Sentinel Nigeria

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry and Short Story Competitions Past winners

2011-11-12T13:30:00.000+01:00

This page lists winners of the first three places in the Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry & Short Story competitions since July 2009. You too could become the next Sentinel poetry or short story champion. Your name will be on this wall, and your work in the Sentinel Champions magazine with pride of place in hundreds of personal and corporate libraries across the world. There is just this little thing you need to do: ENTER THE CURRENT SENTINEL LITERARY QUARTERLY POETRY & SHORT STORY COMPETITIONS. CLOSING DATE: 20-12-11
Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry and Short Story Competitions Past winners

Excel for Charity - writing competitions in aid of the world's charities

2011-10-08T12:09:00.000+01:00

Excel for Charity - International Writing Competitions Series in aid of charities. Current competitions: 1. The TRYangle Project Poetry (Judge: Gabriel Griffin) & Short Story (Judge: Kate Horsley) Competitions on DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Closing 10-10-11 2. Stepping Stones Nigeria Poetry (Judge: Susanna Roxman) & Short Story (Judge: Toni Kan) Competitions on CHILDHOOD. Closing 31-10-11 and 3. Swale Life International Poetry Competition. Open theme. Closing 10-11-11 www.excelforcharity.com
Excel for Charity - writing competitions in aid of the world's charities

Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition 2011, judge - Roger Elkin

2011-10-01T16:38:00.000+01:00

Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition 2011 | Closing Date: 15-Oct-11
Details:
For previously unpublished poems in English language up to 50 lines long, on any subject, in any style. Poems entered may not be under consideration for publication, or accepted for publication elsewhere. Prizes: £500 (First), £250 (Second), £125 (Third), 5 x £25 (Highly Commended). Publication in Sentinel Champions magazine #9, February 2012 in print and eBook formats. Judge: Roger Elkin, author of 'No Laughing Matter' and 'Fixing Things'. Results will be announced on 30-Nov-2011 at www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk
Entry Fee: £5 per poem (You may enter as many poems as you wish)

Contact: Send poems with Cover Note or Entry Form with Cheque/Postal Order in GP£ only payable to SENTINEL POETRY MOVEMENT, Address: Unit 136, 113-115 George Lane, London E18 1AB, United Kingdom.
Enter online or download Entry Form at:
http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/competitions/sapc-2011/

Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition 2011, judge - Roger Elkin

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Short Story Competition October 2011 | Judge Adnan Mahmutovic

2011-09-21T10:23:00.000+01:00

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Short Story Competition October 2011 | Judge Adnan Mahmutovic

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition.

2011-09-19T20:17:00.002+01:00

Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition. | Closing date: Midnight 20th Sept, 2011. | Judge: Todd Swift | Prizes: £150 (1st), £75 (2nd), £50 (3rd), £10 x 3 (High Commendation) + first publication in Sentinel Champions. | Fees: £3 (1), £12 (5). Enter online now http://www.sentinelquarterly.com/poetry-competition-oct-2011/

Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition 2011, judge - Roger Elkin

2011-09-18T18:43:00.000+01:00

Sentinel Annual Poetry Competition 2011, judge - Roger Elkin

Spesh Yahya interviews Sauti2Soul

2011-04-28T23:18:00.001+01:00

“But someone has to stand up and make that change happen, ‘cos even if we criticize it or not, the ones we have out there are representing you as a northerner; and each and every one of us isn’t happy with that.” – Sauti2Soul {Awal Abubakar Aliyu}

Awal Abdulkadir Aliyu, known as ‘Sauti2soul’ by his friends and fans alike, really defies pigeon-holing, he is what we may call a ‘freelancer’ though that doesn’t quite cut it. He's into radio, {day job with Quest Media’s Vision FM 92.1}, real estate amongst other things. . . The main passion of this recently married Education/Banking and Finance graduate, however, is driving the music industry to new destinations. Farida ‘Spesh’ Yahya, recently caught up with Awal so sit back and enjoy this free flowing chat with the man behind the new wind blowing through northern Nigeria;

Spesh: Can you tell us who Awal Abdulkadir Aliyu is?

Awal: Well, I'm just a regular guy! I'm from Azare, Village in Bauchi State, Katagum LGA. But I never schooled in Bauchi because my dad was a civil servant, so we were moving from one place to another . . .I'm a media person, into real estate, and so many other things.

Spesh: What drives you?

Awal: Quality! A passion to succeed, and to make things happen. Music is my passion and it drives me. . .

Spesh: Knowing how the entertainment industry is like in the north {Nigeria}, where do you think the problem lies?

Awal: I believe the major problem is the religion/culture issue. Unfortunately, music is not seen as a noble profession in the core north, and that now creates a huge gap in the music industry. Also, I think the quality of what you put out there determines how people will view you and take you seriously or not.

Spesh: So, after bringing up the whole culture/religion issue, where do you hope to draw the line? Because there will definitely be a group that will be like: “‘These people’ {musical artistes} are not ‘serious’?”

Awal: Your content. At least, your content should matter. Personally, I wouldn’t sing about women and objectifying women. Rather, you talk about burning issues; talk about marriage, talk about life's challenges and all. Like most of my songs are three parts; first I lay out everything, then I say what I think the problem is, and lastly I try to proffer a solution to the problem.
You could still do a dance track with a burning issue. Like, we have a song we are doing right now that’s going to be called "Shatara" - we are taking it to the grassroots, and being really crude. It’s going to be a {thought} provoking song discussing the current economic situation. We are not trying to insult anyone, but if you listen to it, and your doing something bad, and you get offended, then yeah; good God, you should be...and the way we want to do the video, we are going to use local people, and its going to be nice and you should look forward to it.

Spesh: After listening to your songs, I have said, it’s a fraud that you’ve kept it away from the people so long. So, what are you doing about it now?

Awal: Well, suddenly, I'm about to do something. You know, coming from the north, and from the core north, it’s not easy to wake up and just say you want to do music. I still don’t see myself as an artiste, but a lot people have said that my songs are good, so I will like to avoid to use the word ‘amateur’. I'm not an amateur. I have worked with a lot of professionals on my songs, so my songs are very professional. I’ve worked with some of the best producers in the country; some of them are not even in the country right now. I used to do music for fun ‘cos I'm into Media and so a lot of my friends have studios, and so I just walk into their studio, and burn songs and then give to some of my friends and family folks to bump in their cars. But, so many people are like ‘these songs are good, you should do something’, and I decided to give it a shot.
I have like 18 finished songs, and about 5 or 6 that are unfinished. I tried to make the content "clean”, it’s something you will like your daughter to listen to, your kid brother, and your mum and you wouldn’t feel like it’s not good {for them}. There’s just something for everyone.

Spesh: How did you get into the Media, knowing you are more of a scientist?

Awal: I have always had a passion for the Media! I think if your have a flair for something, it just flows naturally, and you know in Nigeria, you don’t have to do what you read. So, a friend of mine used to work in radio, so I was like, “I think I can do this" and I auditioned and the boss was like, “you’re good but you should know there’s no money in media" and all that. But that’s how it all started. Media has always been something I wanted to do, even though I didn’t read it professionally. Even right from school, I’ve been an artistic person; I’ve written a couple of poems, I don’t know where they are right now. I used to keep a diary, and I really love rhymes.

Spesh: Can you tell us some of the producers you've worked with?

Awal: I've worked with Dr Bengtine, Mr Seth, and a lot them are really huge right now . . . worked with almost everybody in the entertainment industry. Yisheng Garba; he's tight, and really good. He’s a genius. Tommy Shields; KD Worlds Records, he's really really good.....and one thing I’ve got good going for me is that I work with two or more producers on a song. Like if I wanna do hip-hop, and they are like Tommy will know the garaya thingy, and then, Garba, who did bakon lahira. So many others. Because I know what each has unique, and what I really want, I try to also get involved in the production. You know, even writing my songs sometimes, especially when it comes to Hausa, I try to get people that are really good with that, like Ibrahim helps me to write it well, and how I can re-phrase it.

Spesh: Listening to you talk about music, it’s like you sleep and dream it. But how do you decide what to sing about?

Awal: Well, something has to trigger, or a situation, and I'm like; ‘people should know this, this will make a good song!’, and that makes you wanna sing about it. Or you walk into the studio and there's something playing, and you’re like, “this will make a good song". But most times, I have a beat in my head for like weeks, and then I finally go into the studio, and get the violin, because I really love violins, and the bass, and then after recording the beats, I take it home, and there the words just shout at me. Like the song, "Please Don’t Say", I was just driving home, with the beats in my head, and the words kept coming to me, and I decided to write it out as a song.

Spesh: What’s this whole movement going to be like? Are you going to meet people one-on-one, or have, like, an organization?

Awal: Yea, there's a standard. We really need to come up ‘cos we are really really behind. And as an artiste, there are so many people that are gonna make you who you are; you need your manager, and sometimes even a songwriter. It’s teamwork really. So, anyone that’s interested should really get on this wagon. I know a lot the Hausa artiste; I know Yakubu Ahmed, I know Sani Danja, I've met Ali Nuhu. I also love Baba Ari, and I’ve spoken to him about this, and he was like "Dude, anytime!" I've also spoken to El-Faruk; he's a producer in the industry, and we've exchanged ideas and they all wanna do this. But someone has to stand up and make that change happen, ‘cos even if we criticize it or not, the ones we have out there are representing you as a northerner; and each and every one of us isn’t happy with that. I look at some of these things, and it just breaks my heart to see that these movies don’t really talk about the issues in the north, and since the music is here to stay, its not going anywhere, then we might as well just embrace it and accept it.

Spesh: Any last words you wanna share? To the youth and about the Movement?

Awal: I think if we come in as educated and cultured as we are, then maybe, some of our people will let their daughters from decent homes do this, and see it as a decent and noble profession. The advice for the youth is that they should believe in themselves, and have faith. You know what they say, "Faith can move mountains"; so we just might move a mountain. But with the movement, I want to release my first album soon, and then maybe a second, but I will definitely not do a third, because then, the standard will have been set. then, I’ll be more into production, to help bring up more young artiste into the industry..

Spesh: I think we are done here. Thanks a lot Awal for your time.

Awal: It’s been my pleasure, Spesh, thank you!

Spesh Yahya blogs at www.fareedasview.blogspot.com

SARABA MAGAZINE: Call for Submissions

2011-02-28T15:07:00.001+01:00

SARABA MAGAZINE CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

from Saraba Magazine

The Fashion Issue

To interrogate fashion and what is fashionable, we are publishing #8 of Saraba. As usual, our concerns are beyond the superficial details of everyday life. We are asking previously unasked questions, contemplating questions about art and life that may remain unasked were we silent.

There is so much to write about ‘Fashion’ that it is impossible to make a list. So we ask you to draw the line yourself.

Send us work that interrogates fashion in ways that we wouldn’t have contemplated – let this be as much about dress as it is about life.

See an example in Suzanne Ushie’s “The Serious Guide to Becoming a Seriously Unfashionable Writer.”

We’ll accept entries until 1st of March 2011. If you’ll feel better, let us into your head before you submit.

Please use our Submission Manager at http://sarabamag.com/blog/reader/

And read our submission guidelines.

So, expecting your submissions.

Arachne’s Web: Lola Shoneyin’s “Baba Segi”.

2011-02-12T14:10:00.002+01:00

ARACHNE’s WEB: LOLA SHONEYIN’s “BABA SEGI”.

Reviewer: Richard Ugbede Ali

Publisher: Cassava Republic Press

Author: Lola Shoneyin

Pages: 245

Assuming a reviewer could be more favorably disposed to a book on account of its aesthetics, the most attractive book in Nigeria in the year 2010 would be Lola Shoneyin’s Cassava Republic Press published “The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives”. It is a beautiful book done in black with images of women imposed on woodcuts dominating the covers. Fortunately, reviewers must with great responsibility consider weightier matters. Lola Shoneyin’s debut, accomplished in 245 pages, is the story of Ishola Alao, his four wives and his daughter. The wives, in order of “seniority”, are Iya Segi, Iya Tope, Iya Femi and Bolanle and their secret lives unravel around Bolanle, the University graduate fourth wife. The daughter is Segi, Ishola Alao’s first child and she, emphasizing the centrality of children in Nigerian life and in the novel, gives her father an identity; that of being “Baba Segi” {Segi’s father: Yoruba language}. The book begins with the raging determination of Baba Segi, a confident, illiterate, middleclass contractor, to find an end to the barrenness of his fourth wife. Being uneducated, he consults a friend, the degenerate intellectual, Teacher, who advises; Bolanle is a graduate, the way to the bottom of her situation would be found by taking her to a hospital. The novel ends amidst the cinders of Baba Segi’s household. In the fire before was laid bare the secret lives of his wives and the related, tragic death of his first child, Segi. Shoneyin achieves her story by winding it tautly and colorfully, capturing our imagination with Arachne’s skill, keeping us expectant until the very last page.

Using simple diction, Lola Shoneyin nonetheless makes use of a tricky handling of point of view, unraveling her novel mostly via an omniscient narrator whilst occasionally dipping into the minds of several characters to illumine her story with each character’s words. Hers is a complex social novel clearly interested in the issue of polygamy and its human incidence and she, understanding that there is no single track, that her novel would not succeed if written in the form of a viragiad, invites the reader to understand each character in their own circumstance so that the reader comes to anticipate their idiosyncrasies. Her handling of these two elements, diction and point of view, have the effect of giving her characters a full relief and a simple believability not easily achieved. Shoneyin achieves this and much more. There is a depth of thought evident in every sentence in the novel yet this is not the sort of labor of love that blares its effort; hers, to return to the imagery from Greece, are stitches so fine as to be invisible to the eye, hers are word-stitches of a writer, in the mold of Ondaatje, who can turn laborious effort worthy of footnotes and bells into elegant, effective sentences that strike with the irrefutable assuredness of folk sayings.

The most noteworthy technique employed in this novel is the use of “foreshadowing”, a technique widely attributed to the prose of John Steinbeck. This technique involves having simple occurrences happen earlier in the tale that recur later on, only then with a nuance. Its nature is of a vaguely disturbing premonition that, time down the line, bears unquestionable causality to a sinister real-life event. Nowhere is this technique used to more stunning effect than in the events leading up to the death of Segi. At the realization that Bolanle’s “persistent menstruation” would blow the lid off their secret lives, Iya Segi and Iya Femi co-opt the spineless Iya Tope into a plot designed to get their husband to drive Bolanle out of the house; it involved planting the head of a dead rat in Baba Segi’s room and the “discovery” of a fetish-looking calabash in Bolanle’s room. On discovery of these, Baba Segi physically assaults Bolanle, but Bolanle, who is already getting out of her lethargic tryst with being victimized, shows only pain, not a modicum of guilt. Baba Segi, further confused, goes to his friends at Ayikara who rightly deduce the obnoxious exhibits were planted by his other wives. This incident foreshadows the death, quite like a rat, of Segi; Segi is the victim of this story and she dies from ingesting a poison her mothers had meant for Bolanle. In the rat’s head event, Shoneyin gives us a hint of what will happen, to Segi, but we realize it only in retrospect.

Shoneyin’s use of foreshadows makes the reader, as a social integer, a sort of patient on a psychoanalysts couch; it is chiefly a psychological technique. Her use of irony, however, is meant to bitterly entertain and subtly censure. Irony permeates the entire book. The very first line –

“When Baba Segi woke up with bellyache for the sixth day in a row, he knew it was time to do something drastic about his fourth wife’s childlessness”

is ironic in linking her barrenness to his constitutional disorder. It is also supremely Ironic that Baba Segi spends so much effort trying to find a solution to Bolanle’s unfruitfulness, yet when he discovers why she cannot conceive, he finds himself not only unhappy but undone as well; his lot at the end of the novel is the bare rags of an ill-used man’s spirit. One more example suffices; when Iya Segi, on watching a TV news story on the arrest of a necromantic Hospital attendant with a number of pre-term babies, wonders;

“Why? Why kill innocent children?” {Page 12.}

it is both ironic and a foreshadowing – for she does unwittingly kill her own daughter in her quest to kill Bolanle, someone else’s daughter. Lola Shoneyin uses the phrase “voyeuristic thirsts” in her novel; she might as well have been winking when she wrote that, for in the active mining of the text for ironies at the inevitable second reading, the reader mimics a voyeur in more ways than one.

“The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives” is a story of lives interlinked in an unfurling tragedy; it is, simply, about the relationship between men and women. We are first brought into the ambit of this theme on the very first page when Baba Segi goes to find his mentor, Teacher, in Ayikara; Ayikara is an isle of ill repute, a Bohemia where the women are all prostitutes and where men come “across the {circling} gutter” to liberate themselves from the women of their lives. Men come to drink and talk and nurse each other’s frustrations, to celebrate each other’s triumphs. What is clear at Ayikara is that men find women so problematic that they must create social networks to share strategy and experiences . . . Equally revealing of the relationship between men and women is the story of Iya Segi. Iya Segi, the first wife, was brought up as a trader by a mother, sour that her lover had “left {me} for a beautiful woman”, who dyes the pattern of this bitterness unto her daughter’s psyche. Iya Segi’s mother states;

“Men are nothing. They are fools. The penis between their legs is all they are useful for. And even then, if not that women needed their seed for children, it would be better to sit on a finger of green plantain.”

Iya Segi, the arch-villainess, who not surprisingly has lesbian tendencies, marries her husband because the wealth from her trading, her independence, is taken away and given to Baba Segi, then a struggling apprentice son of her mother’s friend; it is this wealth that forms the basis of Baba Segi’s prosperity. Manipulative, deranged woman she may be, but, should Iya Segi not feel cheated? All she does, reprehensible as it is, are done with a philosophy consistent with her social and personal context; he who would stone her must be without sin, for the man in her life, Baba Segi who goes on a marrying spree, has not proven any different from her mother’s bitter stereotype.

Recently in Nigeria, debates around books revolve around a single issue; the fidelity of the story. This debate is one on the organics of Nigerian writing, a polarity around the recognition of a story by the people it is meant to be about. In the past decade, writers based in Nigeria have argued that a lot of the celebrated Nigerian writing so-called, mostly written by Nigerians in the Diaspora, has got little to do with Nigeria. The country in “those” novels is a Nigeria of foreign-publisher-market recipe books, inevitably one of stereotype and half-truths. It has been felt that these novels pander to western labels of “those tribal Africans”. Even positive things, the achievements of Africans in the Diaspora for example, are spun in a way to show that this genius could not have flourished were they “back home”, conveniently ignoring the ultimate Western culpability for brain drains. Lola Shoneyin’s debut cannot be flawed on the charge of it pandering to stereotype. The author evidently has an issue with polygamy, but she is careful to show that it is an organic institution in which everyone actively participates in their downward spiraling humiliations. Each of Baba Segi’s wives married him on their free will; none was forced to, perhaps with the exception of Iya Tope. The author also makes it clear that each of them could have left him at any time.

Lola Shoneyin is a writer with the vast vision of a spider and the loving eyes of a sun, seeing everything at once as it is really; hers is the compassion of a brave and knowing writer writing about characters she is familiar with, doing consistent deeds, woven into a seamless story that is as complex, and simple, as life. Lola Shoneyin’s world is her portrait of Arachne’s web and it is no more the fault of the butterfly that is caught in than it is the slipup of the spider that spins than it is of the eye that sees all and retains the picture in mind, in print, for posterity. In understanding this, we see exactly why hers makes it into the pack of just a few books published over the last decade that are, without doubt, authentically Nigeriana.

In order to find out what the secret lives of Baba Segi’s wives are about and why it is so catastrophic to his household, all literature lovers should rush to their nearest bookstore or login to an e-store and order a copy of Lola Shoneyin’s stunning debut.”The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives” is a book that will be a popular reader’s delight that will at the same time set the agenda of the gender debate in Academe over the subsequent years. Hers is an achievement worth heralding.

Richard Ugbede Ail, a lawyer, is Editor-in-Chief of the Sentinel Nigeria Magazine, www.sentinelnigeria.org. He lives in Jos, Nigeria, where he writes from.

Brainstormer Kids' Poetry

2010-08-27T08:31:00.001+01:00

Review these kids' poetry

A Promising Penultimacy - by Richard Ugbede Ali

2010-08-27T08:01:00.001+01:00

You may write a review or comment on Richard Ali's 3rd Editorial for Sentinel Nigeria.

Market Affairs - a short story by Chioma Iwunze

2010-08-27T07:13:00.001+01:00

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Twenty Ten - a short story by Emmanuel Iduma

2010-08-27T06:54:00.002+01:00

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Review of 'Through the Gates of Thought' by Sylva Ifedigbo

2010-08-27T00:28:00.001+01:00

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Two poems by Su'eddie Agema

2010-08-27T00:11:00.000+01:00

Post your review or comment on the poems by Su'eddie Agema published in Issue 3 of Sentinel Nigeria magazine

Poems by Ahmed Abubakar Imam

2010-08-27T00:00:00.000+01:00

Post your review or comment on the poems by Ahmed Abubakar Imam published in Issue 3 of Sentinel Nigeria magazine

Be like the road itself by Kola Tubosun

2010-08-26T23:50:00.000+01:00

Post your review or comment on the poem 'Be like the Road itself' by Kola Tubosun published in Issue 3 of Sentinel Nigeria magazine

Earth is Empty by Nwilo Bura-Bari Vincent

2010-08-26T23:20:00.003+01:00

Post your review or comment on the poem Earth is Empty by Nwilo Bura-Bari Vincent published in Issue 3 of Sentinel Nigeria magazine

Two Poems by Sandra Nwadi

2010-08-26T23:10:00.000+01:00

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Three Poems by Zino Asalor

2010-08-26T22:59:00.000+01:00

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Poems by Albert Ograka

2010-08-26T19:32:00.001+01:00

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Three Poems by Charles Bassey

2010-08-26T19:18:00.003+01:00

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Idara by Nsuhoridem Okon

2010-08-26T19:02:00.001+01:00

Use the comments box to review or comment on the poem 'Idara' by Nsuhoridem Okon

Poems by Julius Bokoru

2010-08-26T18:48:00.001+01:00

Click on the comments link to review any or all of the poems by Julius Bokoru published in Issue 3 of Sentinel Nigeria magazine.

BEING CONQUERED

2010-06-22T13:24:00.003+01:00

by
CONQUER TUKOKUMO IGALI

A very wise man told me days back that people hold certain views because of the experiences they’d had, good or bad. I hardly think I fall in that category. For example, my first relationship lasted all through my University years, and then some. I have never been part of a “bad relationship” before. I am usually liked. But most often than not, I think a little differently than other girls my age.

Some things look good in concept to me. For example, I somewhat fancy the idea of staying single with a house full of children, all mine. I could birth 5 cute girls, adopt another 5 or 9, and make it 14 or so children in a very big house. They can have a room to themselves if they wish. I would take the best care of them as a mother who wouldn’t do more than cook Indomie would.(ok, after a couple of degrees, I would do a catering course too!).They could have a Daddy in principle though, not just my husband. We would be together, me and him. Go out with our kids to some functions together, but not live in the same house. I hate to iron male shirts. Hell! I’ve ironed more than a thousand parts of my body trying to straighten my own clothes and they aren’t even that complicated! I would stay 23 forever. Be a justice of the Supreme Court immediately after Call-to-Bar, Have my Mother live forever, and invent the cure to every incurable disease and misfortune. But then, fantasies never happen the way we want them to, do they? Hence, this note, could as best, be an attempt to wish, as always.

It is 11:34 AM now. I’ve been sitting on this reading table for hours, attempting a Power Point presentation for my Court and Chamber attachment requirement - without success. Defeated, I reach under the table for a magazine. Vogue, the 2008 August edition, with Supermodel Kate Moss gracing the cover, seated. She is beautiful enough, but a story beckons to me. I open to page 88, and 75 year old writer, Jane Juska, smiles at me from inside the page. She is blond. Her story is titled ‘The Other Woman at 75’.I start reading. She writes about herself.

Married quite early, but after a divorce at 37, Jane had an affair with a man that almost ‘did her in’. At 66 she considered herself liberated enough to have any affair she wanted, and did. Even advertised on a newspaper for applications (what did you think? Men, of course!) and wrote a book about her escapades. Her book ,”A Round Heeled Woman” ,became a huge success. Sex, in whatever form, sells naturally. People considered her libido a miracle. During her first book signing in Berkley, She met a handsome, white haired, clean nailed, charismatic, very sexy and extremely unavailable man who told her he wanted her, but was very married and would never leave his wife. Still, he ‘had needs’ that his wife couldn’t meet. So she dated him.

Having had a firsthand experience with a married man in her 50s, one would have expected that Jane learnt from that. Dating an irretrievably married man turns into every cliché you have ever heard about “the other woman” .It is a life of hiding, of waiting, for making unlikely excuses for otherwise intolerable acts. But the physical attraction and the exceptional bedroom skills snared her. Of course, he reassured her he ‘would never lie to her’, and ‘feels as though he is with her even when he was with his wife’. Married relationships always bring cliché’s even 5 year olds could see, as through a piece of glass. She stayed.

They traveled a bit (always on his business trips) and hotel keepers and receptionists kept calling her Mrs____. She never had the courage to tell them “’Oh no! Well, I’m his mistress, you see? I only satisfy his ‘needs’ and take stolen trips with him on vacations’”, plus, he always stood there grinning when she got called his “Mrs.” What would he have done? Huh? But she liked the respectability that came with been called his “Mrs.” too, see? Who could blame her?

Their relationship lasted for about a year before Jane realized she was fast becoming an emotional wreck. She wanted to call him at midnight, see him during the day, send text messages to his cell, and be seen in public with him. Jane also realized that she couldn’t live her life without him anymore.

So, one afternoon, after a fight about all the things they’d ruled out of their affair that she now wanted, he looked at her, raised his hands in despair and said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give you all the things that you say you want’’. Tired of fighting the things she knew she would never get (except of course, if she decided assassins would do the magic),Jane Juska, now 75, settled into the life of the ‘other woman’. The liberated life she chose for herself.

Story Ends.

I liked the story. Jane Juska would fit perfectly in my fantasy-wish-world (minus the men chain though). Add the portrait of a dozen plus happy faces painted in chocolate and a grinny me and the world would be all perfect! (cancel the early divorce part too. I’d rather not tie that knot at all than decide to risk the legal battle of who gets what.) I am not so sure about the newspaper ad though. I figure it wouldn’t be very hard to get consenting adult males to do the deed. You know? Tell a man upfront that there is free and unattached copulation in the contract and one would get offers so many there wouldn’t be any need at all for a newspaper ad. But then, reality is an unsolicited neighbor that walks into ones living room without even a knock on the door.

Reality.
Miss Juska is 75 and would soon be called by the Black man with the whispery tone, but I am a lot younger and yet to birth, or adopt my first child. I am a Nigerian with a very Christian and mannered background. Given the society I live in, it would never go unnoticed that my fantasy views are almost unacceptable. Even with the various reality checks, I joke crudely with my Boyfriend about some of these crazy ideas. “I won’t marry you”, I would quip.
“Great!’’ he’d always reply, adding, ’’But you’ll have my first child though. She would be a girl.’’
He already has a name for her.
“What if I decide to marry some guy before I give you your girl child?” I would ask between laughs.
“Oh? He would have to wait then”, boyfriend would reply, “My equity comes first. You know, first in time always takes precedence,’’ he would joke.
Were I to live my fantasy, he would be my perfect fantasy father, you see? He is scared shitless of marital ties, very amenable to weird views and is absolutely cute.

But then, Reality knocks hard. Annoying as neighbors who intrude into ones moment of solitude are, some intrusions are welcome, especially when ones cooking is about to set the whole house on fire, as it is now. I’ll resume my attempt at my slide show while trying hard to keep these thoughts out! Sometimes, the things we think we need are only but trifling. It takes a lot more time to see the bigger picture. Time flies too.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
@ IGALI TUKOKUMO CONQUER. 2010

June 12: Snow White Looked in the Mirror and Saw Shango

2010-06-12T01:37:00.003+01:00

By
Benson Eluma

{This article does not represent the views of the Sentinel Literary Movement of Nigeria; all opinions expressed are solely those of the author.}

I don’t know which to pick between May 29 and June 12 as the worst date to look forward to in our political calendar. I don’t know which is, to me, emptier of meaning as far as democracy is the issue. Perhaps, I hold a generally jaundiced view of Nigeria’s political history and career. But I truly pity the optimists amongst us. And I have the greatest distrust for the so-called progressives to whose ranks was recently admitted that panegyrist on hire to any peacock with obscene dough, Dele Momodu, publisher of the overpriced, perfumed toilet paper known as Ovation magazine, which doesn’t even do its job of arse-wipe well because of the coarseness of its material. Whoever knows the fellow should tell him that in both age and ideological stance he belongs in the ancient breed of political villainy in Nigeria. He cannot now in his dotage aspire to represent the constituency of youth in the country, a constituency that with every passing generation finds its field of possibilities increasingly sown with thistles and thorns. But then who knows? The villains can be found among the youth too. Yes, Momodu could win election as ‘Baba awon lost boys’. However, in the event of such a contestand who says we cannot have such an elective position in Nigeria, the land of mind-boggling possibilities?he would have much to contend with in the strong forces of Bola Ahmed, the progressive politician who, in a parody of Nicodemus, went on behalf of the Pharisees in the AC to woo the ‘evil genius’ after their party was dumped by the no less unholy Atiku, a politician who carries the membership cards of all the political parties in Nigeriaextant, extinct, and envisaged; progressive, regressive, digressive, and even paralytic. Atiku represents the true spirit of Nigeria’s ‘nascent (stunted-growth?) democracy’. And one day when we come to realize the value of the central role he is playing today, we shall inaugurate a holiday in his honour, or re-assign May 29 as his Saint Day, or even June 12. For it is in us to venerate travesties.

Today, I will be recalling sections of Karl Maier’s This House Has Fallen: Nigeria in Crisis for the nth time. It always baffles me how it has been successfully seared into the annals that the election of June 12, 1993 is the freest and fairest of them all. I hold up the face of that election, its historical background and vital statistics, I hold it up to my mirror and it shatters in a million pieces. Imagine an election marred by grievous voter apathy, recording a turnout of no more than 35 per cent of the registered electorate, i.e. the Nigerian people, using or not using their legs, passed a vote of no confidence on June 12, 1993 and rejected a transition programme that had lost every iota of credibility owing to the disgraceful manner in which it had been stage-managed by the military puppeteers. Imagine an election the lead-up to which had been marred by the disappearance of the freedom of political association and political thought both for those seeking the vote and, by implicature, for those giving it. The SDP and NRC were the two remaining fingers of a leprosy-ravaged hand, bankrupt manifesto-wise and peopled with all manner of strange bedfellows with an eye for the main chance. Imagine an election in which all the political sluggers that could have matched Abiola blow-for-blow (or is it dough-for-dough?) were disqualified from the fray while an unknown apparition was manufactured and superficially propped up for the pretence of a contest with Abiola. This is the election that we hail as Snow White, the freest and fairest of them all. Today many people will beat their breasts in that predictable and silly ritual, and claim they are willing to die in honour of whatever it is Abiola stands for in their imaginings. I, being aware of the iniquity into which I was born and have lived in happily ever since, prefer demonologies to hagiographies. So, drawing from the demonology built up before June 12, 1993 by Nigeria’s progressive bastion, what I prefer to recall of MKO is that he was promoter and financier, a veritable diabolus ex machina, of the NPN, that constellation of the most cussed diehards and dyed-in-the-wool holdouts in the reactionary firmament of Nigerian politics. I also recall that his middle-name used to be military collaborator and his cognomen International Thief Thief.

And each time, before I hold up this construction of his reputation to the mirror, I do not forget to add as addendum to his demonology the fact that he became a ‘progressive democrat’ only after what he expected to receive on a platter, like the head of Saint John the Baptist, began to prove unfortunate for his ambition. I recall the media blitzkrieg of his campaign. I remember the ‘Na for bingo’ TV advert in which it became clear that the NPN’s erstwhile financier had ‘finally’ acquired the knowledge that contrary to the false image of a rich country with a contented citizenry whose high standard of living could underwrite the extravagance of moneybags who owned houses in all the capitals of the West and fornicated in every galaxy in the universe, the vast majority of Nigerians were vying with dogs for bones to crunch. I marvel at the expertise and alacrity with which a completely new image, that of an ‘a luta continua’ fighter, was well-nigh successfully minted for MKO, the hitherto proverb-munching and skirt-chasing Aare Ona Kakanfo—he cut a figure close to Elesin, didn’t he?—as it dawned on him and his fellow progressives that his friend Abacha had not ousted Shonekan from Aso Rock so that Abiola could retrieve his stolen mandate. Abacha, Abiola’s friend, had gothic things in mind for his own kakistocracy, including show trials and kangaroo courts, dungeons, roadside murders, séances with marabouts, and regular soirées featuring nautch dancers from India. ‘A looter continua!’

It is a short distance from the NPN to the SDP. Abiola actually ignored that short distance and took a shortcut made even shorter by the media power, the connections within the military-industrial complex, the philanthropist’s clout and, not least, the vast marital and fornication network he had amassed over the decades. Maybe there was no distance to travel at all, as Atiku’s example now convincingly instructs us. Indeed, under the barefaced puppetry and magomago of the demiurge IBB-Maradona, there was no line, thin or thick, between the NRC and the SDP. Those two parties were tighter than Siamese twins walking a little to the right and a little to the left; they were thick as thieves. The political players of that era, minus, of course, the apparition Bashir Tofa, are still at their nefarious worst, evenly and interchangeably spread over the landscape of party politics, all of them ancient rogues and toughs ruining the ‘nascent democracy’ and kicking the battered ball that is Nigeria here and there and nowhere in particular because the goalposts have long been dismantled. (Aside: FIFA ought not to have fixed a world cup match for Nigeria today June 12 when it is most likely not to score any goal. Tatalo Alamu has written a fine article on this ominous mistake here.)

If Abiola had survived those fateful sips of hemlock... sorry, I’ve just crosschecked that against the official record, it says ordinary tea... but if MKO had survived those trembling mouthfuls he managed to swallow that fateful day in July 1998, he would most likely have signed up as a player on the PDP team like his running mate Babagana Kingibe. I dare anybody to contradict me on this. Africa’s ‘Pillar of Sports’, founder and owner of Abiola Babes FC, would have been a PDP playmaker today. And if he had ended up in the AC or ANPP, what degree of difference would that have signalled? Let’s ask Atiku who’s been there and done that. Or, for that matter, Bola Ige who served as minister in the PDP government of OBJ, that ‘nest of killers’, even though he was chieftain of the AD, a party that was supposed to stand for everything the PDP was the antithesis of. Or prithee let’s ask our ‘new-breed’ political parvenus, from Speaker Bankole to every harried AC rep, all of whom share the same mind, the same ‘long throat’ cloned from an extinct species of giraffe, insofar as the issue is jumbo allowances for the asses at the National Assembly. And what else besides their obese earnings and bulging ‘Ghana-must-go’ booty is always on the agenda of those asses at the Assembly? Eh, what else do they aye and nay and bray about?

I agree that people have the right to construct and recall their history however it pleases them. In the case of Abiola, it is sure that the progressive hagiography has both overtaken and overpowered the progressive demonology. The man is a saint, and the election he won is our Snow White. This is the dominant political history of June 12 in both expert and popular discourse in our land. But I also say that whatever the edifice of historical syllabus people construct, it is susceptible of critical inspection, and when we can, it is our duty to deconstruct every such construction in order to understand it. Brecht wrote the words: ‘Unhappy the land that needs heroes.’ The desperation in our land shows up in the way we have clutched at the straw of MKO. In the absence of Snow White, haunted Prince Charming embosoms the queen. I wonder if the same unhappy desperation does not explain the beatification and eventual deification of Shango the marauding fire-breather. Anyway, I would sooner look to Shango for heroism than join the breast-beaters of the annual June 12 ritual. At least Shango repented of his belligerent ways and regretted that he had got his two strongest generals—IBB and Abacha?—overly accustomed to slaughter and plunder in addition to the worse crime of militarizing the imagination and ethos of his people. Shango ‘Oba Koso’ willingly took his own life. And then the ebullient bata rhythms of Shango worship—where is the colobus monkey that prefers the flying spittle and grating mendacities of the June 12ers to that? In matters heroic I prefer myths because we can always metaphorize them and distil some nuanced essence from their offerings. As Auden warned, ‘Political history is far too criminal and pathological to be a fit subject of study for the young. Children should acquire their heroes and villains from fiction.’ The admonition should be extended to the pedagogy of adults as well. Especially those adults who, when they look in the mirror, find that like Dele Momodu they have regressed into adolescence.

The African Pulse: Ivor Hartmann and Kola Tubosun

2010-06-10T02:33:00.009+01:00

Ivor W. Hartmann in Conversation with Sentinel Nigeria's Kola Tubosun about the "African Roar" and his StoryTime Project.

KT: Tell me about your own writing history. How did you get into writing?

IWH: When I was fourteen, and heavily under the influence of Stephen King at the time, I wrote a short story for a class creative writing assignment. At the time I had been relegated against my will to a boarding school – as about as far from home as I could get and still be in the same country. So I took this opportunity to vent my anger and frustration in a creative and cathartic way, and ended up with a blood soaked story about werewolves that totally scared the crap out of my demure English Lit teacher. It was then I realised I was onto something as I had never attained that level of attention before in anything I had ever done at school. Thus started my love of writing and I continued to write for the next five years until I finished school. It was then I decided that a serious writer needed to experience life in all its messy glory before he could really begin to write about it (whatever the genre). So that's what I did for the next twenty one years. Then in 2007 I woke up one day and realised that I had indeed done what I set out to do all those years ago, and it was time to get back to what has always been my first and true love, writing.

KT: How much of life’s mess did you actually experience for the twenty-one years, and do you still recommend same for anyone hoping to seriously go into writing?

IWH: A lot more than I wished for that's for sure, ha ha, someday I'll write an autobiography when I know it will sell.

Hmm, that's how it was for me and it worked, but I could not go so far as to recommend it to anyone. Everyone is different.

KT: How did the StoryTime website idea begin?

IWH: As a new 'serious' writer, I was banging out loads of work but when it came time to get it published and I started looking around I was taken aback at the dearth of outlets for African writers. As of course, I wanted to rather get it published by an African outlet than anywhere else. So rather than just fruitlessly moaning about it I decided to take the plunge and start an African Lit magazine. Having now been reduced to the clichéd starving writer, I looked for ways I could do that as cheaply as possible and yet still be effective. Thus the StoryTime ezine was born in June 2007.

KT: How has it been since the site started, and how did you get the now many authors that have been published on it.

IWH: Like most endeavours of this nature it was slow going at first, but I was relentless in searching for and asking writers to join and publish their work in StoryTime. So slowly word got around and by the middle of the second year I was no longer praying to have something (anything) to publish, and was receiving a fair amount un-requested submissions. Though I do still harass the odd writer I really want to publish because I very much like their work. StoryTime was and still is a work in progress, with me learning as I go along how to best get it out and about and thus give maximum exposure to the writers I publish, which is the main aim of StoryTime. In the beginning and up to Jan this year I was only really proofing and doing basic editing of the work that was sent to me, but decided from Jan 2010 to fully edit every submission with the author (as I had now I believed, gained enough experience in editing to do this properly). So the fruits of that decision are now becoming evident with each new issue published and has raised the standard significantly.

KT: I remembered how you came to pick my story to be published on the website. I just don't remember if I'd sent it to you first, or you contacted me to send it to you. Did you have to do that for the many authors that you published initially? Were there those who turned you down? Were there false starts? What other things were memorable about that beginning of StoryTime.

IWH: You sent it to me to me in May 2009, after coming across StoryTime online, but yes, I still did a fair bit of chasing even then.

Sure, many have turned me down – and still do – but as optimistic as I am, I certainly don't expect everyone to be into publishing in StoryTime. So I don't take it badly at all, wouldn't be much of a writer if I did, there's always going to be writers who for whatever their reasons don't want to, and I respect that.

There have been false starts, for sometime I had this idea StoryTime should be a worldwide writers' ezine though with a focus on African writers. But I eventually realised that this was silly (there were plenty of those, though not many with that focus), and so I chose to only showcase African writers, and re-did the ezine's look, logo, the core goals, and submission guidelines to reflect this and have never looked back.

There have been many memorable moments, both good and bad, much like having a child. One in particular was when Emmanuel Sigauke responded positively to an email I sent him in October 2008 about possibly publishing in StoryTime (I had read an excerpt of a short story of his 'Mukoma's Marriage' at his blog Wealth of Ideas and really liked it). He was consequently (besides myself) the first already published writer to be in a StoryTime issue. And we have since then enjoyed a great friendship, and he has taught me so many things for which I will always be eternally grateful.

KT: How many authors have been published on StoryTime so far?

IWH: To date we have published fifty three authors, though there are many more scheduled, StoryTime is in fact booked solid, publishing wise, until next year January, and there are more new authors submitting every day.

KT: The big news is African Roar, an anthology of best short stories from 2007-2009 in StoryTime. Tell us what we don't already know about it.

IWH: What a lot people have missed in our descriptions of the project is that after we (Emmanuel Sigauke and I) chose the final stories for African Roar. We then spent a good eight months carefully and stringently editing each story with the authors to bring it to it full promise (with one exception being the established author Chuma Nwokolo whose story was masterfully written, edited and ready to go). Also, that all the stories are now only available in the book, (apart from one exception published elsewhere online, but not in its current form in the book). I have great hopes for the future of African Roar. As you know this book is just the first in what will be an annual anthology, so hoping big (and why not I ask) that it may become in its own way a benchmark of current African Literature much like the famed Heinemann's African Writers Series was from 1963 to 2003. Though of course, limited to a short story anthology drawn solely from StoryTime.

KT: Beside the process of voting on the StoryTime website for stories to be included, was there anything else you were looking for when choosing the eleven stories in African Roar? Was there a theme at the outset that the stories had to conform to? Was there any particular directions you (the editors) agreed on before coming up with the final selection?

IWH: The voting process (which will happen every year) is more to engage the readers and get a larger picture of what they have liked, and not liked, a rough guide so to speak from a readers point of view.

For me choosing the stories was a very subconscious thing, like music, I knew what I liked instantly regardless of its genre and condition of writing at the time. So I looked for works that really stood out and spoke to me (as an avid long time reader). From this I compiled a list and Emmanuel did the same (using his own process). We put our lists together taking what coincided, and then defended and argued our other choices with each other until we agreed on a final list. So no, there was no theme and there never will be, African Roar is about selecting the very best of StoryTime and then taking those stories to an even higher level with the authors, in the editing process.

KT: But with benefit of knowledge of the wide range and genres now already published on the site, are there particular genres you’re still looking out for?

IWH: Nothing specific, I would like to eventually see every single genre that exists covered and perhaps create a few new ones too.

As one of the StoryTime authors, is there any genre you think StoryTime might have tempted you to try?

KT: I’m for sci-fi, not because I’ve read much of it as a kid, or watched much of it in the movies, but precisely because I haven’t, and because people like Nnedi Okorafor and yourself are venturing into such fields (as well as fantasy genre that has Okri and Rushdie) with so much vigour, I’m beginning to develop some interest in it.

IWH: That's good to hear Kola.

KT: Who were the authors that influenced you when you were growing up? Have you ever been influenced by writers writing in indigenous African languages, and what is the future of fiction-in-translation in future publications that you might want to edit.

IWH: Like most children growing up in Zimbabwe in the 70's as there was not a lot of local African publishing going on (under the racist Smith Regime), and even less that was put into libraries and schools, so I dined on a stock of imported authors, mostly British. I ploughed (I was an avid reader from the age of six) my way through Roald Dahl, Edith Nesbit, etc. However, in 1980 all that changed with independence, and suddenly there was an influx of African writers into the libraries. So I leapt eagerly into the likes of Dambudzo Marechera, Charles Mungoshi, Chenjerai Hove, Ben Okri, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, etc. to name a few. As here were, finally, African writers that wrote about the real Africa I was living in and very much a part of, and could relate too in a very personal way. This is not to say I didn't read other authors, I was and still am a real book slut – I read anything I could get my hands on. So too pinpoint any one or even group of, authors that influenced me is a truly impossible task.

I am all for writers writing in their first language, but do feel that to achieve the world wide exposure, these works need to be translated for the world at large into the mainly read languages i.e. English, Spanish, Chinese, etc. At StoryTime I am all for publishing the original work accompanied by a translation, though so far none of the authors have taken me up on this endeavour.

KT: As a linguist, I’m also for literature in translation. Original stories written in African languages translated and published. Or maybe you can even publish special edition African Roar issues with stories written only in African languages. Imagine a collection of eleven stories in eleven different African languages. A special edition publication, I said, and even I realise how ambitious and risky that could be for publishing which is first of all a business. But I like to think that it is possible, and could be exciting.

IWH: That would be a truly amazing project to do. In terms of cost maybe the original language used could be accompanied with an English (or other depending on the country it's being sold in) translation accompanying each story? Or, the other way around with African Roar being translated into the countries local language but also with the original language. Either way whilst it would make a far bigger book, it could well be worth it, and something I will look into for the next one.

KT: Considering now that there are very many more stories in the StoryTime ezine now, will the next African Roar have more than eleven stories? Will the selection process be the same? And will there be much more African Roars in the next year, or will it just be another one.

IWH: Yes, there will be more stories in the next one, as there are more that will be eligible this time around, and in my opinion there are and will be, some extremely good works in the set time period (Aug 2009-Aug 2010), from which to choose. Yes, we will do a readers vote and repeat the aforementioned process, As far as I can see there will only be one African Roar published every year, I am not looking for it to become a quarterly (or otherwise) print magazine, which publishing it more than once a year would probably mean.

KT: I know that editing and publishing short stories is enough task in itself. But do you have any interest in poetry, as a person. Do you write/read them? Any thoughts?

IWH: I do love poetry, though I prefer spoken to reading, and do very occasionally actually write one myself. Poetry to me is the highest art-form of writing, like absolute rose essence that takes 10 tons of petals to make a single ounce, so it should be with poetry. When I do write a poem it's normally because there's an idea or thought or collection thereof, which has been banging around my head for years. Slowly developing until one day out it comes, and then the real work starts, agonising over every word for months on end. So needless to say I have an incredible respect for poets who achieve great works, as it is truly the most demanding form of writing.

KT: What is the response so far to the publication of African Roar?

IWH: So far, three weeks in now, the reception has been fantastic with a far greater reach and interest than I had hoped possible. Especially as we have been dealing with a zero budget for promotion and marketing, which has certainly been interesting, along with the fact that it is at present only being sold online. Like StoryTime itself African Roar has been entirely dependant on word of mouth, word on the net, etc. through the authors' enthusiastic participation. As, whilst writing may be solitary, publishing is most definitely a team effort, and though this holds true for all publishing it takes on even more significance when applied to African Roar. It truly has been a team effort from the beginning and continues to be. And we, the authors, are starting to see the benefits of our hard labours as our African Roar is slowly but surely being heard world-wide.

As one of the authors in African Roar, how do you feel about it? Do you think is has put you forward as a writer?

KT: Yes it has. Like I wrote in one of my old, and another recent, blog-posts about the evolution of writing and my connection with the online medium, it has been a love-hate relationship. I grew up sneaking up to my father’s old typewriter at night to learn how to type from when I was eight. He would inevitably wake up from the noise and send me to sleep. But he always encouraged my interest because he knew that I always wanted to write, even if what I was writing then didn’t make much sense. He eventually handed me over to a professional typist who taught me how to type. Coming from such a background, I had a special relationship with the paper as a bearer of my thoughts. The sight of a pristine white page filled me always with such delight that always made me write. Or draw. Or simply scrawl things on it, just to fulfil what seemed like the ultimate mandate of its pureness: to be defiled. Then I met the computer and everything changed. I fell in love with it in a different way. The ease with which a blank document page of Microsoft Word inspired writing became impossible to surpass by the hard sheet of paper.

So I started a blog and started leaving my ideas there. Then I wrote poems, many of them inspired by the blank post page on the blog. My story in African Roar was inspired in some sort of way as well, and if not for your immediate acceptance of its prospects, it might just have ended up as just another Facebook note. Being published in this maiden anthology has thus given me more confidence in the power of the book to charm, just as much as the internet does, but with more permanence. And of course, it has added to my resume, for no matter how many words a blog contains, it can never be called a book, and the author – though still a writer – will not be called an author, at least by today’s indices.

IWH: Yes, I had a dalliance with publishing stuff on Facebook, until I realised how precious all my stories really were (in terms of one day paying me). So now I hoard them for a collection, and occasionally publish in magazines to keep my resume turning over while I finish the collection and work on the novels.

KT: I'm for localisation. Is there a chance of seeing a Nigerian/West African edition of African Roar anytime soon, published by a local publisher to make it easily physically available?

IWH: Yes, I would like that very much too, and I am (as the creator and anthologist, sole holder of the African Roar rights and copyrights) in the process of approaching local publishing companies. As it stands the deal with The Lion Press only included UK printing and distribution online at Amazon.com/co.uk and B&N. So while we are working towards this it will take time, but through the connections we are making now, we will certainly see the next anthology being far more widely physically distributed as soon as it is published, rather than after the fact.

KT: Since you got into serious writing, have you ever been under pressure to let the politics of Zimbabwe reflect in or condition your creative process in any way?

IWH: Yes the current condition of Zimbabwe has influenced my writing. I am living in economic exile away from my home and this has many effects on me personally, which of course influences my writing. But to answer you question, no, I have not felt directly pressured to write about it, and even if I was I would probably buck it, like Marechera said, "If you're a writer for a specific nation or a specific race, then f*** you". A writer must be, and feel, free to write whatever they want to.

Though I could ask the same of you, do you feel that current Nigerian politics has influenced your writing? And if so to what extent?

KT: No, but that is as far as my deliberate rebellion will allow, and I have tried as much as possible to fuse much of my own outlook in the speech of the characters I create. I cannot control the unconscious however. If I’m a writer at all, I’m one because of my upbringing and influences all tainted with patches of Nigerian history and my own upbringing in the many cultures that I’ve interacted with. The rest are my own questing polemics. In essence, I don’t write so as to be patriotic except to defy and to question, but mostly to locate the common humanity in my characters as well as in those who read and connect with them. I like the simple, small, family things, not the grand “national” political ones, and I’ve dedicated myself to exploring the small ones. I’ve discovered that they’re often even more fun than big politics. And as a writer, you get the liberty of imagination. Politics is more restricting. In that, Marachera was right. But overall, we are still a sum of our individual experiences, and are conditioned by our environments whether we like it or not.

IWH: Sure, I agree with you there, I'm also not into the grand political novel (or even short story). What interests me is the ordinary lives of ordinary people, because as soon as you look deeper no one is ordinary. We all have extraordinary things that happen to us at some point in our lives and how we deal with them is fascinating. The average Zimbabwean living in Zimbabwe now, is an everyday hero, you have to be in order to just survive.

KT: I know that you like Science Fiction. What is that about?

IWH: Well, its more the broader umbrella genre Speculative Fiction that I have a great interest in, which does include Sci-Fi, but also Fantasy, Horror, Supernatural Fiction, Superhero Fiction, Utopian and Dystopian Fiction, Apocalyptic and Post-apocalyptic Fiction, Alternate History, and Magical Realism. This is because I feel that in Spec-Fic there are no limits to the imagination and what you can do as writer, anything goes, and that is a tremendous freedom. I do write Contemporary Fiction too, it's really just a case of whatever will serve the story best. Though in terms of African writers, I am a big proponent of us moving into Spec-Fic and other genres, for the simple reason that we seem for the most part to be stuck in Contemporary Fiction. It seems as if every African writer wants to be the next Soyinka or Marechera, and I'm saying hang on a minute we can't all be that so what about the rest, the whole breadth of fiction? I want to see bookshops stocking us African writers under all these other genres too, and we can do it, we have massive amounts of talent here.

KT: Who are your influences in the Sci-fi fiction category, and for people meeting you for the first time, which of your stories in that genre would you encourage them to read first?

IWH: There are so many excellent Sci-Fi writers, but my top all time influence is undoubtedly Frank Herbert, and the six Dune books he wrote. What he showed me was that sci-fi could go to another level entirely, one that was as deep as the writer could make it. I re-read those six once a year, and every year I discover new insights and subtleties, things that make me go Wow! Frank you are the Man!

Hmm, well I haven't published that much yet (but have quite a bit unpublished including shorts and novels in progress), but I think to date my favourite is Earth Rise (actually a novel but I have only published the first chapter so far). After that it’s The Last Wave and Mr. Goop. So those being my favourites are what I would recommend reading to anyone interested in getting into Sci-Fi solely from reading my works, but there is so much out there I would recommend rather plunging into all of it.

KT: As a sometime sci-fi/fantasy writer. A few decades ago, getting a book
of this nature published would have cost an arm and leg, and several weeks of postage costs. Can you paint me a picture of African writing in the next fifty years from your own creative crystal ball. A little sci-fi fantasizing is welcome, if you feel like it.

IWH: Hard to say with any surety exactly how things will develop. But given the rising popularity of eBooks and the devices to read them on I suspect that this will undoubtedly become the main way of reading books, quite a lot sooner than fifty years from now. There are however some problems with this especially in Africa and third world countries, given that the average internet access in Africa at present stands at 8.7%. And as Nadine Gordimer pointed out recently printed books don't need batteries or internet access. So there is still a great need for the publishing and distribution of printed books, and indeed an ever widening gap technologically between the first and third worlds. So while it's great to be able to publish books electronically, if you want to ensure all-round distribution printed books are a still a necessity. This will certainly change in the coming years, and smart cellphones will drive it I believe, as there is certainly a far wider cellphone coverage and penetration into Africa than there is internet access alone. So with cellphone providers including more services in their packages, this could pave the way to greater eBook reading. Fifty years from now, I think print books will be nostalgic curiosities, and much like gas guzzling cars, only bought by for those who can afford the expensive luxury of having them.

KT: When you’re not writing, what would you likely be found doing?

IWH: Editing other authors more than likely, it takes up a fair amount of my time, and of course creating graphics and other stuff which keep me alive and able to still write. I'm a bit of a workaholic, but do occasionally find the time to attend book launches, hang out with other writers and friends, and of course I do religiously end every single day by reading for at least an hour before I sleep, but usually it ends up being quite a bit more.

KT: Finally, what’s your final word on the current progress of writing on the continent?

IWH: I am so impressed I can't even express how much and more so with every new submission I receive. We have a vast amount talent in Africa, so much so that when it truly starts to hit the world scene in a big way, we will be unstoppable.

KT: Thank you for this chance to talk with you.

IWH: Thank you Kola, it's been a pleasure talking with you.

TUTUMAN {a short story}

2010-02-23T20:51:00.004+01:00

TUTUMAN

There’s a feeling of having crossed an ocean each time Tutuman sits on my knee. Last time, she wore a black slip and the veil she’d thrown over her shoulder, for decency’s sake, had fallen around her hips. We sat in the dark beneath the glare of library lights. My northerner, she used to call me.

“What would they say to see us here?” I asked.

“What can they do,” she cooed, nibbling my left earlobe.

Maybe for the sound of a cricket, I laughed, knowing I’d asked the wrong question yet again.

“My mother called today,” she replied, “that’s why.”

“Nice, my sweet! Glad you got over that mood. You are resilient, but not a solitary rock, not an island. Just mine.”

She nestled her head on my chest, played with my navel, my palms ran across her satiny skin. We were beautiful, just like that; creatures of night, sharing a secret in the manner of crickets well aware that dawn would be our undoing.

“How’s mum, is she at Port Harcourt?”

“No, she’s at my village, Eniwari. Did you see the pictures I emailed?”

Her hometown was in the southern creeks beside a beautiful, meandering river; half-dressed children, their eyes wildly curious about the world around them; time worn canoes bearing nimble fishermen: “Yes, I did,” I said, “Lovely. I’d love to visit. Hope your militants won’t kidnap me?”

She punched me playfully. I kissed her lips. It’s so easy to find lips in the dark.

“There was an incident last week,” she said. I stiffened, did she notice? Tutuman continued, “Twelve people from Eniwari were killed.” It was 9 p.m. and fellow students filed out of the closing library. I thought of my brother and how the universe turns on the edges of coins.

Tutuman was a brown girl with an easy smile. Her voice had a halting sensuality, words pronounced perfectly with a slight Bayelsan accent. The Federal Government had militarized the Niger-Delta, because of local militants who blew up pipelines and stole crude oil; militants who were also environment activists, freedom fighters of a sort. Like Tutuman.

“They were returning from Yenegoa. There was a pregnant woman. Mostly traders. We are just fisher-folk in the delta. But now all the fish is dead from oil spills and gas flares. At a bend on the river, there’s a Navy gunboat. All the people in the small boat kept their hands above their heads, but the woman couldn’t. Maybe for vomit, maybe to spit? So the federal government’s boat, our petroleum in its tank, issued a barrage of gunfire. It’s funny how silent the delta becomes, just afterwards. . .”

***

I arrived home after a long arid trip across drying savannah-land. Kachollom, my mother, fussed over me. I had my bath, and then we sat to drink tea.

“Umar is losing his mind; he came back Tuesday. Did you know?”

I parted the zanna curtains.

Umar sat there cross-legged, staring at a large mirror. He caught my eye and turned.

“I swear I did not know! Twelve months of water snakes and eerie birds. I wanted to die. It was a small blue speedboat. I didn’t know! I swear. Do you know how chilling an upturned boat is?”

I lifted Umar’s green uniform unto my knee and sat on the bed, staring at myself, knowing I had no strength.

“Where did this happen?”

But the light was up again, we would be unable to hide.

‘What can they do’, Tutuman had said.

“At the bend on the river just before Eniwari,” my twin brother said.

Seven Photos’ of Contemporary Nigeria

2010-01-27T15:15:00.003+01:00

Seven Photos’ of Contemporary Nigeria

If a picture equals a thousand words

Then the picture is a metaphor.

And metaphor.

Is poetry.

PIX1 - Yet, I Roll {Volvo 244 DL}

PIX 2 – Hamartan Gilded Savannah

PIX 3 – Girl in Flux

PIX 4 – Simple Lives, Simple Stories.

PIX 5 – Hegelian Dialectics

PIX 6 – Palm Flame; Gloria!

PIX 7 – Tradition Remains Respected

The Dismal State of our Media

2009-12-17T15:28:00.004+01:00

The Dismal State of our Media

by Chinelo Onwualu

In the month and a half since my return to this country, I realize that many things have changed. In some ways they have changed for the better. One is no longer stopped by members of the police demanding bribes – at least not blatantly and women wearing jeans are not the show-stopping phenomenon it was even four years ago. But while watching evening news broadcasts, I have been struck by a curious difference. The leading stories are always event pieces.

Working for a newspaper in the US, we were always looking for ways to get the biggest news stories out to the public before our television counterparts. If there was a fire, or a shooting or an accident, we wanted to be the first ones there before the cameras showed up. Then at the end of the day would tune in to the evening broadcast, knowing that the first story the broadcaster mentioned would be what the station considered its most important news event. If they led with a story we didn’t have, we knew we had been scooped.

So when I tune into NTA and find that the leading story is a bland speech by a bland dignitary at an inconsequential convention, I have to wonder if this was the most important thing happening in the country at the time. And when I find that the whole broadcast is a series of bland speeches given by even blander men, I have to wonder about the state of the industry itself.

Nigerian journalism is in danger. In the United States newspapers and television stations are struggling with the fact that their audiences are moving to the internet, taking their advertising dollars with them. Here, I think the problem is more insidious. We live in a society where anything can be bought by the highest bidder – including airtime. When faced with the choice of covering a big man’s book launch or investigating a report of shoddy workmanship in a housing estate, I can only imagine what a television station starved of resources would do. Especially if offered enough “transport money.”

I don’t mean to single out one industry for criticism. When I read newspapers where there is little regard for punctuation, style or grammar, I know the problem is not limited to television. This is a symptom of a deeper problem in this country. Journalism is a poorly-paid, highly dangerous profession in many places in the world – even the United States. It requires brave and uncompromising people to do it, and not all of us are blessed with such hearts.

However we owe it to ourselves as a nation to raise our standards. There are news outlets producing quality work. Yet they are not enough and they are working against a very strong tide.

Chinelo Onwualu

Ms Onwualu lives in Abuja, Nigeria and is a member of Abuja Writers Forum

On Northern Nigerian Writing and Related Issues

2009-12-11T18:27:00.009+01:00

ON NORTHERN NIGERIAN LITERATURE AND RELATED ISSUES

BY

RICHARD UGBEDE ALI

Arewa: Northern Nigeria.

In Nigeria, when either of these words is mentioned, a flurry of images is created in the mind. Some of these can be stated without fear of a faux pas while other images, of social unrest, illiteracy and a billowing ultraorthodox Islam, are hinged upon very persuasive prejudices and are for this reason not openly expressed. This gulf between the object and its perception is of course in the context of northern and southern locales in all aspects of the Nigerian superstructure, most especially in the realm of literature and allied expressions; this gulf forms the basis of my article. Considering the comparatively recent development of literature written in English in Northern Nigeria and the still low formal education enrollment figures, it is possible to as a Northern Nigerian writer critique one’s own space.

Northern Nigeria is a vast tract of landlocked space in the Central Sudan bordered by the republics of Niger, Chad and Cameroun; its furthest southern border is marked by the territories of the Borgu, Yoruba, Nupe, Igala, Fulani and other Kwa-language speaking people. The admixture of an Islamic influence via the trans-Saharan trade route, and the very accommodating policies of the British colonial administration which favored a propping of the early 19th Century Islamic reformer Uthman dan Fodio’s system of Emirates, resulted in the peoples of the north not being exposed to Western education until about a century after the peoples in the southern parts of the country. While a rich history of Arabic-based literature existed, the extent of the known world of our fathers quadrupled in the decade starting from 1901. English, not Arabic, became the language of world expression. Consequently, while the people of the north have had their unique experiences, these experiences have hardly weighed in the national consciousness for they are only recently, in the last thirty years really, being expressed in the language that counts – in English.

Perhaps the most dominant mental image that is conjured by the phrase “Northern Nigeria” is that of the Durbar, that traditional panorama of homage to Emirs, a fleeting movie of men ceremonially robed on splendid horses charging down a field and drawing rein before their suzerain amidst the dust – with the exited ululation of crowds of talakawa {working class} as a necessary backdrop? The durbar IS a fitting metaphor for the North and the cusp of this essay is to break this movie-metaphor down to its rudiments, with the eyes of Rushdie’s involved criticism, to seek the points where the picture is less than it seems, the glint in the eye, the swing of a dagger, a whiff of perfume; the places where the perception is weak, threatening the fidelity of the entire picture.

At the head of the charge of men from the north on the field of Nigerian literature is the figure of Abubakar Imam Kagara who is recognized as a paterfamilias. His works, primarily Ruwan Bagaja and Magana Jari Ce, published in 1934 and 1939 respectively, were a bridge between the old tradition of northern literature and the new Western ways. Seeing that his times were swiftly changing, he had the vision, quite radical, to write neither in Arabic nor in the popular ajami {Hausa language in Arabic script}. He chose Hausa written in the Roman script for he felt that the Hausa language, with its remarkable adaptability as a Sudanese pidgin, would be the lingua franca of Nigeria. This assumption was of course frustrated by the Western educated, ethnicist-leaning, positions of Chief Awolowo rooted in personal ambition and a political fear of the mega-sized Northern Region. Thus was Imam’s contribution overshadowed two decades later by Chinua Achebe in 1959, with his famous novel written with the same sense of cultural identity, but written in English. After Imam’s experimentation, a lull in Northern writing occurred until the late 60’s which saw the contributions of Labo Yari as well as those of Mohammed Sule whose “The Undesirable Element” remains one of the classics of African literature. Abubakar Gimba became the leading light of northern writing in English in the late ‘80’s and through the ‘90’s. Perhaps recovering from trauma, or simply in recognition of the importance of writing in English, the ‘90’s saw the emergence of many Northern writers ranging from Abubakar Othman, Ismail Bala and Ahmed Maiwada in poetry to Maria Ajima and Victor Dugga in drama. However, with the exception of Abubakar Gimba’s contributions in prose, which while noteworthy are hardly stratospheric, there have been no important novels in English from northern Nigeria since Yari and Sule’s contributions in the mid ‘70’s. Neither has the poetry or drama been exceptional. And the question is – why?

Contemporary northern writing is now centered on four towns {Minna, Jos, Kano and Kaduna} and this writer has been sufficiently exposed to all of them to afford a critical address. Among the older contemporary writers in the north are B. M. Dzukogi, Ismail Bala, Yusuf Adamu, Musa Okapnachi, Razinat Mohammed and E. E. Sule who has also been the preeminent literary critic. The younger contemporary writers include Gimba Kakanda, Abdulaziz Ahmad Abdulaziz, Abubakar Adam Ibrahim, Awaal Idris Evuti, Elnathan John, Binta Shuaibu Abdallah Abubakar Adam Ibrahim and Alkasim Abdulkadir.

The first doom of our northern horsemen of the Word is perhaps a shocking one, for it is not more or less than a sense of unjustifiable hubris. How writers with so little experience begin to see themselves as oracles is to say the least surprising. Indicative of this is my experience with writing from Kano generally, a locale which seems to have for the most part abandoned the rundimentaries of the English language – tense and syntax. On first noticing this anomaly, one is unsure whether this is done for some justifiable stylistic reason or the other but when this same error is found even in the work of older writers, one begins immediately to suspect a more sinister truth. The only exception to this seems to be the writings of the academics Yusuf Adamu and Ismail Bala. To the man, Kano writers have answered to the effect that they are contributing to the English language with this bad brew of sentences! And it begs the question, how the hell can you contribute to the building of the English language without knowing the way the weight is distributed at its foundations? How can you put something on nothing and expect it to stand? A desire to fly is a wonderful and poetic gift in the human imaginative spirit, but it must come further down a sequence that starts with walking, then perhaps running.

For the most part, these culpable writers cannot even be said to have made “mistakes” of grammar – this excuse being unsustainable; they simply do not know better. And this is what southern Nigeria and the rest of the world reads and are very justified in ascribing puerility to northern Nigerian writing! This is so bad that even the critic can no longer be heard, for whenever a critic disconnects himself from a sympathy to what the writer wants to say and points out that he has not indeed said this in the form required by correct language, he is buried immediately by howls from the friends of the writer in question who all have a shared ownership of the blocks of language, to use, misuse and abuse as they wish. In prose, in poetry, the story is the same. While I have taken Kano as the center of this unfortunate malaise, I will say it is not in that city’s exclusive domain. This sense of irresponsible hubris has been read all over northern Nigeria, from Sokoto to Maiduguri and while it seems more a serious problem in the north west, least so in the north Central, this flaw has been seen enough to stamp ALL writing from the north. There exists a very nimble intellectual and creative ability in northern Nigeria and this becomes evident when one takes the time to read between the lines. But the placement of the runes as well is fatally important. An apposite example suffices; if that fabulous diamond, the Koh I Noor, is left in a bucket of broken glass, its beauty would be no more noticed than that of the astoundingly perceptive creativity beneath our literal northern literary rags is now. If this flaw is to be fixed, assuming one can get past the billows of hot air surrounding our young writers especially, one would advocate a return to studying rudimentary language. Dubious thanks to the thriving book piracy business in the south, such gems as “Brighter Grammar” are cheaply available – that is, if young northern writers do not see it as beneath them to buy these primers.

Quite related to this is another issue – literary “ranka ya dade” {kowtowing}. We must imagine this as a fight for supremacy by all means as our fully clad writerly horsemen charge down the field of letters. It is chaos of horses, dust and death. Northern Nigeria is vast, and it is a still somewhat feudalist society based on assumed and assumable elitisms. It is demanded that the young show respect, often to the ridiculous point of choking themselves and their creativities, to their elders. And because northern Nigeria is large, we have had the state and the media more of less pushing certain writers to oracular status simply because they are the better of a regular pack without necessarily being close to distinctive in the scale to the best. For example, in Minna, where the oracle seems to be B. M. Dzukogi who has been hailed with every epithet from “ascetic” to “the philosopher” yet when we read his actual works we ask – Is this the Dzukogi fellow? This is the same scenario we see, and which is consequently read, from Gusau to Maiduguri to Makurdi.

What is the danger of this last to northern Nigerian writing? In one word; mediocrity. I have said earlier that the stuff of writing, a creative spirit and a perceptive eye, is very abundant in northern Nigeria. Yet if our writing is to compare favorably, and this favor is largely one precipiced on that masterful knowledge of the sentence that is called stylistics, then the use of the best role models available can lift a young northern writer’s craft from the commonplace to the exceptional. I have interacted with young writers from the south who tell me their literary mentors were say Wole Soyinka, or Garcia Marquez, or Osundare or Michael Ondaatje – and when you read their writings, this influence shows, not in the fraudulent manner of a copy but in that intellectually salutary manner of an improvement, of innovation. The geographical vastness of the north has made its younger writers gather in clusters around local champions who argue their championship to the most fantastic extents, yet ones who will not be seen to sit at a table of national, talk less of global, champions of literature. And this is the germ of the greatest harm to the future of northern Nigerian writing. The effect of this imposition of the second-rate {because perhaps the first-rate is unavailable?} is a fostering of mediocrity and the rise of sophistry to explain that. And sophistry is by nature a corrupting thing. To return to Minna, this writer has noticed the activities of some young writers, the most forward of whom is the poet Gimba Kakanda, who are trying to break through the mold of “ranka ya dade” stymied writing; to him and others like him across the towns of Kano, Jos and Kaduna, I can only say – “May your road be rough”.

To return from Minna back to our field of horses, I say if we must have horsemen indeed, who we shall be unafraid to send into the real battle of telling our northern stories well, then they must be trained by gods. The surrogate of a god is not a god, and this becomes clear when the Armageddon comes. The younger writers from the north must seek true gods as their mentors, or else they never would be able to stand on a level field with other writers writing in English from anywhere else. And to be able to do just that is to be possibly first-rate.

The third and last danger to northern Nigerian writing I shall discuss is something that the fine critic E. E. Sule formulated memorably as a “chaos of perception”. It is a misperception of what writing really means. It is quite related to the philosophy of writing. I would say that this chaos of perception is not related to northern writing alone but southern Nigerian writing also, it has been noticed even in the writings of our Diaspora writers as well. There is one question that every writer must ask himself and answer silently –“Why do I write?” And this question must be asked in the cupboard, in meditation, in privacy, for when a writer does not have the answer to that question he cannot write a classic, try as and as talented as he may be. It has often been asked how is it that Nigerian writers {ever since the first classic, “Things Fall Apart”, then Ben Okri’s “The Famished Road” and perhaps Ken Saro Wiwa’s “Sozaboy”} have been unable to write truly great books? The answer is found first of all in a chaos of perception about themselves as writers and themselves as a position in History. I wager that Chinua Achebe knew why he was writing in ‘58’, but does Onyeka Nwelue know today? Wole Soyinka surely knew why he wrote but does say Ibukun Babarinde know as surely why he writes today? And this knowing is one that goes past the watery hash gotten secondhand from MFA programs in the west. It goes further than the homegrown pseudo Marxist hash as well.

A philosophy of writing must be rooted in a sense of self and it is the way one shares it that is the most poetic gift in ones craft, it is what makes the heart of the reader weave whether he is in Budapest reading a translation of “Okonkwo” or in Zakibiam reading a Tiv translation of Tolstoy’s “Voina I Mir”, it is what makes the words dance in the mind of posterity. Without it, a writer cannot communicate to the basic humanity of any reader, he just cannot do this without clarifying to himself what he MEANS to himself. Indicative of this dearth are the two answers writers give when asked why they write; either that they “write to express themselves”, or that they write for that vast amorphous abstraction – for the “people”. But the true writer can only answer that question by replying – “You’ll have to ask my readers.”

Writing goes beyond stringing words together, even if this is done skillfully; a sense of self in writing is the individual interpretation of a larger social experience untainted by the opinions of the experience of other individuals and of collectives of individuals especially. It is something you do not know how to but which you ARE putting into your words. This sense of self is absent in northern Nigerian writing almost as much as it is largely absent in southern Nigerian writing, only the absence is more felt here – for while the southern Nigerian writer can with moderate effort assimilate into his milieu of a pseudo-European “self”, the northerner is in this respect painfully odd. Yet this sense of self can be found in the examination of a dominant cultural legacy, and the dominant cultural legacies of northern Nigeria are Arabic influenced forms; social conservatism, the primacy of dignity, the demand for justice. We should not advocate the writing of pseudo-Arabic poetry and prose, for that would be the animation of a corpse, a waste of time that is ultimately of no intellectual or material value. But we could reinterpret, replacing the corpse with a new body given life by the breath of our individual {this is important} additions to a distinct corpus. The outdated old becomes the fertilizer of the distinctively new. The Kano soft literature written in everyday Hausa has shown that this is possible and a receptive audience does exist. Northern writers in English need to take this experiment to the next level.

The chaos of perception in which all Nigerian literature is mired also extends to how writers view their own vitality. Perhaps this even extends beyond Nigerian writing to African writing in general? The most recent debate kicked off by South African writer, Miss Petina Gappah’s comment to the effect that she did not see herself as an “African writer”, on the rather opposed grounds of that term being too vast and too restrictive at the same time, is a case to point. It indicates how Miss Gappah sees writing on the whole. But neither are her traducers any more correct. The opposite argument to Miss Gappah’s point of view argues that one is an African writer if one is seen {from the West?} as an African writer. While one understands Africanist ire at a seeming self-distancing from the continent by Diaspora-based writers, the opposite argument is equally of little intellectual merit.

Both positions are rooted in a chaos of perception of a sense of self.

Writing is a fully social action, but it is not a collective one. One can only write one’s perception of a story shared by all, yet a writer is a part of that larger experience. And that larger experience is a human one, true in Bombay as it is in Naivasha and as it is in Alagomeji. The attempt at being global writers breaks down for this reason, because a theory that is not true anywhere is incorrect everywhere. To return to the example given above, Shakespeare or Achebe or Tolstoy would be accessible even to the Inca is we could read it to them in their language, in their script, solely because it is Writing, not writing so called, and definitely not because it is British Writing. What is advocated is the creation of a philosophy of writing based on universal human experiences and values and themes.

When we see ourselves as African writers we miss the entire picture as fatally as those who deny the locality of a culture rooted here in their writing. These are the twin chaos of perception. It is as untenable as being between the pinchers of a scorpion or a crab. The safest place in that situation is to seek the body where the pinchers protrude from – in this case to locate oneself within the universal themes of humanity. The moment this is done, the present “scholarly debate” on all issues related to a writer’s identity would become superfluous.

Following this general excursus on above-the-air theories, I must return to my beloved northern Nigeria and its metaphor of a field of horsemen. The challenge for the younger writers from the north is an exhilarating one for it is still early enough for something distinctive and radical to be done across the genres of English. By this I mean something not less paradigmatic than what the Latin Americans, led by Garcia Marquez, Jorge Amado and Vargas llosa, did to “world Literature” in the 70’s. But we must first sit on our mats, holding our beads in our hands and mentally reach a place where we can banish the cloys of personal hubris, and the pressure to kowtow, from our psyches. And at this same place we must ask and answer personally the question of why we write and settle privately and conclusively the issues relating to our sense of our selves, triumphing over Siamese evil twins of a fostered chaos of perception.

And when this is done we shall be able to stand up from the floor and mount our horses. And when we thunder down the fields of Literature, we shall do so in the aura of a global applause deafening far beyond the stampeding hooves of our own vitality.

Richard Ugbede Ali, writer of poetry and prose, is the Editor-in-Chief of the new Sentinel Nigeria Magazine. richardalijos@gmail.com

Reviewing Elnathan John: The Etcetera of Dreams

2009-12-02T19:19:00.000+01:00

Book: Daydreams Etcetera
Published: November 2008
Genre: Prose
Author: Elnathan John
Number of Pages: 76
Reviewer: Richard Ugbede Ali

"I promised, my dear, to write you a story. A story of things I do not
well know. Presumptuous. A story of the numbness of my heart; of
things I built and which I destroyed, of the union of light and
darkness, of the seeing and the blind, of dolphins and piranhas . . .
I lack, I think, the imaginative force, the creative strength or even
the will to write. However, I will keep my promise. It may be
annoyingly short, a pain to the ear, but I will tell my story."

This first paragraph, excerpted from Elnathan John's2008 short
stories, "Daydreams Etcetera" is a good enough proem to the entire
collection. And Mr. John, for the most part in this collection has
succeeded in his purpose of telling his stories and telling his
dreams. The qualities, and the shortcomings of this qualified success,
form the interest of this critical reader.

"Daydreams Etcetera", privately published November 2008 in seventy six
pages, contains eleven short stories of varying lengths and the
diversity of its themes are equally matched by the perceptiveness of
nuance and diction used to probe the nature of the two sorts of dreams
to which we are beholden – the ones we dream at night and those acted
out with causal eyes open. In all these dreams, there is an underlying
tension, a felt unreality cluing the presence of forces indifferent to
the lives and stories of dreamers with whom yet, fatally and fatedly,
they interact in shared moments.

"Mazes", which starts the collection, takes on the theme of the
psychological incidence of inter-religious relationships, x-raying the
stalemated love between Akala and Yesmin. Perhaps the most effective
device used is the repetition of the two religions formulae "Allahu
Akbar" and "Hallelujah" – creating very effectively the pulse of
something being pounded into. It is as effective as the Lorcan
refrain. It is the natural story told by a man from the North Central
where all the cultures and religions of Nigeria mix with sometimes
tragic, sometimes beautiful, consequences. Two senses of unreality are
drawn skilfully in the stories "God's Eyes" and "Visions" – in the
first story, there is the unlikely cast of a policeman who can't wait
to finish his postgraduate degree, a bored blueblood who acquires a
social conscience and an anti-Semitic Maltan-Nigerian drug dealer with
a killed Lebanese girlfriend. These contrary lives intersect in a drug
bust where the policeman dies, the blueblood dies and the drug dealer
lives. A skilful handling of plot, reminiscent of the movies "Crash"
and "Slow Burn", distincts Elnathan John's prose. "Visions" is a
haunting story of an obviously schizoid mind drowning within the mire
of Nigerian society and culture.

"The Immaculate" takes a cursory look at religious corruption and how
its underlying hypocrisies corrupt love and ideals; the words "Lagos
is not for me", spoken by Brother Jo have a chilling effect. The most
powerful stories in this slim collection are however "Kaduna", "Keeper
of the Peace" and the earlier excerpted "I Promised to Write You a
Story" – all of which probe the nature of remorseless grief; a poet
who gives his finest performance as his heart breaks in the first, a
boy who kills his friend in a religious riot in the second and in the
third, a writer writing to the now mentally unstable lover who has
killed her sister whom he had loved equally and at the same time. In
all these themes, Mr Elnathan John is able to explore to sometimes
astounding effect his obvious skill for diction and plot manipulation.
The collection is however burdened by a minor, though revealing, flaw
– Mr John's penchant for adjectives where the use of none would do
nicely and his partiality for elliptical repetition, sometimes to such
a point as to lose the underlying aesthetic of phrases, obscuring
sense. Examples of the first – "guttural sound of blood in the throat"
{God's Eyes} and - "it was to him like the familiar hands of a
sensuous lover delicately probing the curves of an exquisite body"
{Kaduna}; in the opinion of this critic, the last example copied would
have been better without at least the describers "sensuous" and
"exquisite". A sampler of unnecessary elliptic is the entire second
paragraph of "Daydreams Etcetera" – sentence-short clones of this have
also been noted.

Discounting these flaws, however, must be mentioned delightful turns
of phrase which are interspersed throughout "Daydreams Etcetera". In
the very first story, "Mazes", this one stands out – "Finally, a
partial heavenly arbiter dropped, suppressing the dust and chasing
everyone away except the wind, which it allowed to revel in victory
with the haughtiness of a successful rebel" and "At last, they will
live their lives without crouching under the shadow of his heavy hand.
I will watch it all, feeling vicariously, the new lightness in their
crushed hearts and numbness in the cicatrized souls. Gracious death.
Bad ending. Good start." {Mother's Daddy.}

In the opinion of this reader-critic, Elnathan John's 2008 "Daydreams
Etcetera" is a well written and well put together first prose offering
by a perceptive and potentially important new writer from Central
Nigeria. As opposed to mere storytelling, something salutary must be
said for the dreamer who yet tells his stories well. The existent
flaws are there merely for the purpose of finessing his craft. We
would do well to seek out whatever new offerings Elnathan John will
next bring to the temple of Nigerian letters.

Richard Ali is Editor-in-Chief, Sentinel Nigeria Magazine.

Sentinel Literature Festival 2009

2009-11-28T01:46:00.001+01:00

PRESS RELEASE: SENTINEL LITERATURE FESTIVAL

As part of the celebration of its 7^th year in service to world literature from its base in Britain, Sentinel Poetry Movement is set to run a three-day Festival of Poetry, Fiction, Music and Fun. The time for the performances is 7pm to 10pm on the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd of December 2009.

The festival will open with a short report on 7 years of Sentinel Poetry Movement by founder Nnorom Azuonye who also doubles as the Festival Director. This report will then be followed by poetry and fiction readings and performances, and live music by, among others, the headline acts: Harry Zevenbergen poet, performer and citypoet of Den Haag, author of “Punk in Rhenen”, Tony Fernandez - author of “The Sound of Running Water” and Editor of Africa Awakening magazine, Lookman Sanusi - a theatre practitioner, fiction writer and author of “Skeleton”, Nnorom Azuonye - editor of Sentinel Literary Quarterly and author of “The Bridge Selection: Poems for the Road”, Clare Saponia – a young voice with publications in The Recusant, Platform, Red Poets, Inclement and Pennine Ink. There is also Afam Akeh – founding editor of African Writing and author of “Stolen Moments” and “Letter Home and Other Poems”, Chika Unigwe - author of the bestselling novel “On Black Sisters’ Street”, and Malgorzata Kitowski – one of the foremost Poetry Film-makers in London and author of “Doppelgangers”. The three-day play will be concluded on the 3^rd of December by the performance of “Sampo: Heading Further North” by the Middlesbrough duo Andy Willoughby and Bob Beagrie. SAMPO: HEADING FURTHER NORTH is a spoken word and music extravaganza of story telling, lyric poetry, beat sensibilities and postmodern experimentation by poets Bob Beagrie and Andy Willoughby with musical collaboration by world music duo Gobbleracket based on the Finnish myth cycle Kalevela connecting to their north eastern identity, it has toured the north to critical acclaim and is now heading further south! With its South London Premiere. Live music on the first two evenings of the Festival will be provided by South Africa-born Italian Folk Jazz singer songwriter Aletia Upstairs. The line-up includes new songs and others from her debut album, “Possibility”

The Festival will take place at two venues. On Tuesday the 1^st and Wednesday the 2^nd of December, the events will take place at Waterloo Gallery, Waterloo Action Centre, 14 Baylis Road, London SE1 7AA. Then on Thursday the 3^rd of December the festival moves to Play Space, 1 Coral Street, London SE1 1BE. Both venues located across the road from the Old Vic are literally 2 minutes’ walk from Waterloo Station (Northern Line and British Rail), and about 4 minutes from Southwark Station (Jubilee Line).

For convenience, the £6.00 per day tickets can be purchased in advance from the Festival website, or at the door.

More information available at www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk

or www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/literaturefestival

Tel: 0870 127 1967 or 07812 755751

Nnorom Azuonye

Festival Director

Sallah Greetings from Sentinel Nigeria

2009-11-27T14:21:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone!

Sallah greetings to you all,

The last week has been full of activity at sentinelnigeria and we are putting final touches to the website. The blog is up and running and our call for submissions has been enthusiastically received by writers within Nigeria. We have received a lot of interest from countries as far afield as Ghana and Ethiopia. Submissions are already coming in and the numbers are encouraging.

If one can tell beads by seeing the now, then I am sure that the future of your magazine is going to be a glorious one.

I would like to thank our media friends, Chude Jideonwo, Temitayo Olofinlua and all the rest for keeping us in the news. Not forgetting all you sentinelnigeria group members who have kept the buzz going online and offline.

I pray the blessings of the Eid last you through the year ahead. Ameen.

Richard Ugbede Ali

Editor-in-Chief

Sentinel Nigeria Magazine

08062392145, 07092077711

richard.ali@sentinelnigeria.org

Champion Poems

2009-11-20T16:59:00.000+01:00

CHAMPION POEMS
#1 2009/11
ISSN 2042-5228
Edited by Andy Willoughy and Bob Beagrie
£3.95 (UK), £4.95 (Overseas)

Champion Poems is a new magazine published by SPM Publications - a division of Sentinel Poetry Movement in the United Kingdom. As the title suggests, Champion Poems are selected poems from the on-going Sentinel Literary Quarterly Poetry Competition Series.

At the end of every competition, there are three poems that win cash prizes. In addition to these, the judge looks for 32 poems in total from the entries that are strong enough to be published in the magazine.

The maiden issue of Champion Poems is edited by Andy Willoughby and Bob Beagrie. The design, typography and print-production is handled for SPM Publications by Last Chance Before Bathtime (LCCB), Kidderminster, UK. LCCB has set the publication date at 27 November, 2009.

This magazine will be available for one-off purchases or subscription after the release date.

To keep up with information about Champion Poems go to http://www.sentinelpoetry.org.uk/champion_poems.php

NNOROM AZUONYE

Life Before Death by Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

2009-11-20T15:14:00.005+01:00

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

I have heard enough of that crap. And no, I am not an atheist. I just think that logically as it is in the English alphabet, there should be an “A” before a “B”. If that sequence is generally accepted, I therefore refuse to be continually harangued by the talks of life after death. No, enough of that crap.

Logically, there could only be a life after death when there is a life at the present. Does it make sense to worry about tomorrow when it is still dawn today? Why worry ourselves sick about a life after death when we are not living at the moment? If you ask me, we have proceeded just too fast for our senses. Far away from reality. Guess it’s time we do a little reverse and begin to ponder a little more about life before death.

What is this guy talking about I can almost hear you asking aloud. It’s so simple. I am speaking on behalf of the little boy in rags who approaches your car window in the traffic, with a dirty old rubber bowl in hand. You see him approach, and quickly wind up your window, your face either bearing pity or disgust.

I am speaking on behalf of the six year old girl hawking pure water under the scorching sun at an hour children her age should be in school. She has not even slippers under her feet. Her hair is dirty and unkempt and strings of catarrh hang down her nose. Her eye pleads with you as she announces the sale of her ware. Does she remind you of your daughter of the same age?

I am speaking on behalf of the pre-pubescent girl who is married off to a man three times her age by parents who need the money to keep them selves alive. You read such things in the paper and it sounds so distant. No, you really do not read it, you simply flip past it to more interesting stories about celebrities and beauty pageants.

I write on behalf of the many children who are destined to live but a few days on earth because of the accident of their birth. Children that suckle hungrily at dry flabby breasts. Children that are at the mercy of the elements both hot and cold. Children who can not access common chloroquin to fight malaria. Children who were better of not born.

I speak for the farmer who has watched his produce dwindle every passing year. He doesn’t read in the papers of his Local Government Chairman’s boasts of spending millions on fertilizer every year. I speak for the Cocoa farmer who has lost his sons and helpers to the scramble for the city. I speak for the palm oil farmer who is losing his trees and house to erosion.

I speak for those women who will die and are dying for trying to bring forth others to this life. Those who have never heard of ante-natal. Those who must continue to satisfy their husbands crave for more children. Those women who are raped and are too scared to say they were. Those who sign up for shipments to Italy not because they find it pleasurable. Those who are forced to give or throw away their nine months pain.

I speak for that child who is condemned by HIV. And the mother who bore him/her. And the father who has lost his job because his bosses heard he is positive. I speak for those who queue for days to get a dose of the antiretroviral. Those people who we establish NGO’s for. NGO’s that make us rich. NGO’s we administer from the comfort of our air-conditioned four –wheel drives. NGO’s that don’t exist.

I speak for the child who learns from under a tree. The child who has an AK47 hanging dangerously from his neck. The Child who pushes that barrow around behind us in the Market. That child that has never seen a television. That child who forms the character of our more touching stories. Those stories that win international literary awards.

I am shouting aloud for that graduate who has lost every faith in himself and his country. The one whose shoe tell a million tales. Tales that make the wonderful degree certificate he carries about in that worn out brown envelope seen like a huge joke. He has lost his voice and can’t speak anymore. He is close to losing his spirit too. He has no money to take the next bus.

I am weeping along with that man who just lost his job. The man who has to layoff his workers ‘cos the books are not balancing anymore. The barber who can’t work ‘cos his tiny generator has broken down. The okada rider who can’t buy the spare part to fix his bike. That man who has been paying his tithe and waiting for a miracle. A miracle that only his pastor experiences. The pastor who keeps talking about a life after Death.

No, enough of that crap. I really would wish to know some life now not after. So stop threatening me about what would happen after I die which is very soon given my current state. Stop asking me to wait. I am tired of your deception and sweet talk. Stop postponing my joy. Give me something to hold unto today. Tomorrow will sure worry about it self. I need a life before death.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

Sylva is the Features Editor of www.sentinelnigeria.org

www.nzesylva.wordpress.com

Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s love story to Nigeria

2009-11-18T17:37:00.000+01:00

Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s love story to Nigeria

By Ireyimika Oyegbami

Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s love for her fatherland goes deep. “It is not only Tayo and Vanessa’s love story, it is also a love story to Nigeria,” the writer said of her debut novel, ‘In Dependence’, at the Lagos leg of her reading tour of Nigeria on November 7 at Quintessence, Falomo, Ikoyi.

Tunji Lardner anchored the event where Manyika calmly took questions, ahead of her later reading at Pen & Pages, Wuse, Abuja, on Tuesday, November 10.

Though not born in the Nigeria of the 60s which she uses as a setting for the novel, the writer - born of a British mother and a Nigerian father - had an idea of what the period was from her parents. And though her grandparents opposed her mother’s marriage to a Nigerian—not unlike Tayo and Vanessa in the novel – Manyika insists ‘In Dependence’ is not her parents’ story. “Tayo is a dashing young man, my father is quite handsome so maybe that informed the way I portrayed Tayo. But save for the landscape descriptions which I’m quite familiar with, the story is a work of fiction,” she said.

See full article at 234next.com: Sarah Ladipo Manyika’s love story to Nigeria

Welcome to our blog

2009-11-17T13:38:00.000+01:00

Thank you for stopping by Sentinel Nigeria blog.
Richard and his team will soon get it buzzing around here.
Enjoy

Nnorom