New Read

An array of spices and condiments make for a mouth-watering culinary exploration of culture in a globalised world, in Mukoma wa Ngugi's new short story, Walking the Wok - published in African Writing.

Chan's girlfriend leaves him because he's been washing his wok with soap, a no-no, something that threatens her shaky hold on Chinese authenticity. The Chinese students of his culinary college in Limuru are angry with him for messing with the wok, and the Kenyans say he's messing with their culture, thanks to his wild experimentations with local cuisine. What to do? How to cook - or live - in a way that's free of the shackles of the past? Walking the Wok invites second and third readings.

Excerpt
Mpishi Msanii College (aptly translating into The Artist Chef) rested in the outskirts of Limuru, on land donated to the colonial government in the 1940’s by Lord Baring, and inherited by the African government in the 1960’s. Lord Baring carved the 10 acres from his 2000 acre ranch, declaring that Africa needed Africans with practical minds and practical skills, like cooking.

So started the Lord Baring Native Cooking School, where graduating from the three month course in British etiquette and cuisine assured students of work in country clubs and the homes of various wealthy colonials.

With the wave of nationalization and renaming that came with independence, or still-in-dependence as the witty amongst the natives called it, Mpishi Msanii College was born. The three month course in cooking pancakes, fried sausages, eggs and chips and broiled rabbit grew wings, becoming an intensive two year program that produced not cooks, but cosmopolitan chefs well-versed in local and global cuisines.

• Read the story here.
  

New Reads

Nubian Princes of Bel Air. Recently published in the New Yorker, Edwidge Danticat's tale of gangsters and brotherhood in Baz Benin - the Baghdad of Haiti - titled Ghosts.

Excerpt

Pascal’s father had been a pigeon breeder since he was a boy in Léogâne. He’d stopped briefly in the early eighties, when some soldiers came and collected his birds because it was rumored that he was breeding carriers to send messages to armed invaders in the Dominican Republic. But when the dictatorship finally collapsed—without any help from his pigeons—he started again. Then most of his customers were nervous young men who wanted to perform a ritual before their first sexual encounter: they’d slit the pigeon’s throat and let it bleed into a mixture of Carnation condensed milk and a carbonated malt beverage called Malta. Sometimes their fathers would come with them, and, after the sons had held their noses and forced down the drink, the fathers would laugh and say, as the pigeon’s headless body was still gyrating on the ground, “I pity that girl.”

• Read "Ghosts" online

* * *

Sambi Lazarus Musa has a short-short, "The Full Moon", in the current issue of Serendipity

Excerpt

I had fainted before he completed his speech, and eventually jolted back to consciousness by the screams of a white man whose children were to go to the Pygmies in Congo, right in the heart of black Africa. The white man and I were both sent back to earth next morning. Our way back we saw millions of babies of all nationalities flying across the sky on their little wings. They all seemed happy, singing and shaking hands as they headed for their various destinations.

• Read "The Full Moon".

* * *

African Writing is back, and among the fiction fare this time, is "Night Calls" by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim.

Excerpt

Two months later, she invited him to Zaria so they could meet face-to-face. He had been looking forward to seeing her, so, he went, on a weekend, when the sun rose with a smile as if blessing the union forged over the GSM interface. He got to Zaria and took an okada. She guided him on the phone to the threshold of her heart, her home. She was waiting for him at the door when he arrived and he realised that she was even more beautiful than in the picture. He kept thinking about that clear spring each time she smiled. She asked him in, served him food and mineral and sat by him. They were overwhelmed and just kept looking at each other, smiling, sighing contently, happy to abide in the fragrant presence of a promising love.

• Read "Night Calls"

New Read

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's newly published short story, Cell One, is in The New Yorker. A girl narrator wonders if her wayward but cool brother is a member of a school cult, then he is arrested.

Excerpt
Nnamabia smiled, his face more beautiful than ever, despite the new pimple-like insect bite on his forehead, and said that he had slipped his money into his anus shortly after the arrest. He knew the policemen would take it if he didn't hide it, and he knew that he would need it to buy his peace in the cell. My parents said nothing for a while. I imagined Nnamabia rolling hundred-naira notes into a thin cigarette shape and then reaching into the back of his trousers to slip them into himself. Later, as we drove back to Nsukka, my father said, "This is what I should have done when he stole your jewelry. I should have had him locked up in a cell."

Read on...

New Reads

may the fire seeds you sow in Darfur
consume you and your damned bands.

Poems are not usually included in the 'New Reads', but when it's Tanure Ojaide's To The Janjaweed, exceptions can be made. Click on the above excerpt to read Ojaide's divine curses heaped in poetry upon the Janjaweed - in the current issue of Per Contra.

In Jude Dibia 's Among Strangers, a young man goes to the funeral of the father from whom he has been long enstranged. He has to confront his stepmother, his past and his own sense of isolation. The story is published in the 2nd issue of Black Biro Online.

Excerpt
Mother had confronted them, but I knew nothing of what they said. Grandma spoke rapidly in Igbo, and so did father. And mother, in tears, responded in Igbo – even though she was not one of their own. Many times they all pointed at me and I just sat still, listening to all the strange words being hurled about and feeling so out of place and helpless. I didn’t share their language with them. It was the language that bound them together; the same language that severed me from them. Even at that age, I worried that there was no place for me in their world or this world.
Read on...

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'...

New Read

Tolu Ogunlesi's short story about a 14-year-old girl who asks the reader to avoid Made-in-Nigeria condoms - is published in the current issue of Litro.

Here's an excerpt from Seahorses...

This is where a diary comes in handy. Was it Janet Jackson or someone else who said a diary is where you can take your time to put the pieces of your life together. You have really matured, come a long way. From the infatuation-infested diaries of two years ago... A diary is where you can put your life together again. A diary is where you can play God. A diary is where you rule over time.
But there is a snag. You have never been good at creative writing. You remember only too well your literature teacher's remarks in your report card last term. Actually, you cant remember her exact words, but you remember the feeling you had when you held the card in your hands.
Now, here is another chance at creative writing, this time without the unease of knowing that some frustrated novelist posing as literature teacher might murder it with angry red ink.

So what's it all about? Are there seahorses in it? Read on.

Black Biro

Here's an excerpt from A. Igoni Barrett's The Tempest, one of two short stories published in the first edition of Black Biro:

As Onari’s bulge grew, so did Bayo’s infatuation, and the size of Kelechi’s gift offerings – till Onari was living wholly off Kelechi’s fears, and, by self-seeking design, stoking the fire in which her good fortune was smelted.

For instance, with Kelechi around Onari would burst into Bayo’s room and burst out: ‘Feel it, Bayo – touch it! Can you feel the kick? He’s asking for his namesake you know. You have abandoned us.’ Or, lying on her bed with Bayo beside her, and Kelechi banished to a chair and the role of spectator, she would hitch her gown to the top of her thighs and place her ankles on Bayo’s beer-belly, and wheedle: ‘My feet, Bayo. Only your hand does anything for my pains.’ And helplessly Kelechi would return her shy smile, and grip her thigh insides bloody in silent anguish, watching all her efforts destroyed, by a foot massage.

- Read on

• Black Biro is currently the only online literary magazine published within Nigeria. The first issue features short fiction, poetry, essays and visual art.

Farafina

Here's an excerpt from The Master by Akin Adesokan, published in Farafina (edition no. 6, August 2006).

In The Master, Alfred, a Geography teacher, goes on a long journey, crossing the border from Nigeria to Cameroon - in search of an enigmatic, reclusive writer he worships, named Dankor. On the road, the narrator encounters this woman making a hell of a scene:

"Do you know who I am?"

"No, and I no wan know!"

"Na lie-o. You go know today. Not tomorrow or day after. Go ask anybody on Iweka Road, you pig-mouth! Talking to me like that? Are you crazy? In fat you're more than. Idiot!"

Her cartons and luggage had made it out of the women's stalls, but now a transport union official wanted to prevent her from unloading at the frontage. As she spoke, she handed out each porter's fee and dismissed them.

"Go anywhere and ask about Mama Success. That's me! I have been trading for this market before they born you in the village. Calabar, Bakassi, Malabo. Everywhere. Po. Do you know who built this shop, you goat in slave uniform? Where is Obasi?"

"I dey here-o, Mama," said a stocky man chesting up a bench.

"Who hire this monkey?"

"Nobody, Mama."

"Clear him out of here one time."

• Farafina is a Magazine of African Arts, Culture and Ideas. Published in Lagos - it is available by subcription to readers all over the world. Selected pieces can also be read by registering free online.

New Reads

One of the new reads this week, is mine. I am one of two Nigerians featured in the new issue of In Posse Review. Here's an excerpt from my story, Efita's End, in which a local beauty is washed up by the river...

Iya Alake hurried back to the market, beating at herself, biting a finger in regret, untying and retying her gele and wrapper in turns. Death, especially the tragically untimely kind, holds much spectacle, and Iya Alake rose to the occasion. At the entrance to the market, it suddenly occurred to her that the news was best broken with loud weeping. So, she let out a ringing cry that made storekeepers stand bolt upright, knocking over their wares.

"Sisi Teacher is dead!"

A running clatter of overturned goods, scattered stalls and the bleating of goats for sale, collided with women's cries and turned the market into a riot of noise. The market was deserted within minutes as the women formed a chorus of laments in the direction of the river. Iya Sikira broke away unnoticed and headed for home, eager to tell her husband of the fate that had befallen his beloved—and her rival. Her two other rivals were on hand to witness Chief Mayokun's reaction.

"Our husband! Our husband!" Iya Sikira called after him as he dashed out, leaving behind wives shocked at the dawning realization that they were jealous still, of a woman lately turned into a ghost.

- Efita's End... (read on).

~ ~ ~ ~

In Anietie Isong's The Last Messenger, a charismatic African Religious leader comes to London to give a talk and meets the disbelieving Professor Ralph, in an encounter the latter is never likely to forget. Here's an excerpt...

~

"An African mask with whiskers. That mask is in your bedroom now. It does not belong there."

The professor fell to the floor. (Later when he reported this to his friends, they said it must have been his knees. Professor Joe said he suspected Ralph had always had arthritis.)

"You may think that a mask is just a mask," The Last Messenger said. "But I am afraid it is not. A mask has its own soul. It has the capacity to hold and evoke memories, to build bridges to past times, peoples and places."

~

- The Last Messenger...(read on).

new read

"My interaction with a cross-section of contemporary African writers living in the West, suggests that they are slightly irritated by this constant attempt to pigeon-hole them and thereby tele-guide their work toward certain directions pre-determined by the all-powerful gatekeepers of the Western cultural establishment."

- Muhtar Bakare

~ ~ ~

The above, from Muhtar Bakare’s paper delivered earlier this month at the ASAUK conference, is probably a good point at which to introduce a short story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jumping Monkey Hill, published in the new issue of Granta print Magazine.

Nigerian Ujunwa Ogundu joins other African writers, including a Ugandan who has just won the “Lipton African Writers’ Prize with a prize of fifteen thousand pounds” - on a Writers’ Workshop held at a hotel in South Africa. The coordinator is Edward, an English benefactor and facilitator of African writing.

Excerpt
“There was a short silence… after the Zimbabwean read an excerpt [of her story]… Then Edward spoke. The writing was certainly ambitious but the story itself begged the question ‘So what?’ There was something terribly passé about it when one considered all the other things happening in Zimbabwe under the horrible Mugabe. Ujunwa stared at Edward. What did he mean by passé? How could a story so familiar be passé? But she did not ask what Edward meant and the Kenyan did not ask and the Ugandan did not ask and all the Zimbabwean did was shove her dreadlocks away from her face… Everyone remained silent."

Jumping Monkey Hill raises questions the average African writer will have to grapple with inwardly, from time to time. There is a story within the story, which connects rather nicely with Ujunwa's experience.

Read Jumping Monkey Hill in Granta 95.

new reads

• Sefi Atta has a new short story, Spoils of the Death Road, in the new issue of Per Contra...

“Bismillah,” he says, rubbing my shoulder. “No woman needs to be manhandled and that is good news about your friend. I hear you too have good news in your family. Hassan’s wife had a baby boy?”

“Last week.”

“What is his name?”

“Osama.”

“Hm. Every baby boy in this town is called Osama.”

“What’s wrong with Osama?”

“Nothing, but you would think the man is our sarki barraki the way we carry on.”

He smokes his cigarette. People name their boys Osama to make sure they will grow up fearless. The real Osama is more revered than our sarki barraki. He is so popular here you can’t find an Osama poster to buy anymore. They’re sold out. What did know-it-all Binta have to say about that? That a thousand Osama posters cannot beautify our mud walls.

-Read on...

***

• Zimbabwean writer, Petina Gappah's story, Something Nice From London, is in the same issue...

“The only good thing about Father’s death,” Peter had said in his careless way, “is that we will not have to put up with his tiresome relations.” We learned soon enough that this prediction was premature. Death does not sever the ties; it binds them ever tighter, for it is in death and its attendant processes that kinship asserts its triumphant claims. He had been lent to us as husband and father, but in death the clan reclaimed him. They buried him in Shurugwi, where we had to travel for hours on uncertain roads to visit his grave. Kinship asserted itself through the funeral rites, in the ceremony to release his spirit, and in the accompanying ceremony of inheritance. His family had even attempted to speak on his behalf. They consulted a diviner who interceded between this world and the next: Father did not rest easy, was his uncompromising verdict. It appeared that the reasons for his discomfort were mainly financial.

- Read on

• Also, read Petina Gappah's review of Tsitsi Damgarembga's new novel, The Book of Not...