I felt guilty for loving this story. Funminiyi Omojola who is a returning Brittle Paper champion comes strong in this sad but irresistible tale about all that is dark in the life of a girl desperate for the good things of life. There are so many ways for things to go wrong between a guy and a girl. You just hope it never goes wrong for you like this. 

They sat beside each other on the cold cement floor, their legs stretched out in front of them.

Amara stared at hers. They were fat and lumpy, like that of a woman who had given birth to all the children in her belly. And even though her neighbor was further gone, Aniekan’s legs were skinny, like the rest of her. She had bony shoulders and hands that were long and thin like tree branches. Her palms were clasped over her big stomach, a network of green veins visible on them. Her head was hung on one side, an absent look in her eyes.

“Are you okay, Aniekan?” Amara asked. The other girl did not respond. She just blinked. She had barely spoken a word in almost two days. She just sat there and stared, and blinked.

Amara got up from her sitting position and looked out of the window they had been sitting underneath. It was evening, yet the sun sat in its usual spot in the sky like a cripple. A large hawk crossed its smiling face and punctuated the raucous laughter ringing in the July heat with loud squawks. Amara’s eyes went from the skies to the teenage girls in the compound. They were busy – washing clothes, sweeping, clearing debris, chatting and laughing.

Here was a nightmare.

She had thought that it was only children who could find happiness in dark places. But she had come here to find that she was wrong. She was in a place where happiness had been wrested from the hands of every inmate, yet, life went on as if all was well.

She wondered about her family. Had they stopped searching for her? Had her father, after the first few frantic weeks, come to terms with the idea that his daughter was missing for good, shrugged and retreated behind his glasses and endless newspapers? What about Ada? Had she moved on with her life, with her provocative dressing and the reckless use of sexual allure to fund her life?

Her mind came back to the present.

She could barely hear what they said because the louvers were shut, but one look at Oma, the tough round girl with woolly hair who sat on the pavement told Amara that they were having a good time. Oma who rarely mingled with the others was smiling indulgently at the chit chat around her, filing her nails and spitting intermittently into a gutter.  Her spittle was startlingly white, compared to her charcoal black complexion.

“See this mumu? Na one thousan’ them take fuck you?” Amara heard Oma guffaw, pointing the piece of metal in her hand at Chinenye, an awkward girl with a long, bird-like face that was guarded on either side by hair that had been woven taut in black thread. Chinenye’s back was turned to the window but Amara could see she was bent over a bowl filled with clothes, washing vigorously. The water in the bowl was a dark color and had little lather. Beside her gritty heels that were marred by Y-shaped cracks was a mashed remnant of green bar soap.

All the other girls laughed at Oma’s jokes, more out of deference than funniness. They all showed Oma a lot of respect because she was a veteran. They said that she had produced up to four – all of them male, and she was carrying the fifth.

Amara suddenly felt dizzy. Slowly, her buttocks against the wall, she slid back into a sitting position, squeezed her eyes shut and palmed her forehead where a turbulence was brewing. It felt as if her brain was in a vortex, and something pounded in her head till she felt as if her skull was readying to implode. Her second hand cradled her swollen stomach. An inferno had traveled down there, singed it’s way through her chest. She burned all over. Tears fell freely from her eyes.

“I have saved some money. Hundred thousan’,” Aniekan’s voice broke through Amara’s pain.

“After this one, I will leave and never come back,” she sniffed.

Minutes later, when she felt better, Amara turned to her friend who had produced three before, all of them female, and was now carrying the fourth.

“Don’t you worry about them?” Amara whispered. “I mean, that you may never meet them again, never know who they turn out to be?”

Aniekan sighed.

“Well, sometimes…” she replied in a pensive tone. She looked as though she wanted to add something else, but then shrugged it away.

“You should do the same too. Have two or three, save some money, then go an’ start your life afresh”. She faced Amara, and with a serious look in her eye said, “Obodo bu igwe, and life is wicked. You have to use what you have to get what you want, nwanne’m.”

It was a funny thing. Those were Ada’s exact words to her that night, six months ago.

                                                                        ***

The first time Amara met him, he walked up to her in the middle of a busy road.

He later told her that he had been driving past when he saw her, standing, a black nylon bag hanging from her right hand like a wrecking ball. Her attention was riveted on the oncoming traffic from her side of the road and so she did not notice him stare, nod, apply the brakes, pull up and turn off the ignition.

It was when she had safely made it to the carriage divider that she saw him, crossing also, walking towards her, a small smile on his tiny lips. She did not recognize him, and so had tried to make way for him, but he just stood there.

He was very dark in complexion and young, around twenty two. He had rich dark eyebrows that arched themselves up in worry. His nose was small and pointed, and his lower lips were pink. He was dressed in a richly embroidered black kaftan, like a mallam, despite the fact that he was obviously Ibo.

“What is it?” she had asked, as cars whizzed past behind him.

“Nothing,” he replied. “I saw you, again. And I decided I would not let you go, this time.”

“I don’t understand,” Amara said, more relieved than flattered. To say she was scared was an understatement. Enugu was a dangerous town. She had heard many stories of rape and kidnap that began romantically, by a stranger walking up to a young woman, chatting her up and befriending her till things spiraled out of control.

They crossed the road together.

“Can we talk inside my car?” he asked, pointing with the silvery snout of the key in his hand at a black, shiny Mercedes parked on the roadside. Amara did not know much about cars but she did not need a seer to tell her that what she was being invited into was an expensive automobile.

She shook her head and kept on walking.

“Did you have to cross the road? What do you want?” she asked, beginning to feel flattered by the attention.

“Yes, I was afraid if I did not, you might disappear, again. I had to.”

She looked up for a second and saw a look of fondness festering on his fascinating face as he described first seeing her on Alo Street, two days before. She remembered the day he spoke about. She had gone there to see Uloma, her friend who had just had an abortion, and was very ill. Ulo had tried to keep the fact of the pregnancy from everyone, but when the quack doctor at New Haven had nearly taken her life, the world got to know, as her father aptly put it, ‘of the secret soup she was cooking that burned down the house’.

“I tried to follow you but you turned a corner and just disappeared,” he concluded.

She watched him throw his long legs in front of him as they walked. She felt small beside him, barely reaching his elbows, but she liked the air that surrounded him. It reeked of easy comfort. He had an assuredness about him, the kind of assurance that came when one had money, charm and time at their disposal.

Amara looked at the gold-plated face of her leather strap wristwatch. It was a quarter to seven. Ada would have started to worry about her. Her elder sister had sent her to buy Garri. She had had to go farther because the aging woman who owned the food stuff kiosk next door had closed up and entered her house. Amara did not blame Mama Ngozi. The activities of the hoodlums whom Enugu bred by the thousand had no respect for either age or meager holdings.

“So, what do you want?” she asked again.

“Your number, thank you” he smiled charmingly. His teeth were neatly arranged, and sickeningly white, like the flesh of boiled egg. He already had his phone in his left hand, his thumb hovering above the number Zero on the lighted key pad.

“I don’t have a phone,” Amara responded, truthfully and came to a stop. She was close to the house already and had no intentions of letting a stranger, no matter how handsome he was know where she lived – at least not yet.

“Give me your sister’s own,” he said, a little too knowingly.

“How do you know I have a sister?” she queried.

“I was hoping so,” he had laughed. “You can’t give me your brothers’ own for obvious reasons,” he explained and chuckled. Amara thought she detected a note of nervousness in his tone.

“Well, I don’t have a brother, or a sister,” Amara had lied.

His smile had dimmed a little in wattage then. “So, how do I see you again?” he rasped.

“I don’t know. I really must go now. You can see me anywhere, I live on this street. Please stop following me,” she said, sounding a little desperate even in her own ears.

“You will not tell me where or how I can see you then?” he asked, straightening to his full height and pocketing his phone.

“I live on this street,” she replied.

“Okay, at least tell me your name, bikonu…” he pleaded.

“No,” she responded and started to walk away.

She had been a little relieved when he did not follow her, yet as she walked, a lot of thoughts assailed her.

Had she been too difficult? No, she did not think so. The city was brimming with rich and handsome young men who fed on young, innocent girls. They used and dumped them, sometimes raped them or used them for money rituals. On that score, she decided she was right to have been wary and not divulged any information about herself.

“Information is key,” her father always said. “With the right information, a man without hands can open a locked door.”

She always wondered how that was possible but never asked him to explain. Coincidentally, she also always considered herself a locked door, when it came to boys.

“Until you are ready to get married, you must remain a closed door,” was a mantra Nne had, like hot balm onto a painful sprain, massaged into the heads of her two daughters before she had passed, two years ago.

So it was vital she hid information well then, until she felt ready.

Yet, something told her that that young man had meant no harm. It was that same treacherous something that had tried to pull words out of her mouth, but she had restrained herself. All through their short liaison, he had not tried to touch her.  In the past, she had had to slap many a hand from across her supple waist. That was standard Enugu toasting procedure. But he had been different, urbane and gentlemanly, even using words like ‘thank you and please’. Suddenly she wished she had been more liberal. She felt a little sad he had not tried to follow her. She glanced behind her but found he was gone.

The ‘yard’ in which she lived in Emene was bustling with near nude children when she stepped in. A sharp pain coursed through her as she sidestepped the happy brood skipping around the sandy compound. They were a blessed lot, weren’t they?  For them, ignorance was pure bliss. Amara did not see how anyone who lived in such squalor could experience a second of happiness. She greeted Mama Emeka who squatted by the entrance to her one room apartment, bathing her toddler in a basin. The boy had rings of lather all over his body and was running his palms over his face in hurried circular motions.

“Emeka, come take biscuit when you finish you hear?” Amara invited him.

He was a nice and quiet kid and they got along very well. He was the only one who shared her reflections and angst. Whenever she was most depressed, he would come pattering into the room she shared with her sister, cuddle up beside her and suck his thumb. She would tell him stories, first of the tortoise, then of grandeur – how there was a better life out there somewhere waiting to be lived. Many times, he was content to fall asleep in her room until his mother would come for him.

“I come,” the boy responded, his eyes still shut tight.

She found her father seated at the entrance of their two room apartment. If she were asked to paint a picture of the man, there was a classic image of him that would jump into her head. It was of him as he sat, reading from a newspaper. His bald head shone brightly under the glare of the electric bulb hanging directly above his head. He wore a white singlet that dipped into a slack “U” at the chest, revealing the bones of his thoracic region. Steel rimmed spectacles perched over a small nose, underneath which a chewing stick danced with vigor. He wiggled long, spindly legs wrapped by a faded red ankara wrapper.

“Nno papa,” Amara greeted as she walked past the seventy-something year old man.

“Ada has been looking for you,” her father responded in a voice made gruff by snuff. He barely took his eyes off the newspaper.

“Ehen? I went to buy the Garri she asked for,” Amara responded, raising the dusty door blind and disappearing into the parlor. Another shot of pain zipped through her like electric current. She eyed the room with distaste. It was bare, and the bright lighting made the fact all the more glaring. She eyed the two single chairs and a settee stationed in a rectangle around the room. The seats were clothed in purple and the chairs all dipped in the middle. It was better to seat on the floor than on those chairs. The settee was better because instead of dipping in the middle, it’s seats were lumpy, undulating. On the floor was a tattered blue rubber carpet, matching the blue walls. The focal point of the room was the wooden cabinet on which sat a small television, and beside it a transistor radio. The other compartments of the cabinet were littered with odds and ends like exercise books and disused Tiger batteries. In the middle of the room was a rectangular table, and on top of that laid open her Government text book, a jotter and her Schneider biro. She had been studying for final examinations before Ada had sent her on the errand.

“Sister,’” she called out needlessly as she approached the kitchen.

“Ogini? Why are you shouting my name?” Ada responded and they had both laughed at the mutual joke, their voices bouncing off the walls of the long, cluttered corridor. Surprisingly, Ada was alone in the kitchen. At that time of the night, there would usually be at least three women in the kitchen, in different stages of culinary activity. Ada sat on a low stool and was bent over their kerosene stove, stirring a pot of Ogbono soup. Since Nne had died, Ada had done most of the cooking before she had gone to the University. But Ada was home because the schools had been closed down. The lecturers had embarked on what they referred to as ‘the mother of the mother of all strikes”. Amara gently dropped the nylon bag in her hand on the floor beside her sister.

“What took you so long?” Ada asked without looking up.

Amara explained. And then on impulse, she added:

“One guy came to talk to me as I came home.”

“Ibiakwa, who is he?” she asked, a big smile of surprise and obvious approval on her face as she fiddled with the knot on the nylon bag.

Amara told her the story.

“Ha, why didn’t you tell him your name, nu?” Ada muttered. She was trying to undo the knot with her teeth.

“I don’t know… I don’t know him sister.”

“Hmm, okay, biko when next you see him, call me, let me meet him. He sounds like a good, responsible person.” And lowering her voice, “And rich too. Amara, you know we need money. You are no longer a child.”

“What are you saying sister? That I start sleeping with men for money?” Amara’s eyes widened in alarm.

Ada hurriedly clamped a palm over her younger sister’s mouth.

“Mechionu ebaa, stupid girl” she growled, eyeing the teenager sternly before she let go of her, turned and started to pour Garri into the pot of steaming water.

After they had eaten, and turned in for the night, Ada faced her younger sister as they laid on the narrow mattress they shared.

“Amara, you are no longer a child. You need to outgrow all these childlike things that you do. Don’t you want to get married someday?”

“I do, but not now. I still have to go to school.”

“School!” Ada laughed. “You are aware if we are to work by papa’s clock, I have to graduate before you ever can dream of entering university? All things being equal, I will, in three years time. But with strikes and all you may have to wait longer, maybe five years?”

What Ada said was true. Their father earned four thousand naira a month at the Government technical college where he was a janitor. Amara often wondered what kind of janitor he was since the school had no windows and all the classroom doors were missing. But it was the job that fed them. When he gave his daughter her monthly allowance of one thousand naira, their father never looked at her eyes. They all knew Ada’s life style on campus cost far more than that, but some questions were better left unasked.

“If the ear does not hear the fart, the nostrils just may not pick its stink,” was another of their father’s favorite sayings.

Amara knew her sister pallied with an assortment of Enugu’s Yahoo boys. Her current boyfriend was Lucky, a final year Botany student who drove a Nissan Pathfinder. Ada said she attracted them all with her angelic face and scandalous dress sense. She was proud of her wide hips and round buttocks which held men spellbound, but a sixth sense always told Amara that what bound her sister and these boys together was more sinister than mere sex. The way they ‘hailed’ her was suspicious. Also, Ada received her romantic phone calls in the room, uninhibited by Amara’s presence. But there were also calls she left the room to receive in the backyard, and they lasted long hours.

Amara listened dreamily to her sister’s voice telling her to grow up and to take charge of her destiny at a young age. Ada told her how she was lucky to have blossomed so fast that at seventeen she was already attracting men with money, with her full breasts and wide behind, while her mates still desperately stuck their chests out and hung their behinds in the air to attract attention – and all to no meaningful avail.

“Have you collected JAMB?” her sister asked her.

She shook her head in the darkness.

“I have told you, you cannot work with papa’s time. This is your opportunity. You don’t have to sleep with him. Just play your cards right and all will be okay. I will show you what to do.”

Amara dreamt of him that night. Twice.

In the second dream, he met her and her sister, again in the middle of the road; and this time, he put his arms around Ada and both of them had laughed at her.

Amara’s story continues next Monday
 

Photo Credit: Anthony Kurtz. Check out more of his work HERE. 

***

Oluwafunminiyi Omojola is a Nigerian writer who is also a banker. Being a Yoruba man who is married to a Hausa lady and resident in Iboland, Funminiyi considers himself an epitome of the detribalised Nigerian.

His poems and short stories have appeared in many news dailies and magazines around Africa including The Sunday Sun, This Day, and The Kalahari Review.

Don’t miss this chance to support this amazing literary project. Emmanuel Iduma and Shaun Randol have put together a great collection  of new writings from all over Africa. The title of the collection is Gambit: Newer African Writing.

But they need 4300 dollars to cover payment of writers, including editorial and production costs and are asking all lovers of literature out there to support their indiegogo fundraising campaign.

The campaign has 7 days to go, but the target amount of 4300 is short of 570 dollars. So please click HERE to chip in and learn more about sponsorships and perks.

The Gambit Story

You know Chinua Achebe and Wole Soyinka—now meet Africa’s next powerful literary voices. Gambit: Newer African Writing is a collection of nine interviews and original short stories by writers from across Africa. This is the first book of its kind.

There are a few anthologies of African literature, but none of them focus on young writers, and none of them feature interviews plus short stories. Gambit is wholly unique!!

The stories in Gambit reflect the nuances that arise from living in a post-postcolonial Africa, where stereotypes are crumbling and writers are willing to tackle themes that are more social than political. Furthermore, unlike other anthologies, Gambit‘s writers are mostly based in their home countries, putting them closer to the social themes they lyrically confront.

Why include the interviews? Because we want to inform and inspire. Stories are not written in a vacuum: they are drafted out of experience by real people living complicated lives. We hope that the interviews in this volume not only shed light on the experiences and inspirations of the authors, but also encourage young writers to take up the pen and share their stories.

Reading literature from around the world helps to bridge cultural divides and increase understanding and appreciation of other cultures and experiences. In a world that is increasingly interconnected, it is crucial that we build respect and awareness of the lives and lands with which we are ever-more connected. Gambit is one project toward this effort.

Gambit will be published (paperback) by The Mantle, an online forum that publishes emerging, critical voices from around the world. Gambit is edited by Mantle contributor and novelist Emmanuel Iduma (from Nigeria) and The Mantle’s editor-in-chief Shaun Randol (based in New York City). We will use the printing services of McNally Jackson bookstore in New York.

We have the interviews. We have the short stories. All we need is your help to make Gambit a reality.

— Indiegogo

If history were a theatre, the global war on terror would be one of the most catastrophic dramas of our time. Here is Teju Cole’s attempt to imagine what the soundtrack would look like.

This is how he describes the project in a Facebook status:

When The State Magazine (based in the United Arab Emirates) asked me to DJ a mix, I asked myself what a soundtrack for the Global War on Terror might look like. Here’s the result.

Okay. My question is this: do I dance to this? It’s a musical reflection on violence and the global war machine. Should I just listen and think deep thoughts about life made captive to the mechanism  of war or should I dance? Would it be a dance of joy or sadness or pain or anger? A violent dance? Or just some pure, formless dance?

Anyway, love that African writers are sending their message and sharing their thoughts through different forms of media. Last week, I posted NoViolet Bulawayo’s Spotify playlist, a compilation of songs inspired by her debut novel, We Need New Names.

1. The Gloaming (DJ Shadow Remix) | Radiohead | DJ Shadow Remix

2. Zombie | Cerebral Vortex, Frown & Spoek Mathambo | Red Hot + Fela World

3. Capacity (Lynn, Bronx) | Vijay Iyer & Mike Ladd | Holding It Down: The Veterans’ Dreams Project (feat. Maurice Decaul & Lynn Hill)

4. Galang (Trio Riot Version) | The Vijay Iyer Trio | Historicity

5. Soup Boys [Prod. By Lushlife] | Heems | Wild Water Kingdom

6. Auditorium Feat. The Ruler | Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) | The REcstatic (Remix Album

7. Mshini Wam (feat. Avuyile Tosa & Yolanda Fyrus Xashi) | Spoek Mathambo | Mshini Wam

8. Plastic | Portishead | Third

9. GDMFSOB | DJ Shadow | The Private Repres

10. Revelator | Gillian Welch | Time (The Relevator)

11. 100,000 People | Philip Glass | The Fog of War

12. [untitled] | Burial | Untrue

You’ve seen the pictures. Here is the red carpet interview of the Half of a Yellow Sun cast at the London premier. The film was premiered at the BFI film festival last month.

Chimamanda still looks gorgeous in her threaded (kiko) hairdo. But this Bandele guy, though. Very fine man, no? LOL.

Enjoy!

Stories about the simplest, everyday things are the most charming. This short piece by Uche Akumbu is such a lovable read. It all begins with a nice family dinner, but then things quickly go downhill. Enjoy!

I don’t know how it was at your house but at ours, breakfast was always a frenzied affair. School was at the other end of town, and the only way to beat the go-slow was to leave the house at about quarter past six, which often meant that we had only about five minutes to gulp down bread-and-butter and tea or cornflakes as fast as we could without staining our school uniforms.

Dinner, in contrast, was such a formal affair that we sometimes begged to be allowed to eat in the kitchen like we did in the afternoons, three of us seated on low stools, catching eba straight from the aluminium container it had been made in, kneading the soft sticky mass into balls before dipping them in our shared bowl of soup. The big wooden mortar, turned upside down, served as our centre table. To pre-empt any fighting, Aunty Rosemary would wait for us to finish eating before spooning out individual portions of meat.

“Only bush people eat that way.” Mummy was bent on turning us into ladies.

On account of her being Mummy’s cousin’s half-sister’s illegitimate child, we never really considered Aunty Rosemary as a member of the family, so while she often ate her dinner in the Boys Quarter, the remaining five of us ate ours at the dining table. Well, six actually, if you counted when Granny was still living with us.

Daddy may have sat at the head of the table but it was Mummy who presided over our evening meals, never failing to check our palms and nails for ink marks and dirt before we sat down to eat; keeping track of who prayed the last time and ensuring that we maintained proper etiquette throughout the evening meal. The slightest deviation from her prescribed do’s and don’ts prompted a discreet “Ahem”, which could mean anything from “Get your elbows off the table” to “Stop slurping”.

On this particular day – and I remember it well because we were having moi-moi for dinner. We loved loved all things beans but moi-moi especially because Mummy was quite inventive with the fillings and you never knew what you were going to get in yours, half an egg, chunks of corned beef, giant shrimp, or our least favorite, spring onions; usually served with akamu on the side, or with custard, for us kids.

As I was saying, we were all eating, and then Granny cleared her throat. We turned to hear what it was, this time.

“This food is too oily.”

That said, she concentrated on extricating the boiled egg from the rest of the meal. The fork-and-knife rule did not apply to Granny.

“Chidi” Mummy turned to her left, “Granny thinks our food is too oily, how about you, do you agree?”

Daddy chewed for about five minutes. “Well…” He paused to take a long drink of water before continuing his verdict. “A little.”

“A little”, Mummy repeated, eyebrows raised. “A little.”

Now, there are two things my mother does not joke with – her cooking and her sewing. Most weekdays, she closed up her tailoring shop 4pm on the dot, not just to leave Aunty Rosemary free to go to evening school, but to do most of the cooking herself; so you can imagine how she must have felt.

Perhaps if Daddy had not been so preoccupied pouring milk into his bowl, he might have noticed that Mummy’s jaw was set, her eyes narrowed and her lips pursed to the extent that the bottom one had all but disappeared.

I had only seen that look on her face twice. Once, when she spied Aunty Rosemary helping herself to the tin of cream crackers normally reserved for visitors and then, the first but last time I stole money (I think it was twenty naira or so) from her purse. I can’t speak for Aunty Rosemary but as for me, I have since suppressed all memory of the beating that followed.

“Mama, I have respected you enough but now, let me say this once, and let me say it clearly; if all you are capable of is nitpicking my food day in day out, maybe you shouldn’t be eating it; in fact, maybe you shouldn’t even be staying in my house.”

All this was rendered in a cool, flat tone, sans eye contact.

Granny’s response was delivered in mime. She got up from her seat and clutched her chest tightly as though she were having an asthma attack. Apart from the wheezing, the only other sound that she could muster, over and over again was “Ha!”

“Okwuchi!” Daddy banged his fist on the table.

“Okwuchi, what?” Mummy fired back. “All she does is to insult me day in, day out and yet you keep on acting deaf and dumb. I’m fed up, Chidi, I’m fed up.”

But by then, his retreating figure was shuffling down the corridor. “Mama, wait….”

He hadn’t even bothered to excuse himself.

Beside me, Nonny, normally so fidgety, sat paralyzed; Chisom’s face now resembled the congealed pap Daddy had abandoned but her eyes had yet to match Mummy’s apollo-like redness.  Save for the spluttering of the generator coming from outside the window, it was unsettlingly quiet. I reached for a second helping.

Image by Mthethwa. See more of Mthethwa’s work HERE.

***

Akumbu Uche was born in Kaduna, raised in Port Harcourt and educated at the University of Jos. Her writing has appeared in The Kalahari Review, Saraba Magazine, Qarrtsiluni and elsewhere. She lives in Lagos.

The photograph was taken at the recently concluded Literaturfest München.

The author of Ghana Must Go was asked to speak at a literary festival in Berlin. She gave a lecture in which she claimed that as far as categorizing literary forms go, “African literature” was meaningless and should be discarded.  

I’ve excerpted the long lecture to highlight the main arguments.

But is the category of “African Literature” obsolete? In the name of a race-less, nation-less, identity-less literature, should “African Literature” be replaced by “Human Literature”? Curious to know what you think. 

source: globeandmaildotcom

African Literature Doesn’t Exist. What do I mean, or not mean? By “African literature,” I refer not to the body of written and oral texts produced by storytellers on and from the continent—but rather, to the category. African Literature is an empty designation, as is Asian Literature, European Literature, Latin American Literature, South American Literature, North American Literature, and so forth. My very basic assertion is that the practice of categorizing literature by the continent from which its creators come is past its prime at best. Our dogged insistence upon doing so, in the case of the African continent foremost, betrays a disregard both for the complexities of African cultures and the creativity of African authors. If literature is, as its finest practitioners argue, universal—then 2 it deserves a taxonomy neither based on nor supportive of racial distinction, but reflective of the workings of the race-less human heart.

…

In order to believe in “African literature”—to employ the term as if it possessed some cogent, knowable meaning—we must believe that the word African possesses some cogent meaning as well. But what? The African continent consists of 55 states recognized by the UN. That’s roughly the same as Europe’s 50, though I’ve never heard of anyone placing authors from, say, Switzerland, Serbia, Spain and Sweden on a panel of “European writers.” One struggles to imagine anyone attempting to group Rushdie, Murakami, Yan and Roy under the banner “Asian Writers,” as if the term shed any light whatsoever on the fine works of the four. The trouble is obvious: continents are naturally formed landmasses comprised of numerous countries. If states make suspicious categories for art, continents are closer to useless. And yet, just the other day I had a cheerful altercation with the Danish presenter Martin Krasnik, who argued—very genuinely, I should say—that I am an African writer. When I asked him why, he said that I’d written a novel about an African family, that Kweku Sai, my protagonist, for example, is an African man. I asked him whether we’d call Anna Karenina a book about a European woman? “No,” he laughed a bit cautiously. “Obviously, she’s Russian.” Why then, I wondered, do we call Kweku Sai an African man rather than, at the very least, West African or Ghanaian? The audience clapped, Martin conceded, and the conversation continued—but I marveled, not for the first time, at the truth behind these terms. We speak of Russian writers and characters, French writers, Spanish writers, Italian writers, German writers, instead of European writers—and we do so because we take seriously the differences between countries. We speak of Japanese writers, Indian writers, Chinese writers, instead of Asian writers—and we do so because we take seriously the nuances of these cultures. What is implied by our use of “African” is that the nuances of the countries and the cultures of that continent are not worthy of our notice. We suggest that there are no meaningful distinctions between a predominantly Catholic, Portuguese-speaking country like Angola on the one hand and a predominantly Muslim, French- speaking country like Senegal on the other.

…

I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones. But I am not an African writer. At no point in my writing process—in the act of actually being a writer: seated at the laptop, wherever I may be—do I experience a nationality. Nor am I an Afropolitan writer, disappointing as the news may be. Afropolitan is a personal identity. Fiction has no need for such things.

Then how should we classify literature?  you ask. We can’t very well expect bookstores to have two sections only: Good Writing and Bad Writing (though it would help). No. I would submit that, if needs must, we should classify literature as we do music, allowing that the identity of consequence is the writing’s, not the writer’s. We no longer speak of “contemporary Asian music,” “contemporary American music,” without specifying a type of sound. For instance, the singer Berry and the rapper Diam’s are both young, female, French, but nothing about their music is illumined by those facts. We know this. We speak of jazz, pop, rock, alternative, electronic, chamber music—irrespective of the demographic profile of the musician. It would be an insult to insist that Louis Stewart is an Irish jazz musician: a great jazz guitarist would be more to the point. If you were listen to the reggae of Tilmann Otto without seeing his photo,
you’d think he was Jamaican; that Gentleman is German has nothing to do with his sound. And so on: Adele sings soul music, as does Aretha Franklin; Bob Marley was half-white, his reggae wholly his own; as Saul Williams says, “When Jimi Hendrix was making rock music, he didn’t make black rock. He made rock.”

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we classified literature not by country but by content: the love story, the city novel, the novel of the nation-state, the war novel, the bildungsroman? Then, we might find Cole’s brilliant meditation on New York with Graceland, Abani’s on Lagos, but also with McInerney’s Bright Lights, Big City and Selby’s Last Exit to Brooklyn. Under “Civil War,” we might find Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun with Drakulic’s S, but Adichie’s Americanah with Lahiri’s The Namesake and Bulawayo’s We Need New Names under “Immigration.” Under “Novels about the Novel,” we might find Jansma’s The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards with Oyeyemi’s Mr. Fox, but her Icarus Girl under “Magical Realism,” with Marquez, where it belongs. My own Ghana Must Go—despite having the name of an African country in its title—might sit alongside Franzen’s The Corrections, Heller’s Something Happened, and Mann’s Buddenbrooks in the Seriously Dysfunctional Family section. Classifying texts in this way would restore our attention to the intention of authours, drawing connections between the human experiences that come to life in their words. We would, of course, watch the borders of French-ness and American-ness and mythical African-ness weaken—but surely, this is the long-term effect of literature anyhow?

Every time we pick up a book, we erase our personal borders. We trespass the boundaries of the self and enter the wilds of the Other. After those initial moments of disorientation, we find that we are home. As Scott Fitzgerald has it, “That is part of the beauty of all literature. You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” Recently, a friend, apprised of my talk, said, “You live in a fantasy world, Taiye: a world without nations, without color, without borders. Not all of us are artists.” But all  of us can be readers, I said. All of us can belong. And if it sounds like a utopia—a world without African literature, or need of it, a world with human literature—I would say: yes, it is. As Mr. Simic said of literature those twelve short years ago, “Its utopian hope is that one will recognize oneself in some stranger’s words. For a moment, one steps out of one’s cramped self and lives other unfamiliar lives. If literature is not utopia, then I don’t know what is.”

Read Full Lecture HERE.

Tinuke is not like all the other Nigerian girls in Canada. She’s spent the night at Bankole’s place. As Sunday morning wears on, the two friends share each other’s company and think about a dark moment in their past.

Afolabi’s story is delicate and inward. Originally published as an audio story in DRUM: A Literary Magazine Your The Ears, “Force” is a story that gets a good bit of its power from the author’s reading.

The cadence and texture of Afolabi’s voice as he reads makes the sadness of the story infectious.

LISTEN: 

I asked Afolabi to reflect on what it was like making the shift from text to voice, and here is what he said:

Having to record my short story, as opposed to simply getting the text published was a bit challenging. It took about a year and a half before I heard back from The Drum, a literary audio magazine I’d sent my Open city-inspired short story to. So, I was eager to record. I had to find somewhere sound-proof or at least with minimal background noise. I am currently working and staying in a construction area and as you can imagine, it gets noisy. It was hard finding somewhere right, apart from a studio- which wasn’t an option for me. Hence, early in the morning at 5:30 when work hadn’t started, I recorded several versions of “Force.”

Recording my story gave me a different feel of it. As I read over and over the whole story and not just sections of it, my awareness of things such as pacing and continuity got heightened. Another interesting observation was the added intimacy between myself and my work that reading for an imagined audience produced. Words would roll out of my mouth even if I wasn’t looking at my screen. Recording gives you a chance at redeeming your writing, because you can play the role of performer and infuse emotions and feelings where necessary. It’s a great medium, though a bit of a hassle.

Image Source
“Microphone Abstract” Via
“Wild Mike Hair” Via

***

Afolabi Opanubi is a young Nigerian writer born and raised in the City of Lagos. He spent some time in Canada where he studied Environmental Science at Memorial University. His stories have been published in 34th Parallel and Rabbit tales. He lives and writes in Port Harcourt.

The gripping drama of Amara’s life started last week right here on Brittle Paper when I posted the first of Omojola’s three-part story. [Read Pt. 1]

Amara is a teenage girl living in a ramshackle housing tenement in the sprawling city of Enugu. At the very end of part one, Amara is hopeful that he is the miracle she’s been waiting for all her life. She’s all dreamy and relieved and certainly can’t see that things are about to take a frightfully dark and twisted turn. 

See what happens next. 

The second time Amara had met him was one windy evening, two weeks after their first meeting.

She had been on her way home from the JAMB extra mural classes she attended every Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoon. He had been standing beside his shiny Mercedes Benz on her street, making a phone call and laughing and trying to light a stick from the packet of cigarettes he must have bought from Musa, the Hausa cripple who ran a small kiosk near her house. Her heart had skipped a beat as she recognized him, and then made up for the loss by hammering at her chest as if it would burst. She was too close to him to turn around and flee without him noticing, so she had just walked on ahead, her head rigidly bowed so that he would not see her face.

“Amara,” she heard him call as she walked past.

“Good evening,” she responded, and against her best intentions, slowed down, and raised up her head. He looked different that evening, and more handsome. He was dressed in a white safari suit and matching white shoes. A white singlet peeped from above the first button of the safari suit. She could see curly strands of jet black hair above the singlet. A massive gold chain and pendant glittered on his chest. He had a small version of the same chain on his right wrist and his fingers hosted a startling collection of gold rings. On his left hand was a gold wristwatch. Everything about him gleamed and Amara had felt a little hollow in her stomach.

He walked up to her and she felt self conscious in her shabby clothing. She looked around. It would not be long before the news went round that she was seen with a man. And on her street, news never went round for long in its pure version. Every mouth recasting the story was bound to add its own seasoning to make the account a little sweeter in the ear. She was guilty of the same sin in the past. The cursory glances she was getting from passersby and all those people loitering about on the street pretending not to be looking was not lost on her.

“I know how uncomfortable you must feel, talking to me here like this, but take my number and call me,” he said, as if he had read her mind. He called out the numbers, twice as they walked. And she had nodded to tell him she had it.

He turned around and left after she had repeated it correctly to his hearing, and promised to write it in the exercise book she held so that she would not forget.

Amara could barely conceal her excitement as she skipped home.

“Take my phone, flash him now now let him call,” Ada said, thrusting her Nokia phone in Amara’s face.

“Isn’t it too early?” Amara hesitated, but collected the phone.

“It’s actually getting late, Amara,” Ada scowled. “He must have been expecting your call for ages now.”

“We only parted few minutes ago,” Amara insisted as she dialed his number. The name “JulioCeasar” appeared on the face of the phone.

“Ah, sister? Do you know this man?” Amara queried, surprised and suddenly afraid.

Ada had gone ashen, looked flustered for a second, and then quickly gathered her wits about her.

“This is a small town biko”, she scowled, snatching her phone from Amara’s hand.  “The man looked for me and found me. That is how much he wants you,” she explained, a worldly look on her face.

Amara sat on the floor of their room and watched her elder sister folding away the clothes that they had washed earlier in the day, and something told her everything was not alright.

“It seems you want to be poor for the rest of your life, and continue to use rags as sanitary pad,” Ada spat into her sister’s thoughts.

The stench from the overflowing septic tank behind the building wafted into the room and Amara’s stomach rebelled. While her sister nagged, she placed her palms against the cold floors on which she sat, lifted her buttocks and passed a silent gulf of gas. She felt a little relieved then, and better able to listen to Ada’s homily.

“Amara, this is no time to start doing baby-baby or nice-nice o’. You are to sound like a big girl for him o’.

Amara was still thinking up what to say and what to not say when the phone rang shrilly in the still night atmosphere.

“Hello,” Ada said sweetly into the mouth piece, giving Amara a scalding look.

“No, this is not Amara, its Ada.” Amara’s heartbeat was uncontrollable.

There was silence for a second.

“No, nothing dey happen,” Ada had quipped and laughed for a while.

“Oh, okay, let me give the phone to her,” she said finally. And after surviving another glare that was capable of bleaching her delicate skin, Amara collected the phone from her sister’s outstretched hand.

She was stiff and awkward at first, but his voice which sounded like honey over the phone soon melted the icicles of fear and suspicion that stood guard around her heart. Fifteen minutes later, Amara was chatting and laughing freely away, basking in the klieg lights of Ada’s approving smile and ‘thumbs up’ signals.

“It all depends on where you want me to meet you…” she heard herself saying, her eyes seeking more approval from her twenty one year old sister.

She got it, and she felt grown up and emancipated, like a cauliflower that had been carefully harvested by an unseen hand, shaken gently but thoroughly until its roots were free from every modicum of inhibition.

***

Children always looked forward to the rains.

With it came the insects they called ‘Aku’.

When they were younger, Ada told her that the insects were stupid to go so close to the fluorescent tubes, because after the bulbs burned them, they always needed a cold bath which they never survived. Amara and the other children led by Ada always placed a bucket of water underneath the light, captured the hapless insects in their hundreds, shared them among themselves, fried them, and enjoyed their snacks in bed at night.

Amara watched as children still clad only in panties after enjoying a bath in the rain squatted beside a bucket of water while the biggest among them divided the spoil. She wished she could be like them again, concerned only by the number of Aku she would crunch that night.

“So, you are pregnant!” Ada repeated aloud before Amara’s soapy right palm flew to cover her elder sister’s mouth, as if to push the words back in. Amara’s big eyeballs roved frantically to see if anyone was about. Ada looked too. They should not have bothered. They were alone in the backyard where they sat doing the dishes. Their only companions were the children making happy noises and waging a renewed war against another influx of frantic insects.

“You should hide your face in aja-uro, Amara. Shame is too good for you!” Ada had hissed, stood up, wiped her wet hands on the seat of her flowered gown and retreated into the house. Amara just sat there, her head bent.

Julius had been wonderful.

He had shown her a world she never knew before now. His pocket was bottomless and his hands never stopped going there. The first thing he had done was to buy her new clothes – all the new styles girls favored today, designed to reveal more than cover.

“I can’t wear these things,” she had protested, admiring her own curves in his bedroom mirror as she sampled the clothes.

“Yes you can, you are wearing them now,” he had laughed from the bed, his hand inside his boxer shorts, cradling his member. She showed the clothes to Ada when she got home, and they agreed she would keep them in her bag as she left for school every morning, and change into them after school, to go see Julius. Every morning, she was ashamed of herself as she snuck the clothes sheathed in a dark nylon bag into her back pack. As if it helped assuage or hide her guilt, she always shoved it underneath her books. Several times she had almost confided her new relationship in Ndidi her best friend, but she had restrained herself with both hands. Ndidi would never approve, and then her secret would be just like the fowl’s anus – prone to revelation at the instance of little wind.

The idea had worked like magic. Even she almost never recognized herself after 2pm everyday. The curvy little vixen who emerged from the “Ladies” at Mr. Biggs on Okpara Avenue with a Darling-Yaki wig hiding her low-cut hair, and FashionFair eyeshadow on her pretty face was never the timid school girl who had walked in earlier, clutching a nylon bag. Not that anyone really paid her any attention in the place anyway. The waiters were always too busy with hungry customers. Only one young security man always stared at her, but he too never said anything, he dared not.

The next miracle Julius wrought was the purchase of her JAMB scratch card.

While her father had been wriggling and nagging and threatening hell and brimstone if she dared fail and waste his money, (money he was yet to piece together), Julius had bought her JAMB form with just a phone call to his friend whom he said worked at the bank where they sold the card. A cleaner from the bank had brought the card to them in Julius’ apartment, and Julius had counted the money, four thousand, five hundred naira – the five hundred naira was for the boy’s transportation – all in crisp one hundred naira notes. As he retreated, overjoyed and thanking an amused Julius effusively, the gangly boy had tripped over a drinking stool in the middle of the living room and Amara and Julius had burst into laughter at his exit.

Amara had hugged Julius when he handed the hitherto elusive card over to her.

“I just love to see you happy, obi’m,” he cooed as she plastered his face with kisses. In just a little while, it was amazing the transformation she had gone through. She was bolder, sexier, better groomed and more mature than all her peers, all thanks to Julius.

He had also given her money for the registration at a cybercafé, and promised to get her into a special centre where everyone was guaranteed scores that would guarantee admission into universities of their choices. As Amara dressed up again that evening in her blue and white school uniform, she suddenly could not wait to be through with secondary school, and get into the university where like Ada she would finally be free, free to live her life with Julius. She had glanced at Julius who laid asleep in bed, a look of contentment on his handsome face as he snored, and for the umpteenth time, Amara wondered what he was doing with her. He was a young man who had everything it took to date any of the more sophisticated Enugu girls, yet he had chosen her. Maybe it was because she was a virgin, and he had been the one who broke her? But then, he was not to know she was a virgin when he was pursuing her. She sighed, picked up the money he left on the dresser for her and had snuck quietly out of the apartment without waking him up.

“You see what I was telling you, eh?” Ada had bristled in her best ‘I-told-you-so’ voice when Amara had given her sister the news.

“You see now – and you were there behaving like baby – baby Kingsway. You have to use what you have to get what you want, nwanne’m.”

Their father had coughed in the living room, an exaggerated cough that was pregnant. And the girls had fallen silent and gone to bed.

Those days with Julius were the best she had spent in her entire seventeen years – until the month her period had ceased.

She had waited for a pensive two weeks and when she could not bear it any longer, had stolen to a roadside laboratory to run a pregnancy test. She had heard many girls in school talk about the place at New Haven. The laboratory attendant had been nasty. A girl her age or a little older, she had worn an irritated look on her pox-marked face as she asked for the patient’s name. There was no way Amara was going to use her real name, and the receptionist had snickered when she said her name was ‘Esther Aja.”

The laboratory scientist was a fair, fat, short  man with a face as round as a ball. Amara decided he was either angry or in a hurry the way he had tied her slender bicep too tight with a green rubber tourniquet, slapped her forearm in something akin to rage and stuck a needle in the first vein that responded. Amara watched as the syringe filled with her blood. The man had withdrawn the needle at a surprisingly more sedate speed, given her a wet cotton wool to press to her forearm, and eased the extracted blood from the syringe into a vial. He had disappeared behind a dirty blue curtain for what seemed like a lifetime before emerging again armed with a white envelope and a dirty smile.

The long hiss of the receptionist followed Amara down the stairs and into the street filled with blaring horns and speeding car headlights.

[See how the story ends next Wednesday.]

Image by Anthony Kurtz, from his street photography project on Senegal. See more photos HERE. 

***

Oluwafunminiyi Omojola is a Nigerian writer who is also a banker. Being a Yoruba man who is married to a Hausa lady and resident in Iboland, Funminiyi considers himself an epitome of the detribalised Nigerian.

His poems and short stories have appeared in many news dailies and magazines around Africa including The Sunday Sun, This Day, and The Kalahari Review.

So pleased to present a brand new piece by Nigeria’s flash fiction queen, Tolulope Popoola. She packs so much drama and delicious literary goodness into 800 words. Enjoy! 

Twelve years was a long time.

I was dreading the evening, as I left my house and drove to Eniola’s place to pick her up for our secondary school reunion. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing some old faces again, two especially; my ex-boyfriend and a girl who had been my tormentor. But Eniola, one of the few classmates I’d kept in touch with, had persuaded me that it would be fun. I suspected that for her, it was a chance to temporarily escape her current status as mother to nine-month old twin daughters. She was looking forward to an occasion to dress up and leave the house without the babies in tow.

She was giving instructions to her husband when I arrived.

“Please make sure the bottles are sterilised, before you use them… and make sure you try and get them to sleep in an hour…”

“It’s alright Eniola.” Tunde said. “I have looked after them before you know. Spotting me at the door, he smiled and waved.

“Hi Bisi. Take this woman out, and make sure you girls have a good time.”

“Thanks Tunde,” I said and waved back. I pulled Eniola towards the car. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

“How do I look?” she asked.

I appraised her hair, make up and outfit. “You look just fabulous, not at all like a new mummy.”

“Thanks,” she said as she settled herself into the car. “You look delicious as usual.”

I had made an extra effort, I thought to myself as I pulled out. I was hoping to run into someone; an old crush; and I wanted him to take special notice of me this evening.

As if she read my thoughts, Eniola asked, “Did you know Muyiwa said he’s coming? He asked of you the last time I spoke to him.”

“He did? When did you see him?”

“Oh I’ve bumped into him a few times in the past year,” Eniola said. “He did some consulting work for my firm, and sometimes we went out for a few drinks.”

My ears seemed to grow hot when I heard this. So Eniola… “You were seeing him often?”

“I thought I’d told you before. Don’t worry, it was nothing.” She continued. “I know how you feel about him.”

I took a deep breath and nodded.

“What exactly did he say about me?”

“He asked how you were doing, and if you’re seeing anyone.”

My heart skipped a beat.

“Wow, and you didn’t tell me this since.”

“Hey my dear, with pregnancy and having babies, you tend to forget a lot of things.” Eniola said, chuckling. “Come on, if you see him tonight, it will be a good opportunity for you guys to actually talk to each other.”

She was right, I admitted. It probably just slipped her mind, and she didn’t mean to hide anything.

We soon arrived at the hotel for our reunion. I drove through the impressive grounds, well-manicured hedges and towards the car park to find a parking space. Several people were already here. I could see some familiar faces walking towards the grand entrance. And there he was. Muyiwa was alighting from his car. He saw me and smiled. I bit my lip. Eniola must have spotted him too, and seen my reaction.

“Take it easy darling. I see you’re getting jittery already.”

“No I’m not!”

“Listen, there’s something you should know, just in case you decide to get serious with Muyiwa.”

Something in her tone made me pause and pay attention.

“Hmm?”

“He’s the biological father of my babies.”

Image credit goes to boxingkitten.com where you can find amazing designs with Ankara fabric.  

_________________________________

Tolulope Popoola is a Nigerian novelist. Her debut novel, titled Nothing Comes Close, is available on amazon. Ms. Popoola blogs at On Writing and Life.

A few days ago, Zimbabwean author, Noviolet Bulawayo, writes on her Facebook wall:

Today I woke up to some South African love, and it’s very meaningful to me, for obvious reasons. I am remembering that my very first published story was by Munyori journal, and it meant a lot to have that Zim and African connection for my first published thing. Also, my first ever award experience was an honorable mention for the SA PEN-Studzinski Award, I think it was for Southern Africa at that time and then of course, right after, Caine, which, some of you may remember, also made me a poverty pornstar, a title that didn’t, and doesn’t, phase me. I don’t write for these things, of course, but still, I don’t take them lightly, and the recognitions that have connections to the continent remind me that I am not just a writer, but I also come from a specific place, and that matters a whole lot. ngiyabonga mina.

The story of how Bulawayo became a “poverty pornstar”—[Lol. can't get over the term]—is actually not at all complicated.

Here it goes: Bulawayo’s debut novel, We Need New Names, was published on the 21st of May 2013. Exactly one month later, Nigerian novelist, Helon Habila, published his now famous review of the novel in the UK guardian. The review was generally negative. Habila writes that Bulawayo’s short story, “Hitting Budapest,” that won her the Caine Prize and that became the basis of her critically acclaimed debut novel is iconic of a certain kind of literary work that represents Africa as a space of suffering, wretchedness, and despair. She clearly read the review and was a bit miffed. But, she doesn’t seem to be bothered. As she puts it in the Facebook status: “poverty pornstar, a title that didn’t, and doesn’t, phase me.”

Habila may have popularized the term, “poverty porn,” but he may not have been the first to use it. I don’t know who coined it, but the Nigerian critic, Ikhide Ikheloa had used the term in a Brittle Paper interview a few months before.

In case you didn’t read Habila’s review, I’ve excerpted key paragraphs:

I was at a Caine prize seminar a few years back and the discussion was on the state of the new fiction coming out of Africa. One of the panellists, in passing, accused the new writers of “performing Africa” for the world. To perform Africa, the distinguished panellist explained, is to inundate one’s writing with images and symbols and allusions that evoke, to borrow a phrase from Aristotle, pity and fear, but not in a real tragic sense, more in a CNN, western-media-coverage-of-Africa, poverty-porn sense. We are talking child soldiers, genocide, child prostitution, female genital mutilation, political violence, police brutality, dictatorships, predatory preachers, dead bodies on the roadside. The result, for the reader, isn’t always catharsis, as Aristotle suggested, but its direct opposite: a sort of creeping horror that leads to a desensitisation to the reality being represented.

…

NoViolet Bulawayo‘s new novel, We Need New Names, is an extension of her Caine prize-winning short story, “Hitting Budapest“, and yes, it has fraudulent preachers and is partly set in a soul-crushing ghetto called Paradise, somewhere in Zimbabwe. Yes, there is a dead body hanging from a tree; there is Aids – the narrator’s father is dying of it; there is political violence (pro-Mugabe partisans attacking white folk and expelling them from their homes and chanting “Africa for Africans!”); there are street children – from the ranks of whom the narrator, Darling, finally emerges and escapes to America and a better life. Did I mention that one of the children, 10- or 12-year-old Chipo, is pregnant after being raped by her grandfather?

There is a palpable anxiety to cover every “African” topic; almost as if the writer had a checklist made from the morning’s news on Africa. There’s even a rather inexplicable chapter on how the Chinese are taking over Africa, and how, as one of the street kids puts it, the Chinese “are not even our friends”. Such moments are made possible by its rather free-ranging, episodic plot structure.

— Helon Habila, The Guardian. Read Full Review

Lola Shoneyin, the AABF mastermind

For those of us who were not invited or who could not attend, we experienced the 2013 Ake Arts and Book Festival (AABF) vicariously through tweets and Facebook updates.

For six days, writers, artists, bloggers, industry heavyweights, public school students, reporters, and book lovers from all over gathered in Abeokuta to experience what some are calling the book festival of the year.

“I have attended Book Festivals across continents from Kenya to the UK and Frankfurt and the US but none, and I mean none has impressed me like the Ake Book Festival.” — Toni Kan

Chimamanda Adichie was invited but could not attend due to prior commitments. Taiye Selasi was initially on the bill but pulled out two weeks before the event. Wole Soyinka, Teju Cole, Wainaina Binyavanga, Syl Cheney-coker are a few of the high-profile guests who graced the event.

Reviews have began to trickle in, so we are getting a better sense of what happened at the festival. Toni Kan’s diary in This Day Live and Olisakwe Ukamaka’s piece for The Nigerian Telegraph are excellent recaps.

Thanks to Ukamaka we know that:

Pa Ikhide is a pretty old dancer, what with the way he was throwing his hands in the air like we were still in the seventies. Lola Shoneyin twisted and rocked like she would win a competition. The black American with the heavy dreadlocks (I forget her name) was dancing Salsa even though the music was high-life. Teju Cole, dressed in his academic oversized coat and Papa’s cap, delivered a pastiche of quick jerks, clawing of the air and stomping. The air was heavy with laughter and music and food and alcohol. God looked down from heaven and everything was good.

The stage adaptation of Lola Shoneyin’s The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives is one of the highlights of the festival. The 2012 Caine Prize winner Rotimi Babatunde  wrote the play. Femi Elufowoju Jr. directed it. We know from Toni Kan that “the hall [was] packed, almost, with everyone from students to celebrities like Funmi Iyanda and Ade Bantu. Wole Soyinka [was] also there as well as the King of Owu.”

Speaking of homecomings, Tope Folarin—the 2013 Caine Prize winner— visited Nigeria, for the first time in decades, as a guest speaker at the festival. I wonder what the experience was like for him.

By all accounts, Ake Festival was a book lover’s dream—a stream of conversation sessions and panels on burning questions regarding African writing,  a well-stocked bookstore, and the chance to meet some of the major voices in the contemporary African literary scene.

There was also a publisher’s speed-dating session, which I hope got someone a book deal. Master classes had aspiring writers learning from the some of the best on the continent.

Just from twitter updates—the photos shared, the stories of encounters, the reluctant goodbyes— I could sense the sweet, fuzzy feeling of artistic fellowship that held everyone spellbound while the festival lasted.

I’m pleased to share these photos from the festival. Thanks to Victor Ehikhamenor for taking such lovely photos and for letting me share them on Brittle Paper.

Enjoy!

Scenes from The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives

Lola Shoneyin, Author of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wife

Hanging out with public school students in Abeokuta

Victor Ehikhamenor, Author of Excuse Me!

Ikhide Ikheloa, critic/blogger

Chibundu Onuzo, Author of The Spider King’s Daughter

Christie Watson, Author of Tiny Sunbirds, Far Away

Molara Wood, Author of Indigo

Tope Folarin, 2013 Caine Prize winner

Teju Cole, Author of Open City

Funmi Iyanda, media personality/journalist

Chuman Nwokolo, Author of The Ghost of Sani Abacha

Cast members of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives

Wainaina Binyavanga, Author of One Day I Will Write About This Place

Igoni Barrett, Author of Love is Power, or Something Like That

Olisakwe Ukamaka, Author of Eyes of a Goddess

(R to L) Tolu Ogunlesi, Prof. Remi Raji-Oyelade, Pius Adesanmi

(R-L) Ugoma Adegoke, Syl Cheney-Coker, Victor Ehikhamenor

Eghosa Imasuen, Author of Fine Boys

Wole Soyinka

Sitawa Namwalie, Author of Cut Off My Tongue

(middle) Wana Udobang (c) Attic Photography

(right) Adenrele Sonariwo (Middle) Victor Ehikhamenor (left) Myne Whitman

Àyọdélé Morocco-Clarke and Tolu Ogunlesi

(right) Marlon James, Author of The Book of Night Women

Team #AABF

Muthoni Garland, Author of the Scent of my Mother and Sitawa Namwalie

Except stated otherwise, all the photos are owned by Victor Ehikhamenor. 

When I received Omojola’s story and read it, I sent him an email telling him how sad and troubled the story left me. I couldn’t wrap my heard around such misfortune.

Then I found this news report and this one about this really weird phenomenon called baby farming. And I realized that Amara’s story is beautiful and titillating as far as fiction goes, but that it is also urgent in the sense that Amara could very well be one of these girls in the image below. See why in the final part of Omojola’s three-part story that you’ve all loved and enjoyed in the past two weeks.

If you haven’t been following, read Part One and Part Two. 

Seven months had passed since the day she learned she was pregnant.

Amara briefly caught her reflection in front of the mirror. She could barely recognize the wizened looking creature that stared back at her. The description that fit her best was ‘gaunt’. Her hair was what women called ‘due’ and unkempt. It stood erect, on end, forming what looked like two bushy, black horns on either side of her head. She hadn’t touched it with a comb or cream in the seven months Julius had dumped her in the lodge. Her complexion had gone from fair, to ashy and now to black, and when she opened her mouth, her cheeks collapsed into two bottomless chasms on either side of her face. Her shoulders were bony, the ball and socket joints of them sticking out of the blue off-shoulder gown that she wore. Her breasts were fuller, and somewhat flabbier.  She was not wearing a brassiere, so they laid like two timid lambs on the mountain that was her stomach. A sickening smell always oozed from a part of her body that she was yet to identify.

She had entered the ninth month, was always in a permanent state of discomfort. The baby was always twisting and turning. It seemed that it held a cord in her chest that it yanked at will. And when it did that, a bell rang in her head. She would have to sit up, and gasp for breath.

“It is boys that disturb like that,” one of the girls had told her. “You are lucky. They will pay you more, maybe twenty thousand naira.”

That was another thing she had come to learn in this house of horror.

When she had told Julius that she was pregnant, he had surprised her with his reaction. She had expected him to rave and rant and push her out of his apartment. But no, he had just smiled and made her sit on his knees.

“Obi’m, how did you let that happen?” he asked gently as she sobbed. “I expected you to know better than that, to protect yourself.”

“I’m sorry Jay,” she had pleaded through sobs, her face in her palms. She had heard the rustle of paper as Julius flicked the test report in his hand. “It says eight weeks, here. And you say you do not want an abortion, eh?”

She had shaken her head.

“What do you want us to do about it then, Obi’m?” he asked, wiping her tears with a perfumed, polka dotted handkerchief.

Since they loved each other, she was willing to put her academic ambitions on hold for a year or two, get married to Julius and have their baby.

Julius had burst into a wild sounding kind of laughter when she had voiced those plans. He laughed so hard that he unconsciously pushed her away from him, fell from the chair and sat heavily onto the rug. He pointed at her, spittle drooling from one side of his mouth. She had never seen him look or act that way before, and she had been a little shocked. What was he laughing at? Her? Or had she said something out of turn?

She stood there for minutes looking at him, her arms folded across her breasts as the sun outside faded from a dull yellow tone to a blurry red.

“Okay, okay dear. No problem, no problem at all. Marriage it is then. This is how shit’ll work. Tomorrow, I will take you to see my parents. Since your father will most likely not want anything to do with you anymore, I bet you can stay with my parents until all the arrangements have been concluded for igbankwu. You can probably tell only Ada about it all, since she seems like a sport. Everything will be fine,” Julius had assured her, pulled her down onto the rug beside him, and before she could voice her concerns, filled her with his throbbing member. His emphatic love making had answered all her questions convincingly – all would be well.

It was that evening that she had told Ada she was pregnant, and Ada had walked out on her. Even as she dressed up to go to school the next day, Ada had refused to listen to her, turning her face rigidly to the wall and yelling at her to ‘Si ebea puo – get lost.” And she did.

Julius had driven her to the maternity lodge the next day.

They made the three hour journey to the interior parts of Enugu in utter silence. She was not in a chatty mood anyway, and it seemed Julius too had a lot on his mind, probably in preparation for his new roles, as a father and a husband. The road was very bad, and they passed only a handful of people on their way- children in bright uniforms, carrying chairs and desks on their heads, farmers on bicycles, and a few lorries and other vehicles going to and from the villages.

They finally arrived at about 11.30 am to the walled compound. Amara wondered why the walls were so high but she did not say anything. It was the only modern building in the community, and Amara put it down to Julius’ considerable wealth. A good son had to make his parents comfortable.

An old man opened the gates for their car, and Amara felt her spirit sink for no clear reason when the gates swung close behind their car. The compound was big and wide, with gravel on the grounds. The building was big too, a pink colored one storey affair with black iron burglar proofs and verandas.

“Get down,” Julius ordered her as the car came to a halt. She complied. She looked behind her and saw the old gateman still standing at the gate, a look Amara could not quite place plastered on his ancient face. He just stood there and stared at her, and then he made a sign with his hands, mouthed something and ambled into the gate-house as Julius climbed out of the car.

Amara did not need a soothsayer at this point to tell her that something was amiss, a feeling that was confirmed when they entered the building.

Pregnant young girls milled around the large empty space downstairs. The place smelled like a hospital, and Amara had panicked, thinking at first that Julius had brought her here for an abortion. He held her by the hand as they walked past the first room, a gesture that reassured her for only a second. She could feel the eyes of the other girls following them as they walked. There was no nurse in sight.

“Where is this place, Julius?” she asked, quietly as they climbed the stairs.

“Shh, quiet, you will see,” he had responded as he stopped by a door and knocked. Her heart was beating uncontrollably by the time handle dipped, and the door opened inwards. They stepped into what looked faintly like a doctor’s office. The furnishing was sparse – with two seats to the side and against the wall. There was a patient’s bed with dark red stains on the brown leather mattress. In front of a window with a dark green blind sat a brown desk. On its body was pasted several stickers advertising an assortment of drugs: Octivin, PregnaCare, Chloramphenicol.

In font of the desk perched the smallish man who had opened the door for them, his hands on the table behind him. She later grew to know him simply as Okpeten. He had grey hair and wore a pair of steel rimmed glasses. He had a bitter smile on his wrinkled face as he embraced Julius.

“That’s her?” she heard him ask, as she settled on a chair by the wall that Julius showed to her.

“Let’s talk outside,” Julius invited the old man, whistling a tune under his breath. And turning to her, he had bent his head, a crooked smile playing on his lips, he used the tips of the fingers of his right hand to rub the middle of his chest in an up and down motion that meant for her to ‘relax’.

That was the last time she had seen Julius till now although Ajuo, Okpeten’s mammoth of a wife always told her when he sent money for her upkeep, and that he would be here to see her soon.

Amara snatched her gaze off the mirror and ambled out of the toilet.

Her water had broken in the late afternoon. The pain was totally unbearable now. She could barely keep her thighs together. She stopped at the door, placed an arm on her waist and screamed.

The door jerked open and Okpeten and Ajuo rushed towards her. Gently, they steered her into the delivery room and urged her to take it easy.

Amara wailed as they laid her on the blood stained bed.

“Just take it easy, easy, easy…” Okpeten cooed, his head buried between her thighs.

The room spun round and round in Amara’s eyes, and Ajuo’s watery face swam in her vision. She felt as if her waist was being severed from the rest of her body. Her vagina was on fire and she felt as if someone had taken a shovel to her innards and was digging out the contents with cruel, crunching blows.

“I’ve seen the head, I’ve seen the head,” she heard Okpeten say again and again. Suddenly, she felt something heavy clog the space between her legs before the room dissolved into a sea of darkness.

***

She stood at the edge of the big metal can and took a deep breath before peering into it. Now that he was asleep and quiet, she had to be cautious not to make any noise, not to awaken him.

She had searched for him all the way here, his faltering cries ringing in her ears and guiding her feet. It had been a long arduous journey and her feet ached, and bled where she had stepped on a rusty nail. The short, sturdy piece had buried itself deep into the sole of her right foot. She had screamed as she ambled to the side of the road and sat heavily on the grass. It had taken considerable energy to pull it out. Soon, the entire sole had been covered in blood. She had felt a bit dizzy and had to lean on a dying tree stump for support. The sun had lost its radiance, but its rays still scorched her. She had to shut her eyes for a moment, her head pounding as she lost blood. The blood continued to flow, despite her pleas and entreaties. When she felt a bit calmer, she had plucked green leaves and rubbed them between her palms until her palms had turned green. She then squeezed its water onto the wound. When the bleeding did not stop, she had rubbed the leaves themselves on the face of the wound. But the bleeding had only intensified. Using her teeth, she had torn off a long piece of her gown where there had been a hole, and tied the wound with it. That left her a bit naked in front. The bushy triangle between her thighs was in full glare and so was the whole of her left leg, from the thigh downwards. But, that could be taken care of later. She had to find her child. That was her first assignment. She had cut another branch off the medicinal plant and stuck it in her bushy hair, for future use. She hissed continuously as she continued her journey, stamping the aching foot on the ground as she walked. When the pain had become unbearable, she began to limp, unable to touch the affected foot to the ground.

Everyone she met on the lonely road made way for her. Not that she approached them or talked to them or anything. No. they just made faces at each other and packed themselves to one side when they saw her, giving her all the room on the road as if she were an approaching lorry. She had been particularly annoyed by the little boy who had burst into tears when he came upon her. He could not be more than four years old and he clutched a black nylon bag in his scrawny fingers. His knickers were torn and his ribs stuck out in his chest, creating a hollow stomach that gasped as he sniveled.

“Emeka! What are you doing here?” She had screamed, pleasantly surprised when she recognized him. But the poor fool kept on crying, stamping one foot after another in the reddish earth, a wet map suddenly appearing and changing dimensions in front of his knickers.

“Bia, nwanne’m! Ebezina, biko, Emeka’m,” she had pleaded, saddened at his discomfort. She had approached him with her arms wide open but the boy had backed away from her, screamed, dropped the nylon bag he was holding on the ground and fled back in the direction from which he came.

She just stood there, her arms stretched out in front of her, dazed. Then her eyes had fallen on the white granules that spilled from the bag the boy had dropped.

“Garri,” she whispered to herself. Suddenly, her stomach rumbled. She hadn’t eaten a thing in the past three days since she escaped – or since Okpeten and Ajuo had laughed in her face and pushed her out of the lodge, because she kept tearing her hair apart and asking for her baby. They had offered her money, but all she wanted was her baby. So they had cursed her and pushed her out of the lodge.

She had forgotten how to be hungry, but she remembered now. She bent down, picked up the nylon, settled down by the bushes on the road side and chewed.

She wondered where Julius was now that she needed him most, to help her fight Okpeten and Ajuo. He had left her alone for too long, for far too long.

His cries became louder as she ate, so she had rounded off quickly and proceeded on her journey. His cry emanated from every single plant on the roadside, from every tree in the distance, from the grass and the sand and the stones on the road. It had been a tough job examining each and every one of these crying things. People stared at her as she did it, but she had, like Okute the rock, long learned to be unmoved, come rain or shine.

She had jumped for joy when she finally came upon the garbage dump. Why hadn’t she thought of it before? What better place could Okpeten and Ajuo had chosen to hide him away from her, if not in the midst of all this waste?

She was shocked then when she peered into the huge garbage container and her baby was not there.

With little difficulty, she climbed into the can and rummaged. Nothing. She started to throw the garbage out of the can, at first painstakingly, one after the other. Then she started to heave them out in heaps. She worked for two hours before she got to the gritty bottom of the container. Still, nothing. Then she got frantic. She climbed out of the can and went to work on her knees, using her hands first like a hoe, then like a shovel. She wailed and retched as she sought her child. He was a cruel baby, keeping quiet on her, now that she was so close to finding him. She worked like a mad woman for another two hours, howling at the top of her voice. Then, disillusioned, she sat in the waste, pieces of garbage hanging in her hair and strewn all over her gaunt frame. She stretched her arms out to the crowd that had gathered and asked if any of them had seen her baby.

No one answered her directly. They just murmured among themselves and shook their big heads. One of the children pointed at her and spoke rapidly to his mother who slapped his outstretched hand, and said nothing. It was Emeka.

The skies began to weep and she jerked her head upwards, a stream of relief coursing through her system. A radiant smile spread across her face and her eyes shone with joy as she looked into the skies. Again, she should have known. Silly her, silly child. He should have let her know where he was earlier. She wrapped her arms around herself, getting as much of him as she could through his tears falling through the skies. The skies grumbled, a deep guttural sound and she buried her terror in its rasping breath. She was getting wet quickly and cold too, but it did not matter; she had found her child. The little crowd shook their large heads again and began to disperse – one after the other. She thanked each and everyone of them as they left.

She sat in the downpour until she could not tell her tears from the rain. When it abated, she laid in the soggy garbage and drifted off into a troubled slumber.

She dreamt of Julius, and Ada.

Ada was holding a baby on her shoulders, rapidly touching her fingers to her tongue and counting from a bundle of naira notes. She and Julius were happy, laughing merrily and pointing in her direction.

***

Oluwafunminiyi Omojola is a Nigerian writer who is also a banker. Being a Yoruba man who is married to a Hausa lady and resident in Iboland, Funminiyi considers himself an epitome of the detribalised Nigerian.

His poems and short stories have appeared in many news dailies and magazines around Africa including The Sunday Sun, This Day, and The Kalahari Review.

Warsan Shire—Kenyan-born Somali poet—is the best kept secret in the African poetry scene. I discovered her work a few months ago when she won the first edition of the Brunel University African Poetry Prize.

Her poems are blistering, beautiful, bewitching. They are suggestive of violence and a deep sense of loss and longing.  And they smell of woman. I think of some of her poems as anthems to femininity.

The gorgeous and melancholy ”For Women Who Are Difficult To Love” is probably her most popular and one of my favorites. What I take from the poem is that sometimes being woman means being “terrifying,” “strange,” and “beautiful”—”somethingnot everyone knows how to love.”

The 24 year old poet lives in London and was recently named the first ever Young Poet Laureate for London.

The two poems below—one titled “Beauty,” the other “Ugly”—are part of the collection of ten poems she submitted to the competition for the 3000-pound Brunel University African Poetry Prize.

Enjoy.

Warsan Shire (source: edgemagazinesite.com)

Beauty

My older sister soaps between her legs, her hair
a prayer of curls. When she was my age, she stole
the neighbour’s husband, burnt his name into her skin.
For weeks she smelt of cheap perfume and dying flesh.

It’s 4 a.m. and she winks at me, bending over the sink,
her small breasts bruised from sucking.
She smiles, pops her gum before saying
boys are haram, don’t ever forget that.

Some nights I hear her in her room screaming.
We play Surah Al-Baqarah to drown her out.
Anything that leaves her mouth sounds like sex.
Our mother has banned her from saying God’s name.

Ugly  

Your daughter is ugly.
She knows loss intimately,
carries whole cities in her belly.

As a child, relatives wouldn’t hold her.
She was splintered wood and seawater.
She reminded them of the war.

On her fifteenth birthday you taught her
how to tie her hair like rope
and smoke it over burning frankincense.

You made her gargle rosewater
and while she coughed, said
macaanto girls like you shouldn’t smell
of lonely or empty. 

You are her mother.
Why did you not warn her?
hold her like a rotting boat
and tell her that men will not love her
if she is covered in continents,
if her teeth are small colonies,
if her stomach is an island
if her thighs are borders?

What man wants to lie down
and watch the world burn
in his bedroom?

Your daughter’s face is a small riot,
her hands are a civil war,
a refugee camp behind each ear,
a body littered with ugly things.

But God,
doesn’t she wear
the world well

The woman beside me crossed herself. Then the pilot’s voice came back on. It was a medical emergency, he said; a pregnant passenger went into early labor and had just had a baby. I sensed, around me, a collective hush of relief and wonder. A baby delivered on the plane! We landed in Dakar. It was 2 a.m. Medical personnel in orange vests hurried in, a man carrying a black box, a lanky woman dragging an IV stand, their eyes heavy with sleep. I wondered what the baby would need, and if they had what the baby would need.

Soon, the lanky woman left, cradling a bundle wrapped in cloth. The baby. I strained to see better, hoped I would hear it cry. Then the new mother emerged, a young woman with a tube dangling from her arm, and behind her came the other medical worker, trying to support her. But she didn’t need him. She strode past, straight and steady, so quick that I caught only a glimpse of her face. She looked stunned and frustrated. It seemed even more of a wonder to me, not only that she had just had a baby in midair but that there she was on her feet, normal and capable.

The pilot came out of his cabin. A tall man with an easy air, he told us it was a baby boy, and both mother and baby were fine. His American humor emerged. “Been flying a long time and this is a first for me!”  —– Read More New York Times OP-ED

Image source Via

Chimamanda Adichie does with narrative what Nakeya Brown does with photography. Both artists are captivated by the relationship between blackness, hair, and femininity. Whether both women know each other or not, it is certainly nice to think of their work as being in conversation. For Nayeka, hair is political. “By choosing to wear my hair in it’s natural state,” writes Nayeka, “I made a political decision.”  Chimamanda makes a similar declaration in the many interviews after her third novel, Americanah, was published.

Chimamanda got us talking and even fighting about hair. Who knew that we could all get so worked up and bothered about hair, which has really being Chimamanda’s point all along. That hair, especially for black women, is never just hair, never just a private matter. Hair is always more than just hair. Hair speaks its own language and reveals things about the assumptions that belie our sense of beauty and its relationship to race and the feminine body.

I’d say though that I like Nakeya’s politics of hair better than Chimamanda’s. Nakeya doesn’t appear keen on being prescriptive. For her, it is not about whether straight extensions are bad and kinky is good. It’s about producing work that captures the significance placed on hair in black female worlds. She is captivated by the fact that black women wear all hair-types—something that she doesn’t seem to read  as a sign of racial insecurity but as having infinite artistic and expressive possibilities. In response to the tendency she observes in many black women to think of straight hair as “good hair,” Chimamanda, in my view, insists that natural hair is “good hair.”  Perhaps it’s time for us to reconsider what we term as the measure of beauty or “good hair.” This is what I’d like to take from Nakeya’s work. Perhaps we are at the point where the goodness of a hair need not be defined by its straightness or its kinkiness but by some other hybrid or more open formation.

I love that for both women, hair is tied to feminine self discovery. Chimamanda has said in interviews that coming to America and experiencing various ways of being black is partly responsible for her decision to go natural. Here is how Nakeya puts her own hair-story: “Through the years that act of chopping off my hair has led me down an ongoing path of self-discovery and self-awareness, in respect to how I choose to identify myself.”

I just wanted to share Nakeya’s work with you because it adds to the conversation about hair, blackness, and femininity in significant ways. Most of the conversations we’ve had so far have revolved around Chimamanda’s novel. Nakeya allows us to encounter a set of ideas explored through the novel in another media. She helps us imagine the question of hair differently but in a way that compliments Chimamanda’s questions about hair and race, which got many African women thinking for the first time about hair as a political issue.

Let me end with a quote from Chimamanda’s novel:

 “Relaxing your hair is like being in prison. You’re caged in. Your hair rules you. You didn’t go running with Curt today because you don’t want to sweat out this straightness. You’re always battling to make your hair do what it wasn’t meant to do.” — Ifemelu in Americanah

And one from Nakeya’s blurb on her work:

I like to think of my work as inclusive to all Black hair styles/types – kinky, straight, synthetic, human, weaves, wigs, and tracks, because we as collective wear all. It’s in our beauty shops, hair salons, and bathroom cabinets. It’s a part of our history. It’s a part of contemporary culture. It’s a part of our conversations. It’s a part of our daily lives. I’ve been told many times “your hair is your face”, so it’s something that we must tend to, and care for. It’s something that we must treat with sensitivity when describing, but should not allow it to incite insecurities. In my eyes, it’s the single most visible and powerful feature on the black female form and I enjoy creating work about it because it is so dynamic. I make photos that display the illusory beliefs of beauty in a visually stimulating way. I want them to be a catalyst for discussion about us and our experiences. — Nakeya Brown

These images are from Nakeya’s collection titled Refutation of Good Hair. See more of her work HERE.

So happy for Teju Cole. The author of Open City is named as one of the top 50 people who change the world in 2013.

It’s the end of the year and we are being bombarded by all sorts of lists. But there’s something unique about this particular list. I find myself drawn to the idea of  giving a shout out to “the people who changed our lives this year…Whether they made us laugh, think, act, or pause…the people in our world right now who are the prime movers.”

(c) The Verge 50

The list of 50 names was curated by  The Verge, a New York based news and media network. Cole’s name appears under the category of The Informer, meaning that Cole is one of those figures who influenced the creation and circulation of ideas globally in 2013.

Cole has done quite a lot in the service not just of literature in general but of African literature. His debut novel, Open City, certainly challenged our notion of what an African novel is.

From his small fates project to “A New Dictionary of Received Ideas,” Cole has done a lot to show us that Twitter can be used to produce new forms of writing.

Through the collection of small fates about Nigeria, Cole brought the everyday life of Nigerians into a global conversation against the widespread banality of violence. From the New Yorker piece on meeting Soyinka to his reflection on Koffi Awoonor’s passing, Cole put forth African literary concerns at the forefront of global literary discourse.

This is just to say that a good part of what makes Cole influential has to do with his work in promoting African literature.

Congrats Teju!

Here is what the folks at The Verge have to say about Cole.

Teju Cole, the (ready for it?) art historian, professor, novelist, essayist, editor, photographer, expert mix-maker, and creator of sublime Twitter fictions counts both Himanshu Suri of Das Racist and James Wood as fans. The Nigerian–American’s most acclaimed of Twitter projects, “Small Fates,” restyled news reports in the style of French journalist Félix Fénéon; when he isn’t doing that, the author tweets about drones and writes timely pieces of Instagram criticism. Cole broke into the mainstream with 2011’s award-winning and intensely referential Open City, the first pages of which he’s annotated on Rapgenius.com. A deep thinker and a student as much of classic literature as pop culture, Cole is proof for the Jonathan Franzens of the world that engaging with the internet doesn’t shortchange literary culture — it deepens it.

— The Verge 50

Can’t contain the excitement I feel thinking about how cool it is that Beyonce and Chimamanda get to work together and that both women are drawn to each other’s passion for feminism.

Not to make too much of it, but it’s got to count for something, in the contemporary African literary scene, that Adichie and Beyonce are in conversation about such significant matters like feminism.

Listen to “Flawless” — Beyonce Ft. Chimamanda Adichie

LYRICS
[Verse 2 - Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche]
We teach girls to shrink themselves
To make themselves smaller
We say to girls
“You can have ambition
But not too much
You should aim to be successful
But not too successful
Otherwise you will threaten the man”
Because I am female
I am expected to aspire to marriage
I am expected to make my life choices
Always keeping in mind that
Marriage is the most important
Now marriage can be a source of
Joy and love and mutual support
But why do we teach to aspire to marriage
And we don’t teach boys the same?
We raise girls to see each other as competitors
Not for jobs or for accomplishments
But for the attention of men
We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings
In the way that boys are
Feminist – the person who believes in the social
Political, and economic equality of the sexes. — read complete lyrics

The inspiration for Adichie’s part in the song comes from her Ted Talk on Feminism, excerpts of which she incorporates. But the entire thing seems like it was written and recorded for the collaboration.

What’s the weirdest conversation you’ve ever hard with a stranger in an elevator? Probably nothing as unsettling as Yvette’s encounter with a strange woman while on her way back from doing Christmas shopping.

Standing in the hosiery aisle with Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer playing overhead, Yvette pushed aside straight brown hair and rubbed a throbbing temple. Jostling elbows with frenzied Christmas Eve shoppers, hours before big sister Peggy—picture-perfect family in tow— arrived for their yearly holiday visit, was the last thing she needed.

Sighing, Yvette continued the search for a maternity pantyhose. Since she wasn’t motivated to lean over a protruding stomach to shave hairy legs, a short black muumuu was her only Christmas dinner dress option. True, her sweetie Max had offered to help. But there was no way he and his shaky hands were wielding a sharp object near her body.

By the time she found the right size, her achy feet were swollen inside size twelve flats. Fortunately, there were only three people ahead on the self-checkout lane. She went through and hurried towards the mall bathrooms.

Yvette’s heart sank when she saw the long line. Her temperamental bladder wasn’t going to hold on, which meant she had to play the pregnancy card.

Shuffling to the front of the line, she scanned faces, looking for a sympathetic gaze. Head down, the first person in line examined her nails. Onward.

Looking frazzled, the woman behind muttered under her breath as she lifted a flailing little girl off the floor.

Next in line, a grandmother rocked a baby stroller. Their eyes met and she smiled at Yvette. Bingo!

Pushing her stomach out, Yvette waddled over. “Excuse me,” she whispered. “Please, may I go ahead of you? I can feel something and I want to make sure I’m not leaking amniotic fluid.”

The woman’s eyes popped. “Of course, dear,” she whispered back. “Do you need me to call for help?”

Grimacing, Yvette shook her head. “No, thank you.”

Stepping out of the way, she gave Yvette’s arm a light pat. “It’s going to be alright.”

Minutes later, Yvette whistled inside a bathroom stall. Afterwards, several women on the line glared as she walked by with a bounce on her way to the elevators. She gave them a little wave. It was nothing personal.

Yvette pressed the silver call button for the elevator and waited. Glancing at her wristwatch, she frowned. Max was picking up their guests from the airport in less than two hours. With rush-hour traffic, she would have less than thirty minutes for a bath before tackling dinner for seven.

Instead of being whisked down to the mall lobby, the elevator shot up.  The blinking numbers above the doors increased until the elevator stopped on the thirteenth floor.

The doors swung open and a young woman stepped in. Spiral red curls framing her porcelain white face, she held on to a shopping bag.

They were both quiet as the elevator made its way down. Yvette found elevator etiquette confusing. Should she say hello after eye contact or look away to avoid making conversation?

Choosing the latter, she kept her head down.

As Yvette stared at the floor, she noticed the woman wore different shoes. Her left shoe was a black flat sandal, the right, a red slingback pump. She wondered if the woman was colour blind. Even if she were, it was still strange she hadn’t noticed the difference in shoe types.

Yvette almost jumped out of her skin when she looked up and found a pair of dancing green eyes locked on her.

“So, which shoe do you like?” the young woman asked. The deep, husky voice was ill-suited with her voluptuous figure.

Embarrassed, Yvette gave her a weak smile. “Well,” she said, pausing to think of the best response. “I think the red shoe looks good on you.”

“Red is my favourite colour,” the woman said with a slow grin. “By the way, I’m Lilith.”

Why was the elevator taking forever? “Yvette.”

They exchanged polite nods. Yvette glanced at the door when the elevator chimed and stopped on the ninth floor. The doors swung open. There was no one there.

Before she could move, Lilith hobbled over and pressed the close button. Resting her back against the metal wall, she faced Yvette. “So, how far along are you?”

It took a while before she got used to strangers asking her the question. Why did they always want to know?

“I only have one more month to go,” she said.

“My partner and I have been trying to have a baby for over three years,” Lilith said as her eyes lingered on Yvette’s stomach.

The wistful tone in the other woman’s voice struck a chord. Yvette’s hand rested on the swell of her stomach. “We tried for several years. Sometimes, these things just take time.”

Not according to her sister though. Peggy didn’t pass up any opportunity to tell Yvette she was responsible for her infertility.

“You’re such a good cook,” Peggy said after a not so discrete belch the previous Christmas.

“Sometimes, I wish I could load my plate like yours. You may want to reduce the quantity though. Your extra weight may be the reason for all the failed In-Vitros.”

Max had been furious. Just not furious enough to support her decision to disinvite them for the holidays this year.

“Sadly, I’ve run out of time,” Lilith said. “Yesterday, I found out my sister’s pregnant with my husband’s baby.”

Taken aback, Yvette gaped at her. “Are you serious?”

Lilith’s face flushed. “Yes! Who jokes with something like that?”

She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “I’m so sorry.”

Lilith shrugged. “I should have known something was wrong when he started locking his phone,” she said. “When I found it unlocked while he took a shower, I couldn’t help looking through his inbox.”

And she thought she had problems. “Did you confront him?”

Lilith’s full lips curled into a sweet smile. “No. I don’t do well with confrontations. My plan is to kill them both tonight.”

Yvette gasped. “Kill them?”

“Yup. I was going to kill myself too. But why pass on the opportunity to play the grieving widow?” She gave Yvette’s stomach a pointed look. “And there are other ways for me to become a mother.”

Yvette remembered stories she’d read about babies ripped from their mothers’ stomachs. At thirty-six weeks, her baby would survive. Was that why Lilith had asked how far along she was?

Looking around for the panic button, she realized Lilith stood in front of the control panel. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but the elevator appeared stuck on the sixth floor.

As if Lilith had read her mind, she said, “Oh, I stopped the elevator. I thought it would be nice to chat.”

The sight of the blinking number dried out Yvette’s mouth. “Please, I need to go.”

Lilith gave her a puzzled look. “Why? Aren’t you enjoying my company?”

Yvette glanced at the shopping bag in Lilith’s hand. The surgical instruments were probably in there.  Stammering, she forced a smile. “I…I am. But my sister and her family are arriving tonight. I need to get dinner ready.”

“We had an early dinner at my sister’s house. You would think when I called her this morning guilt would have made her cancel it.” Lilith bared her teeth. “I sat there, watching them pretend.  They both think I’m stupid.”

Yvette’s baby chose that moment to kick. Yvette stiffened, afraid to rub the sore spot above her ribs. “I can imagine how hard this is for you,” she said. “But, I need to go.”

Lilith narrowed her eyes. “I just told you I’m going to kill two people. And that’s all you have to to say? Seriously, where’s the regard for human life?”

Yvette began to sweat. This was her punishment for cutting in the bathroom line. If she made it out of the elevator alive, she was never using the pregnancy card again.  “I’m sorry. It has been a long day.”

For several minutes, Lilith searched her face. “I do you think you’re sorry,” she finally said. A big grin lit up her face. “So, who do you think deserves to die first?”

She fought against her rising hysteria. Max didn’t know she was going to make a stop at the mall. Why didn’t the stop button trigger an alarm in the maintenance room? “I don’t know.

They’re both equally guilty, aren’t they?”

“Hmm. Good point. So what’s your sister like?”

During Peggy’s last visit, Yvette’s dining table collapsed right in the middle of dinner. The lemon meringue cream pie she’d laboured over flipped and overturned in her lap. Even with a smear of mashed potatoes on her nose, Peggy laughed, saying Yvette needed to stop shopping at yard sales since, with the exception of Max, she brought the crappiest things home.

Yvette swallowed hard. “She’s manageable in small doses.”

Lilith snickered. “Something tells me you hate her guts.”

The walls of the elevator closed in. “No, I don’t.” Hate suddenly seemed too powerful an emotion. Intense dislike was more like it. Max was right that one shouldn’t hate family.

Lilith’s green eyes glowed. “You’ve never thought of killing anyone if you could get away with it?”

Yvette’s breath quickened as she remembered standing in her kitchen, fingers clenched around

the cool metal handle of her turkey carving knife. She’d overheard Peggy tell Max it was a good thing he’d met Yvette after she’d stopped drinking heavily. It was no secret but Peggy’s tinkling laugh made Yvette stab her freshly baked turkey until it was a shredded mass of meat and bone.

On the heels of the memory, came another. A teenage Peggy, her boisterous laughter filling the frozen air as she pushed Yvette’s pink toboggan downhill.

She shook her head. “I would never think of hurting another human being.”

Lilith’s tight red curls bounced around her face as she chuckled. “Liar.”

Yvette squared her shoulders. “I find that very offensive,” she said.

Lilith raised an eyebrow. “Really? What I find offensive and frankly, painful, is watching you navigate your head out of your butt. You don’t like her. I can tell.”

Her teeth clenched. “It doesn’t matter what I feel. She’s family. And we’re meant to tolerate each other.”

“In my opinion, familial tolerance is overrated,” Lilith said. “I knew my sister always wanted what I had. I guess I was stupid to think my husband was off-limits.”

Yvette froze when Lilith’s hand reached inside her shopping bag. She exhaled when Lilith brought out an apple.

“Care for a bite?” Lilith asked.

Yvette could feel tears stinging her eyes.  “Please, let me go.”

Lilith gently rubbed the shiny red apple on her dress. “It should be all over by now,” she said

after several bites. She reached for the start button. “You should have seen how their faces

washed over with relief on my way out. I guess there’s nothing like some Christmas Eve adulterous sex.”

Yvette went limp from relief when elevator continued on its way down. Each crunch from Lilith’s apple matched the beat of her racing heart. It took a minute before it registered the ding sound was from the elevator doors opening. They had arrived at the mall lobby.

Lilith stepped aside. “This is where you get off,” she said. “I’m going back up. Thanks for the company.”

Yvette turned around after stepping out of the elevator. She had to know. “What do you mean by it should be all over?”

“The dessert served was antifreeze laced gelato,” Lilith said. “My sister made it too. I just enhanced the taste.”  She cocked her head slightly to one side. “Like I said, I’m not a fan of confrontations or the truth. But since this is the season to be helpful, I’ll offer you some free advice. You really should talk to your sister. You don’t want to use that turkey carving knife.”

Just before the steel doors closed, Lilith gave her a wink. “Good luck!”

Post Image (c) Christina Rutz via

Author Bio:

Born in Ibadan, Nigeria, Yejide Kilanko is a writer of poetry, fiction and a therapist in children’s mental health. She currently lives in Ontario, Canada. Yejide’s debut novel, Daughters Who Walk This Path, was published by Penguin Canada, April 2012 and Pintail Books (Penguin USA) January 2013. The novel has been translated into German and Thai. In 2012 she was named one of the top five hottest up-and-comers on the Canadian writing scene by the Globe and Mail. Her next book, Honour Among All, is forthcoming April 2014. Please visit www.yejidekilanko.com

By popular demand, here is another piece by Nigeria’s flash fiction queen, Tolulope Popoola. In 800 words or less, she takes you to drama heaven and back. Enjoy! 

We started working in the company around the same time. I was assigned to the desk in the right-hand corner, facing the door. She was seated in the left-hand side of the room. Within a week, I had gotten to know most of the other colleagues in our open-plan floor office and I was on talking terms with them, except her. Tomi was the only person I couldn’t understand. She never went out of her way to smile, say hello or acknowledge my greetings even though she passed by my desk several times a day. She basically ignored everybody, kept to herself and refused to interact. In the end, I gave up trying and ignored her too, deciding that we probably didn’t have much in common anyway.

I’d been working in the job for eight months, when my dad died suddenly. He was only fifty-eight and he hadn’t been ill. Being an only child, I was devastated. All the responsibilities for the funeral arrangements fell on me and my mother. I had to take some time off work to grieve and plan the funeral, and then another week off to recover from the stress, and unravel my dad’s business and personal affairs.

On the Monday morning I was due back to resume at work, things didn’t exactly start well. It was a rainy day, and my umbrella was not doing its job at all. I’d been standing at the bus-stop for nearly thirty minutes, narrowly avoiding getting splashed by cars driving in the puddles. As time passed, I started worrying that I would get to the office late.

I was getting desperate when a car stopped a few metres in front of me, and the female driver beckoned to me. Looking in, I saw that it was Tomi, my unfriendly colleague. She opened the passenger door and I was too relieved to refuse. I got in the car, and folded my wet umbrella. I hoped the ride to the office wouldn’t be too awkward.

“Hello,” I said. “Thanks for the lift, I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, keeping her eyes on the road.

“How are you?” I asked, as a way to start conversation.

“I’m fine.” She didn’t say anything else; instead, she turned up the volume of the radio. When we got to the office, I thanked her again and she nodded.

At closing time, she came to my desk and offered me a lift home. I was surprised but pleased she offered, thinking she was looking for a way to make up for her unfriendliness earlier. On the way back, I started telling her about my recent loss in the family, but she just nodded and listened. When she dropped me off, I invited her in to come and say hello to my mum, but she shook her head vigorously and drove off so quickly that her car tyres screeched.

“What’s wrong with this girl?” I wondered, puzzled by her strange behaviour. “I’d better not get into a car with her again.”

At lunch time on Tuesday, she came to my desk and asked if we could go to the staff canteen to have lunch together. I was a bit wary, but my curiosity got the better of me and I agreed. She insisted on paying for my food. I found us a table and she sat opposite me. I started eating but she didn’t touch her plate.

I waited for a minute before I asked her, “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head before leaning closer, and then she began:

“My mum would kill me, if she knew I was doing this. She warned me all my life to stay away from you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I understand you’ll find this confusing. There’s no easy way to say this, so I’ll just let you know the whole truth. We’re step-sisters. I’ve known you all my life, but from a distance. Our parents made sure we didn’t cross paths. That is, until you joined this company.”

I stared at her, my mouth open; lunch forgotten.

“I envy you so much,” she continued. “You know, I’ve just lost my father too. You can grieve him openly. I cannot.”

Image by Mthethwa. Check out more of this lovely artwork HERE.

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Tolulope Popoola is a Nigerian novelist. Her debut novel, titled Nothing Comes Close, is available on amazon. Popoola blogs at On Writing and Life.