one of the best spots for internet reception this end of the resort.

Ignatius (seen here with Nick Elam) also works at the resort, acting as guide on game drives and providing lots of invaluable service and advice with equanimity. He gave a wonderful lesson in astronomy under the stars one night.

~

Conversation with Victor

Was at the the last day of the Art Expo Nigeria, held at the National Museum, Onikan in Lagos on Sunday. It ran from 27th August to the 31st and featured over 700 pieces from about 30 art galleries (members of the Arts Galleries Association of Nigeria - AGAN).

Getting there, I touched an artist who had come ahead of me to the Expo and left his imprint. Victor Ehikhamenor wrote on the white Scrawl Wall on one end of the expo exhibition, to say he was here. So I followed suit, and left my own scribble next to Victor's. A conversation of sorts.

• Image taken by MW at Art Expo Nigeria 2008, Lagos, 31st August 2008
• Click on image for larger view.

New Read

To make up some for the silence here of late, how about a new read from me? "Smoking Bamboo", a tale of love and loss and lots more besides, is published in Serendipity, the online journal of magical realist fiction.

Excerpt

The notion of babies from the sky was drummed into us by the mothers, to explain how we came about. I had long concluded that this could not be true. No babies had arrived since the men of the gorge went to the never-ending war in the place below. Still, I had the fanciful idea that morning and I was determined to hold on to it.

But Amugbo had heard me. He sauntered down the steps of his stilt-house, movements unsteady. I did not remember a time when he did not walk like this.

'Foolish children,' he slurred. 'Women get babies from men, not birds.' He ignored our collective intake of breath, scratching his head. I wondered if his hair had ever met a comb. A nest woven by an inattentive bird, the hair was knotted, and bits of leaves peeked from the locks. 'Well, you can't be expected to know any better, living as you do in this unnatural environment.

''Unnatural? Babies from men?' Simisola, indignant, scrambled onto her feet. 'Let me go and ask my mother.'

'And what have I said to you all about hanging around my place? Go and disturb your mothers. Leave me alone.' Amugbo hit the air with a kick thrown in our direction, falling on his backside. We knew he meant none of it. We put up with his interruptions in our play because his was the one place we could converge without being driven elsewhere. He tolerated us and we tolerated him.

And for me, Amugbo's place was a refuge, somewhere I could play with my friends, away from the creeping spectre of death at home.

• Read Smoking Bamboo...

Holding back the years

Here's a picture that came out of the printers from day one with a decidedly nostalgic hue, as though it knew it'd be held up someday in the future so its subject could reminisce about her younger self.

Yes, here's MW as photographed in Lagos (in the Jibowu/Fadeyi area, I think), Nigeria, on 18th June 1996. 12 years ago, and how physically transformed I am. I remember this top which I matched on the day with my flowy linen trousers in the same beige colour. The dainty 'aspirant-pearl' earrings were a favourite of mine then (they are now lying forlorn at the bottom of a box cluttered with pieces of old costume jewellery tarnished with age and time, which I no longer wear but still do not have the heart to throw away, having such strong attachment to items from my past...). As for the bag, peeking from under my left arm, it is long gone, either to relatives in Nigeria or to a charity shop. But I remember it served me faithfully for several years. I had bought it in Warehouse, in the black/white snake-print that was all the rage in the mid-90s (actually, looking on the streets of London now, it's plain to see the skin look is back - when did it ever go away, fashion looping over and over upon itself? - only this time it's mainly the warmed gold/brown big-cats/tiger imitation look).

This is the kind of picture I come across in the flat and I go: "Aww... look at me!" And I stare open-mouthed and wide-eyed as one grasping for one's old self lost somewhere in time but frozen in the image for posterity. Then I address the empty air: "Ah, where have all the years gone?" It's usually at this point that my kids give each other a knowing look that says: "Here we go again!"

My personal aesthetic is more or less the same as in this photo. One difference is my hair. I have not relaxed/straightened my hair since 2001 and I've never looked back. Throughout the 90s however, I wore my hair in varying lengths of this chic bob, graduated at the back, with warm highlights in front. I was a devil with the curling tong; and being blessed with very thick hair, my hair often astonished people who usually thought it had to be a wig. I'd be at a party, my hair styled to the hilt and some female would touch the graduated part and, finding no seams, would exclaim: "Ehn, it's not a wig?!" Looking at some old pictures now, especially the ones with the 'big' party hair, I have to remind myself also, that it's not a wig. Happily, on a good day, my afro when bouyant has the same effect...

The biggest difference from this photo now, is that I'm twice the woman I used to be. Back in the day, friends called me 'Pinto', 'Figure 8', what have you. I was dead slim, didn't know what a calorie-controlled diet was, never saw the inside of a gym (still not a gym person), ate what I liked when I liked and never gained weight. I'd enter a shop and buy Size 10 and not bother myself with trying it on first because it would be just right, why wouldn't it? Wore a few skin-tight killer dresses in my time. Oh, for the days of glad grace! Now to my surprise I find extra weight sticking to me like an unwelcome friend. One big downside to the writing life is that you spend so much time sitting down in one position for hours and hours as you string words together. The hips get comfortable and begin to spread... Lord help us.

But now and again, I come across a picture like the one above and feel the urge to sing the George Harrison song, 'Long Time Ago When We Was Fab'...

• Click on image for larger view

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.

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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.

Interview

Arts journalist and culture activist Andrea Enisuoh interviewed me for her Artbeat page in New Nation newspaper. The piece appeared in last week's edition of the paper. The interview was looking ahead to the Word From Africa event, which held at the British Museum last Saturday. Enisuoh and I discussed my short story, Written in Stone (an excerpt of which I read on Saturday); and we touched on this blog also. Thanks to Andrea. The interview page is reproduced here. To read, click on the scan on the right for a larger view.

Word From Africa - 31 May

News Release

Africa Beyond presents
Word from Africa
A celebration of African literature and languages
In collaboration with SABLE LitMag
Saturday, 31 May 2008, 13.00-20.15
British Museum, London
Free admission

Word from Africa is a celebration of African literature, music - and most of all language. Taking its lead from the successful 2007 event, Word from Africa will bring to London audiences diverse talent in the literary and musical fields from across the African continent, including Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Somalia, Sudan, French Cameroons, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, South Africa and The Gambia.

Presented by Africa Beyond, in collaboration with SABLE LitMag and with support from the British Museum and Arts Council England, London, the free one-day event will take place at the British Museum in central London on 31 May, from 13.00 till 20.15.

The idea behind Word from Africa arose from the immense literary talent and number of languages found on the African continent. Africa is home to up to 2,000 languages, many of them also spoken in homes and neighbourhoods across London. Each one of these languages is a door into a different world. Each language unlocks its own state of mind – its own music, literature, rhythms, history, sayings and stories. Yet you don't need to speak any of these languages to enjoy Word from Africa – everything takes place either in English, or with English translations or commentary.

Throughout the day, there is a chance to see performances with leading African writers - such as Karen King-Aribisala (Guyana/Nigeria), the Commonwealth Book Prize Winner for the Africa region for The Hangman's Game (2008), Sade Adeniran (Nigeria), the Commonwealth First Book Prize Winner for the Africa region (2008) and Molara Wood (Nigeria), the winner of the inaugural John La Rose short story competition for 'Written in Stone' (2008) - as well as musicians, poets, storytellers, translators and thinkers. There will also be a reading and discussion on Sozaboy by Ken Saro-Wiwa, with Ben Amunwa (Nigeria), Biram Mboob (The Gambia) and Uchenna Izundu (Nigeria).

Word from Africa will incorporate the launch of a new book, Dreams, Miracles and Jazz - New Adventures in African Fiction, published by Picador Africa in the spring. Edited by award-winning Nigerian novelist Helon Habila and literary activist and SABLE LitMag publisher Kadija Sesay, it is the most contemporary anthology of new African voices this decade. Readings from the book will include two of the contributors visiting from Africa especially for the launch, Tony Adam Mochama (Kenya) and Mamle Kabu (Ghana), touted as two hot new African writers to watch out for.

A creative writing workshop will be held in the Sainsbury African Galleries, and there will be a rare opportunity to get inside knowledge and advice from two of Britain's top people in the business of publishing African writers, Ellah Allfrey, senior editor at Jonathan Cape, and David Godwin, of David Godwin Associates.

The day will also feature discussions (on literary and language), storytelling in Twi (Ghanaian), Ndebele (Zimbabwean), Arabic (Sudanese), French and English, as well as poetry readings. An African market place, in the Clore Center, BP Foyer of the British Museum, will include stalls selling books, artifacts and textiles, and there will be an African arts and crafts workshop in the Great Court, suitable for all ages.

The event will close with an acoustic live music set from sublime guitarist and singer Modeste Hugues from Madagascar. His music, a 'hypnotic carpet of sound', is unique to the Betroka region of Madagascar and is influenced by the traditional sounds of the area as well as some softer South African dance rhythms. Modeste plays the acoustic guitar, but his style has been very much influenced by the rhythms and sounds of traditional Malagasy stringed instruments.

Word from Africa promises to be an exciting and inspiring day, not to be missed. So see you at Word from Africa – or should we say Lizwi La Africa (Tonga), or Amazwi aveli Africa (Zulu), or Jambo Kutoka Afrika (Swahili), or Magana a kasan Africa (Hausa), or Eray Kaagia Yimid Afrika (Somali)!

• Full Programme.
  

At Nnorom's do

Here we are clawing a small literary event out of Nnorom Azuonye's son's birthday party, yesterday in London. L-R:

1. James Henshaw (son of the late playwright James Ene Henshaw); he is heading to Nigeria early next month to inaugurate a N100,000 prize in memory of his father - the ANA/James Ene Henshaw Prize for Playwriting. The winner of the prize (to be given for unpublished plays) will work with an experienced director to bring the play to production.
2. Nnorom Azuonye who brought us all there. Nnorom is the publisher of Sentinel Poetry Online (acknowledged by the Arts Council as 'a Poetry Landmark of Britain) & the Sentinel Literary Quarterly, and a host of other art initiatives too numerous to mention.
3. Author and current President of ANA (Association of Nigerian Authors), Wale Okediran, who never forgets to touch base with his constituency of Nigerian writers in the UK when he's in town. Okediran is being interviewed today lunchtime by Elizabeth Idienumah of BBC Radio Scotland on this years 50th Anniversary of the publication of Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart - for which the Nigerian leg of the commemorations begin 12 April.
4. And there's me, MW.
5. Ike Anya, writer and consummate book lover. There was a time Ike and I ran into each other like clockwork on art beats where no one sent us; we just went for the love of it, and wrote about it. Google him for his writings. He is also a medical doctor and blogs at Nigeria Health Watch.

Farafina Now

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Farafina Vol. 12, guest edited by Akin Adesokan, carries on its Letters page a note from the hilariously named Dingwo Normality. You read it and think: someone's having a laugh. Jim McConkey (who writes about Ayi Kwei Armah), Afam Akeh, and Omowunmi Segun (read her story, Homecoming) - are among the contributors. I am also in there, with my review of the film Bamako. As is Tade Ipadeola, who in the essay, Adedibully, casts a critical eye on Lamidi Adedibu, a man who gives a bad name to the term political godfather.
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In the previous edition, guest edited by Petina Gappah (and with contributions from the likes of Darrel Bristow-Bovey, Chris Abani, Kuzhali Manickavel and Tinashe Mushakavanhu) and published before the ethnic violence unleashed after contested elections in Kenya - I spotted this quote, illustrated by a misbehaving monkey. A certain Mrs Njeri expresses concern about rampaging monkeys destroying crops and killing livestock. It wouldn't have seemed possible, but soon, human beings would behave worse than the monkeys...