From the launch of 'Edible Bones'

Writer Unoma Azuah launched her second novel, 'Edible Bones' at the National Library, Yaba, Lagos on Saturday Decemer 17. The author of 'Sky High Flames' a novel, 'The Length of Light', a short story collection and earlier poetry collection 'Night Songs' - is over from the US for the publication of her latest book, published by Ogochukwu Promise's Oracle Books. In attendance were Azuah's fellow female writers Akachi Adimora-Ezeigbo, Ronnie Uzoikwe and Onyinye Ihezukwu. It was my first proper meeting with Ihezukwu, who is fresh from last month's Femrite workshop in Uganda. She is shown below, having her copy of 'Edible Bones' autographed by the author.

Compering the event was Ropo Ewenla, Secretary of PEN Nigeria. The body's president, poet Tade Ipadeola, was the reviewer but he was stuck someplace and couldn't come, so the review was read on his behalf by Sylva Nze Ifedigbo. Music was provided by Edaoto and Awoko. When the launch finally started (potential audience probably halved by another event going on at Debonair also in Yaba), the publisher lamented the poor turnout. "We are celebrating a writer who lives abroad, who has done a lot to promote literature," Promise said. One of the goals of Oracle Books, she informed, is to get people "to read not just for utilitarian purpose but also for pleasure... Good books are a complement to good living."

'Edible Bones' which I'm yet to read, is about the travails of a Nigerian immigrant in the US, Kaito, who has gone there in search of a better life that may not be all for the better. Chair of the occasion was Mallam Abdullahi Yerwa who was absent but nonetheless had his address read on his behalf - a sort of review-before-the-review, complete with spoilers. He also said at some point, "Most bloggers, as far as I'm concerned, should be flogged" - I don't remember exactly what for. His address led Ewenla to declare that Azuah's novel "will generate a robust discussion (about the issue of Nigerian's flocking to foreign lands)."

The Chief Launcher, Yemi Adebiyi shared his own experience of America. "I was in America for 17 months. I graduated on May 8, I ran back to Nigeria on May 12." Why? "Because I saw so much suffering among Nigerians there and I didn't want to be part of it." Adebiyi said the problem with Nigerians is that "we don't read." He recalled a KLM flight to Amsterdam on which about 15 Nigerians fiddling with calculators, while the Europeans on board nourished their minds by reading magazines and books. He also called for book launches to hold on days other than Saturdays, because there's too much going on the city and books cannot compete favourably with wedding parties.

An old school mate of Azuah's who was seeing her on Saturday for the first time in 24 years, spoke movingly of their secondary school days, clearly proud of what the author has made of herself. A lawyer, the old friend recalled that, "Unoma's uniform was the only one with two pockets" stuffed with poems. Also in attendance was Sister Ify, the Administrator of Holy Child College. You see, the friend went to HCC to enrol her daughter, looked in the school bulletin and saw to her astonishment, a piece about the author Unoma Azuah - her schoolfriend from 24 years before.

Photos: M.Wood.

Unoma Azuah launches 'Edible Bones' today

Yaba is staking its claim as another hub of literary activity in Lagos, on the Mainland as opposed to the island arts-monopoly to boot. There's the monthly Book N Gauge for a start. There are 2 events in Yaba this after and here's the one I will be attending. One has to attend of course, it's Unoma Azuah's launch event for her second novel, 'Edible Bones'. The launch is many months in the planning and I can't wait to lay my hands on a copy of the book.

Here's an interview of I did with Unoma Azuah, published last year - Writing as a way of relating to others.

Today's reading/launch starts at 2pm.

Venue: National Library, Yaba, Lagos.

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

Unoma Azuah: Poetry workshops in Nigeria

I have the pleasure to announce a series of FREE poetry workshops across the country to be facilitated by the Poetry Editor of Sentinel Nigeria Magazine, Unoma Azuah professor of Creative Writing at Lane College, Tennessee, on the “Technique and Critical Appraisal of Poetry.” She will be assisted by Dr. Lindsey Green-Simms of Duke University, who will facilitate on the related topic of “Poetry and Poetics: A Reading of Classics.

Sub-themes of the workshop will include:
• A : Elements of Poetry
• B : Practicing Poetry
• C : Pattern By Eye: Objects
• D : Layering Patterns
• E : Problems of Poetry

The Workshop, made free by our partners and co-hosts, will be held in the following cities:
• Asaba - May 15th
• Lagos - June 5th
• Abuja – {June 12th or 19th: to be confirmed.}
• Kaduna - June 26th

Interested participants should register by sending an email indicating in which towns they would be attending the workshop. Writer’s groups may also inquire about group attendance via email to
nzeifedigbo@yahoo.com {Subject “Attn: Poetry Workshop”}

Following the workshops, Unoma Azuah will edit submitted poetry manuscripts for a one-off assessment fee of N2,000 (per Poetry collection). She will make a selection from these poems for the maiden “Sentinel Nigeria Poetry Digest” - to be published in August 2010.

Richard Ugbede Ali
Editor-in-Chief, Sentinel Nigeria Magazine
Administrator www.sentinelnigeria.org
Email: Richard.ali@sentinelnigeria.org
+ 2348062392145.

New Reads

Two new reads for you - two stories by two writers whose protagonists have rhyming names: Paito and Kaito. It's like E.C Osondu and Unoma Azuah planned it, though I'm sure they didn't.

2009 Caine winner E.C. Osondu's new story is in Atlantic Fiction 2010, and reminds me of old favourites by this writer, like his Caine shortlisted 'Jimmy Carter's Eyes'. The story this time is titled 'A Simple Case'.

It was simple enough. Paito is waiting for his prostitute girlfriend, Sweet, to service a punter when the police raids the Jolly Hotel. He finds himself in a police station and ultimately in the dreaded Area F. Interestingly enough, I had occasion to pay a couple of visits to a real Area F police post in Ikeja last year (not to worry, there was nothing 'Jolly' about my reason for going there); and I pass by Alade Market off Allen Avenue all the time. Osondu's character, Paito, is a second hand trader at Alade Market, so the landscape of this story's not so alien to the average Lagos dweller, though not everyone gets roped into trumped up allegations of robbery, as happens in this very believable story of suffering, which still allows the reader lots of smiles. Paito ends up in an Area F cell, a Jungle Republic presided over by Presido. Paito must sweet talk his way out of this sticky situation, in a story that reads nicely to its 'Jolly' end.

Excerpt
The man who had spoken to Paiko was the first to speak. He cleared his throat and launched forth boastfully.

“My name is Robert, but I am popularly known as Bob Risky. In the daytime, I am a motor-park tout at Iddo, but at night I am a robber. I have been robbing and killing since I was expelled from Mushin Grammar School in form two, for smoking and selling marijuana. No operation is too risky for me to undertake. That is how I earned my nickname, Risky. I have been detained in almost all the police stations in Lagos, including Isokoko, Panti, Alagbon, Bar-Beach, and even the old station on Malu Road. I was drinking in my girlfriend’s beer parlor when the police raided the place and arrested me. They found a locally made pistol in my pocket and some wraps of marijuana. When they are tired, they will release me. I have no other profession than armed robbery, and, as we say, once a robber, always a robber.” Bob Risky finished his introduction, to loud applause. Even the Presido appeared to be impressed.

• Read A Simple Case

In Unoma Azuah's story, Sirens, Kaito is a new arrival in the US. From the airport he begins he search for the only two people he knows in America, two 'brothers' from his village who preceded him in the search for the American dream. During his search he encounters two women who know the men, the 'sirens' of the story.

Excerpt Kaito sat in the well-furnished lobby. A movie was playing on the giant screen TV, but he was uninterested. What if Kamalu never turned up? He thought. A few minutes later, the lady at the desk joined him with an extra cup of coffee. Her red lip stick was smeared at the edge of the white mug. Her face powder didn’t quite hide the light wrinkles on her face.
“What’s your name again?”
“My name is Kaito.”
“Coffee?”
“No, thank you.”
“It might help calm your traveling nerves.”
“You are right, thank you. What is your name?”
“Beth.”
“So you believe that Kamalu is out of town?”
“Well, I haven’t seen him in quite a few days. Are you related to him?”
“He’s my brother….from my village.”
“He didn’t know that you were coming to visit?”
“I sent him an e-mail and left messages on his phone, and while I hadn’t heard from him, I purchased a ticket anyway because my travel visa had kicked in.”
Beth’s eyes settled on his muscles. “You look quite fit. Are you an athlete?”
“No.”
“You and Kamalu are from where again?”
“Nigeria.”
“And the name of your village?”
“My village is called Iwu. I’ll show you pictures.” Kaito retrieved some pictures from his bag.
“The lake in the photo of you fishing is beautiful.”
They spent some time going over the pictures until a little after midnight. Beth’s shift had ended, but there was no sign of Kamalu. She sat with Kaito while he waited.

• Read Sirens

Unoma Azuah @ Queens University

Poet and novelist Unoma Azuah was at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada recently to discuss her work as an African writer in the US. Author of the novel, Sky-High Flames, Azuah was at Queen’s as a guest lecturer/writer from 24th to 27th March. Her three days at the institution included a one hour poetry reading and discussions with international students at the international center. In the Contemporary Women Writers’ class, she read excerpts from her forthcoming collection of short stories, ‘The Length of Light’. Dean of students and class lecturer, Jason Laker, joined students' discussions about the themes of the stories.

In the Women’s Studies Department, Azuah participated in a talk about Anais Nin, particularly the place of Nin’s journals as a mine for feminist theory. Also up for discussion were: trauma, artistic forms, woman as artist, and writing the body. Class lecturer Professor Jane Tolmie argued that Anais Nin’s journals portrayed a life full of “games” – including the theatre of the everyday as well as sex games. Students shared their own insights during the session, raising questions about Nin’s and Azuah’s writings.

.

The visiting writer was also hosted by Professor Marc Epprecht of the Department of Global Studies. At the Van Righ Center (famous for its tradition of encouraging women’s achievement), Azuah gave a talk on issues of Emergent Sexuality in Nigerian, focussing on the Nollywood movie industry as well as the works of writers like Promise Ogochukwu, Jude Dibia and Lola Shoneyin.

.

All the time at Queen’s, Unoma Azuah shared with students her writings and insights into the life of an immigrant writer in North America; finding time along the way to sign copies of Sky-High Flames for students.

• Images © Zanele Muholi (Ryerson University, Toronto)

The IRN Awards

News Release

More than one hundred submissions were received for the first IRN collection; and, entries were highly competitive. After a rigorous assessment of all works, especially based on how well the theme of theorizing eroticism in Africa is captured, these contributors won the IRN awards for their outstanding bodies of work.

Shailja Patel: The IRN-Africa Fanny Ann Eddy Award for the poem “Screaming.” “Screaming” is striking because Patel illustrates how damage to the body is one of the many tools oppressive patriarchy uses to impose control over people who dare step away from the margins of its strictures.

Shailja Patel is a Kenyan poet, playwright and theatre artist; she has performed her work in venues ranging from New York's Lincoln Centre, to Durban's Poetry Africa Festival. Her one-woman show, Migritude, received Ford Foundation funding for a Kenyan tour, and an NPN Creation Fund Award. CNN describes Shailja as an artist "who exemplifies globalization as a people-centered phenomenon of migration and exchange."The Gulf Today (United Arab Emirates) calls her "the poetic equivalent of Arundhati Roy."

Crispin Oduobuk-Mfon Abasi: The IRN-Africa Outstanding Award in Creative Writing for the short story “Two-Step Skip.”

“Two-Step Skip” is a unique narrative set in Abuja,Nigeria; it tells the story of a young gay man who arranges to secretly meet with a potential lover he meets on line. He is, however, brutally attacked and almost raped for being gay.

Crispin Oduobuk-MfonAbasi lives in Abuja, Nigeria. His work is included in Workshop Engelsk VG1 Bygg-Og Anleggsteknikk (eds. Janniche Langseth, Hege Lundgren, Jeanne Lindsay Skanke) and In Our Own Words Volume 6 (ed. Marlow Peerse Weaver), as well as several other anthologies. BBC Focus on Africa and Genevieve are some of the other markets where his work has appeared. Also, his stories have been published by East of the Web, Eclectica, Gowanus, 42Opus and other literary sites. Crispin’s "Petrovesky and Polarbywall" was named a Notable Story in the 2005 Million Writers Award. The story was also named one of the ten finalists in the 2006 Best of the Net. Moreover, his "Maiduguri Road" was named a Notable Story in the 2006 Million Writers Award.

Victor Ehikhamenor: The IRN-Africa Outstanding Award in Visual Arts. Victor's images and drawings are haunting, and leave lingering impressions; his art makes very strong statements.

Victor Ehikhamenor was born in Edo State, Nigeria. He is an artist and a writer whose works have been widely exhibited and published. He is currently an MFA fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Yvette Abrahams’ essay “Your Silence Will not Protect You”: Silence, Voice and Power Moving Beyond Violence Towards Revolution in South Africa (# Khib Omsis) won the IRN-Africa Desmond Tutu Award. This award goes to the outstanding essay submitted to OUTLIERS. In this essay, Yvette offers a theoretical framework through which identity and specifically lesbian identity in Africa is theorized in ways that deconstruct preconceived ideas about feminism, patriarchy, empowerment, politics of embodiment and social activism. This essay speaks [to] both the academy and the non-academic worlds and will inevitably generate more discussions and contributions to the understanding of queerness in Africa. The strength of this essay is that none of the following, silence, protection, violence, voice, power and revolution is assumed. Instead, Yvette works us through all the steps and argues for every position she takes or do not take. “Your Silence Will Not Protect You...” enters the pantheon of classics in related subject on its own right.

Yvette Abrahams was born in Cape Town in 1963 to parents of slave and Khoekhoe descent. She grew up in exile and returned home in 1983. Since then, she has joyfully tried to practice “the constant vigilance” which she affirms is the price of freedom. She was trained as a historian, and after many years in the academia, she became the Commissioner of Gender Equality. She [got] married to a dyke on Freedom day (April 27, 2007) and now spends most of her time off the Cape Coast planting enough trees to offset two lifetimes of carbon emissions. She has no cat.

Notisha Massaquoi's essay "The Continent as a Closet: The Making of an African Queer Theory" won the IRN-Africa Audre Lorde Award.

This selected essay captures the notion of 'home', citizenship and belonging for queer immigrants and refugees. She elegantly bridges African queer identities with accounts of "complex, dynamic, and overlapping geographies while interrogating transnational subjects, their nation of origin and destinations as well as their understanding of sexual dynamics." The beauty of the essay is that both Africa as a "continent" as queer identities are revisited and re-articulated from and beyond the "intellectual landscape of academic theories and practices." The queer project she imagines functions discursively as anarrative of Africa's political history boldly resisting oppression, and embodying utopian stories and possibilities of life as queer Africans on the continent.

Notisha is originally from Sierra Leone and currently resides in Canada. She is the executive director of Women's Health in Women's Hands Community Health Center for Black women of color and a doctoral candidate at the University of Toronto. Her most recent publication is the edited Theorizing Empowerment: Canadian Perspectives on Black Feminist Thought. She is currently working on a second collection with Selby K. Thiam entitled None on Record: Stories of Queer Africa.

The IRN-Africa Simon Nkoli Award goes to Professor Femi Osofisan 's article "Wounded Eros and Cantillating Cupids: Sensuality and the Future of Nigerian Literature in the Post-Military Era."

In this essay, Professor Osofisan retraces the shifts from erotic abstract symbolism to flesh, "as breathing, living, and corporeal presence, capable of sensual desire and carnality, and vulnerable to violation" in Nigerian Literature in the post-Military era. He uncovers the ideological erotic stereotype underneath early Nigerian Literature --and pan-African Literature-- and discusses why and how the option for "full disclosure and unrestrained loquacity" has dominated the post-Military era. He also analyzes the impact of globalization and globalized "American values" and the possibility that erotic full disclosure in Literature may not escape the intrusive lenses and the probing inquisitiveness of the West. However, what is seen as "license" may itself be attributed a judgment value that is telling about our Christian upbringing, which out of misplaced zealousness, systematically expunge the vulgar. Professor Osofisan deconstructs the fortress of the insensible and embraces the new bloom and heteroglossia of wounded Eros with measured skepticism. To interrogate Eros in Nigerian Literature and African society, one must grapple with the multiplicity of subtle strategies and channels through which Eros is represented as well as the inadequacies and brutalities committed in its name. The beauty of the essay is that it not only highlights the shift from abstract symbolism to full embodiment of Eros in the post-military era in Nigeria, it also reminds us that such disclosure is not costless when the market of modernism collides with the lingering pain of humanism in our society.

Professor Femi Osofisan is a renowned African Playwright and professor of drama. He is currently in the department of Theatre Arts at the University of Ibadan where he has taught many dramatists for many years.

Sybille Ngo Nyeck and Unoma N. Azuah.
Editors, OUTLIER collection.

New Reads

In Unoma Azuah's short story, Season of Scorch (a finalist in the 2nd Glass Woman Prize), a young girl is forcibly married off into the polygamous household of an elderly man.

Excerpt
Tekula was a seventy-four year old farmer and trader whom Tor had met at a yam market two years go. The harvest had been good. I t was one of the days when Tor came with too many yams to sell. He had hopes that he would sell them all. He did not want to take them back to the barn and watch his year long labor rot. The market was closing for the day and he still had half of the yams he came with. He stood beside his pile of yams, calling out, “Yams! Yams! Sweet yams! Buy good yams!” But few of the men, women and lorry drivers who bought yams in tons stopped to buy from him. He arched his hand over his eyes to shade the sun from his face to see how high the sun was. Then he called out louder, “Buy yams! Big good yams!” A scrawny dog trotted into his stall, with its tongue hanging out. It stopped at one of the wooden poles supporting Tor’s stall, lifted it hind leg and pissed. Tor yelled at it, “Shaiii! Go away!” But the dog eyed him and continued pissing. The swarm of flies perched on the dog’s sour ears buzzed as Tor waved his hands at him, so he left him alone.

The sun bore down like an angry god. Then the old man Tekula walked out of a stall, his gold-rimmed walking stick raising dust as it cut into the hot sand. He puffed out a thick smoke from his charred lips and asked with half closed mouth.

“How much for all? They look good.” He said and picked up a large yam.

“Cheap!” Tor told him, “Take all for 500 naira.”

“No, 250.” Tekula said, removing the pipe from his mouth.“350 last.” Tor said and lifted two yams. “See, they’re fleshy and good, no rotting spots.

Tekula held up one of the yams and smiled. “They are quite fleshy and no rot at all…isn’t this what we all look for in everything…fleshy and good, be it money, children, wives, houses, stocks…just name it.”

Tor’s face spread with a wide grin and he shook his head and said, “You’re very right…very right.” They both laughed. Then Tekula bought up the rest of the yams. Their business relationship matured into a friendship. It was on one of their market days that Tekula mentioned to Tor that he was interested in marrying a fourth wife. Tor immediately recommended his daughter, Doshima. But Doshima was hoping to marry her childhood friend, Hembafan. He was tall like an Iroko tree. Long-faced, very dark and handsome. Her father had turned down Hembafan’s proposal to marry her with the reason that he was not financially secure enough to take care of her. Hembafan left the village in frustration for Zaki Ibiam, a town more than two hundred miles away.

“Papa, he’s old” Doshima said. “Please, let me marry Hembafan.”

“No, I’ll not let Hembafan marry you, he’s only a boy. You need a man, a full blown man, not a baby like Hembafan who is still eating off his mother’s pot,” he said.“Papa, please,” Doshima whined.

“Tekula’s age has nothing to do with him as a man. Do you know your mother’s age when I married her?” Doshima’s mother must have heard them. She tapped a spoon on the edge of her boiling pot of soup and poked hard at the dying embers of fire.

“Look,” her father lowered his voice and spoke softly. “I have invested money in my farm and I cannot afford to pay it back, so if you misbehave, I will thrash you like the child you are,” he scowled and stormed out.

• Read Season of Scorch...

Nights

Nwaka, sing the song
of birds blossoming
among sunflowers
sing a song to quiet
the shrills of restless crickets
Sing songs to light up
the bulbs of my tears
I’ve borne the waters of my gorge
Furious for an outlet
I’ve stared into many nights
searching for a single star
I’ve groped through scorched sands
In search of a glitter in a grain
I’ve seen the rage of broken waves
scurry like scorpions
Nwaka, sing songs to me
Sing songs of dark clouds
Slashed in lightning
Of rains roped in deserts
For I’ve witnessed the birth
of too many crippled dawns
in too many tortured nights.


© Unoma Azuah

• Nights is taken from Night Songs by Unoma Nguemo Azuah, Oracle Books, Lagos (2001); Reproduced with permission.
• More on Unoma Azuah