Teju Cole’s Everyday For the Thief started out as a blog called “Modal Minority.” Tolulope Popoola‘s novel Nothing Comes Close is a spin off from a blog series.

What do these success stories tell us about blogging and fiction writing? Should all aspiring writers try out blogging? If you already write a fiction blog, how do you make the move to your debut novel?

Popoola is on hand to answer these questions and more while taking us through the fascinating journey that got her living her dream as a fiction writer. 

Enjoy! 

May 6, 2007. Does that day ring a bell? It’s the day you made the first post on your blog “On Writing and Life.” 6 years later, you are a published novelist, would you say blogging has been well worth it? Why?

I actually started blogging under the pseudonym Favoured Girl in 2006, and I had two other blogs before I started the writing fiction one. I had a general journal blog, and another one called Journey Down the Aisle, where I talked about relationships and marriage. Blogging was a hobby that helped me rekindle my love for writing, it helped me find my voice, it helped me connect to an audience, and it gave me the support network of like-minded people, some of whom I’m still in touch with now. So I would say blogging has definitely been worth it.

In your first post, you mention that you quit your job as an accountant to become a writer, tell us more about that.

Yes, I left my career in Accounting sometime in 2008. I had enjoyed studying Accounting, Economics and such subjects at university because there was variety in the courses, the projects and assignments we were told to do. But, by the time I graduated and started working, all the fun was sucked out of it. I started hating the routine of doing the same thing over and over again. Every morning was a struggle to motivate myself to get up and get to work. I wasn’t fulfilled in my job, even though it paid well and the company was a great place to work. I knew I had creative talents that I wasn’t putting to good use and, the more I thought about it, the more I was filled with horror at the idea of working in accounting for the next forty years of my life.

One afternoon in late 2006, I met a lady who was an accountant and working on a major finance project for her company. Even though it was a Saturday, and we were visiting, she was glued to her laptop, working on some financial data. When I asked her about it, she started telling me about her job, talking about the project she was working on, describing every single detail. She sounded so excited, passionate and enthusiastic. She said, ‘I love accounting, I love finance and I love working on exciting projects.’ In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Wow! She actually loves her job!’

It was eye-opening, because I hadn’t imagined that there were people who really loved what they did for a living. After that meeting, it became clear to me that I didn’t have the same passion for accounting. It was just a profession I trained for and a job to keep some money coming in – nothing more. And, if I was to leave the job, I wouldn’t miss it one bit. So, the question for me was: what job could I do, that would make me passionate and excited about getting up in the morning?

I started thinking about what I would enjoy doing. I’ve always enjoyed reading, writing and keeping a journal. Blogging had rekindled my interest in writing stories. But it took a while for me to realise that I could actually make a career out of it. When I started receiving feedback from people who had read some of my short stories, I realized I really enjoyed writing, and I wanted to continue doing it for the rest of my life. It was rediscovering who I really was. I’ve had to make financial sacrifices and let go of a regular income but I’m happy to be doing something I really enjoy.

Why start as a blogger? What drew you to blogging?

In 2006, I came across a few Nigerian blogs when I was searching for some information online. I read one blog, clicked on another, and another, and I found that there was a wonderful community of Nigerians online. It looked interesting and I wanted to be part of it. I was also attracted to the idea of writing an online journal, so I started my own blog. I enjoyed the writing, commenting, meeting some like-minded people and even some strange people online. Before long, I started looking forward to coming home after a long day at work and unwinding by writing on my blog.

What are some things that you find memorable about the Nigerian blogging scene of the mid-to-late 2000s?

The camaraderie and community feel among bloggers was wonderful. It felt like we all knew each other even though most of us were blogging anonymously at the time. There were so many bloggers I felt like I knew in real life. Some people’s lives and experiences seemed to mirror mine, and then there were bloggers whose lives were so different from mine. But we all got along well and supported each other in our little blogging world. It was a very interesting time.

Your debut novel, Nothing Comes Close, started out as part of a collaborative blog project titled “In My Dreams It Was Simpler.” Tell us about the project.

The project started as a short story. I came across a wedding album on Facebook one day and I thought the groom looked like a cousin of mine who was already married to someone else. This gave me an idea and a few days later, I wrote a short story titled My Dilemma. I put it on one of my blogs and as a note on Facebook. I got interesting feedback from people who read it, and lots of people asked for a Part 2 to the story. I didn’t consider it until someone left a comment saying that the story could be turned into a series. That caught my attention and it sounded like a neat idea, so I decided to expand the plot and the characters. Then I invited some bloggers and asked if they were interested in writing a group story. Thankfully I got a great response and a few weeks later, the series was born.

What are three things you learned about yourself as a writer during the “In My Dreams” years?

I learnt how to plot and outline my ideas before weaving them into a story, I learnt how to schedule my work and write for an audience, and I learnt that collaboration can help create something better than what I could have done on my own.

Is it weird coming of age as a writer in a blogosphere? By that I mean, what was it like having to grow and make mistakes in front of an audience?

I don’t find it weird at all, maybe because it’s all I’ve known since I started writing. Blogging made it easy for me to get feedback from readers quickly, and also judge the type of stories that my audience responded best to. I met people online who were very generous with their time and comments, so the mistakes I made were pointed out to me and I could work on them quickly. I think it helped that I was open to receiving criticism so I didn’t mind being literally exposed.

At what point did it occur to you that Wole and Lola’s story could be a novel?

As the storylines in the series were developing, Lola and Wole were getting closer and their relationship was deepening. Unfortunately, the series came to an end before our readers got to see if they overcame the new challenges that were thrown at them. I felt the story had potential so I had the idea to take their story out of the series, and continue writing it separately.

What was most challenging about moving Wole and Lola’s story from blog series to novel?

A blog is a whole different format to a book. You can write a blog post in two hours, publish it and move on from it onto a new idea. A book forces you to string together a whole bunch of different plots, characters and ideas into a continuous cohesive story. A book also needs several drafts and rewrites. So when the series ended, I had to rework all the blog posts, fill in some missing bits and weave in some new information that the series didn’t have. I had to cut down on the number of characters, because we had so many in the series that were not directly relevant to Lola and Wole’s story. I also couldn’t use characters and storylines that were created by the other writers.

You’re officially the flash fiction queen. I don’t know how you do it, but your flash fiction pieces always seem so together, complete and packed full of drama. It isn’t rushed and doesn’t read like some parts are missing. What excites you about flash fiction? How did your love affair with flash fiction begin?

I don’t know about being queen of flash fiction (laughs).Writing flash fiction began as an experiment. I was attending a class for writing short stories, and I started writing shorter and shorter stories for my assignments. One day I challenged myself to write a story less than 100 words. The motive was just to give the reader a five-minute glimpse into somebody’s life. I published it on my blog and got nice feedback from my readers, so I was encouraged to keep writing such short pieces. Then in 2011, I was approached by the editor of Radical Chic Magazine to write flash fiction for them on a weekly basis so that gave me a chance practice more and hone my skills. I like the unpredictability of flash fiction; giving the reader a twist they usually don’t see coming.

Can you envision your writing career so far without seeing blogging in the mix? Did blogging have anything to do with the fact that you stuck it through and remained in the writing game? Feel free to comment on social media, more broadly, and what role, if any, it plays in encouraging a writing culture. Would you have become a writer in a world without social media?

I really think blogging has made a big difference to my career. Having an online presence is a big part of being an independent writer and publisher. I definitely agree that blogging has kept me going as a writer. When we were working on the series, I kept going because I knew that every week; our readers were expecting a new instalment. Blogging made me get into the habit of writing often and practicing my skills. If I haven’t updated my blogs in a while, I start to feel guilty and that prompts me to create some more content. My blogs and social media pages have also been an excellent way of connecting with readers, getting their feedback, and promoting my work.

Social media is a blessing to this generation of writers. Being a full-time writer can be isolating but, thanks to blogs and social media, I have made many friends, and we support each other in our work. I’ve met many people – bloggers, journalists, aspiring authors, published authors, editors and so on – that have been a tremendous supportive network. I’ve collaborated with people on different writing projects, received free books, been interviewed, had my stories published in magazines, received excellent feedback and so on, all via people that I’ve met online. I think social media can definitely encourage a writing culture, but at the same time, it can be a huge distraction. It is possible to spend so much time tweeting and reading blogs, that one has no time to write! So I would say, it’s like any other tool, it depends on how you use it.

Social media has also been beneficial to me as a reader. Most authors now have blogs and websites too. When I finish reading a book that I’ve really enjoyed, I can now go online to find out more about the author. I want to know what inspired the story and the writer’s journey. Websites like Goodreads are social networks that recommend books to users, based on their preferences. Thanks to them, I have a never ending “to-read” pile of books.

Should every aspiring writer try out blogging?

I believe every aspiring writer should have a blog, for many reasons. Your blog is your personal space on the web where you can publish your own content. Whatever you write, whether it’s poetry, short stories, excerpts from your work-in-progress, non-fiction articles or other things that interest you. Blogging gets you into the writing habit, and it gives you an opportunity to meet and interact with readers and other writers. Whenever you post things on social media, a blog is where you can direct people to, if they want to find out more about you and your work. You can also do guest blogging, where you post on other popular blogs to get more exposure for your work.

In addition to being a novelist, you are a literary entrepreneur of sorts. You have a publishing service outfit. How did that come about?

Yes, I’m also a publisher and consultant. I founded Accomplish Press at the end of 2011 because it became a necessary aspect of what I wanted to achieve. From my experience as a Nigerian writer in the UK, I realised there were not many mainstream publishers willing to take a chance on new writers like me. I had met publishers who found my work interesting, but they always said that it wasn’t commercially viable because it was regarded as ‘ethnic fiction’. However, I believe that I have stories to tell and there are readers who want to read about people like them in books. So, I decided to take the chance and become a publisher myself. This way I can reach my audience directly, publish the kind of stories that I like and I feel there is a market for. I can also create an avenue for other writers like me to get their work published. It took a lot of time, effort, research and sleepless nights to set things up, but I really wanted to be proactive about my work, instead of waiting endlessly for another publisher to notice me.

There are so many abandoned blogs out there. From your experience with an extended projected like “In My Dreams,” what remedies do you have for that well-known illness called bloggers apathy?

To stave off apathy, keep your end goal in mind. What’s your reason for blogging? That’s what will keep you motivated. It is also helpful to commit to a specific schedule and style of content. Decide how often you post to your blog (maybe once or twice a week), how long your posts are, and how consistent you want to be. Once your readers come to expect something from you regularly, you’ll have to try and meet their expectations. Even the series was not immune to such problems though. I would have loved it to continue for a bit longer, but some of the other writers had more commitments, so it had to come to an end.

What are three things to consider when blogger thinks its time to transition to the next big thing—in your case it was blog series to novel?

I think it will be different for everyone, because not all bloggers have the same goals. The most important thing is to be sure you can commit to seeing your project through to the end. For me, I really wanted to make something permanent out of the blog series so that the whole story wasn’t lost. I imagined that one day the blog would fade into obscurity, but a book would always exist, either in print or digital format. I also felt like I had tried my hands at different forms of writing, but I still hadn’t written a novel. So that was the next item on my to-do list.

Buy Popoola’s delightful novel {HERE}

Follow Popoola on Twitter  @TolulopePopoola

  The “New Bride” is a young girl’s lament for losing a sister to an undeserving suitor. It is not an epistolary, but it will make you think of a letter written by someone who knows the pain of losing a loved one to the violent and impersonal force of custom. Oluseun Onigbinde is both precise and poetic in this elegy to the tragic loss of childhood. 

Amina, I don’t know where you are but the images of yesterday keeps flooding my vision. Though we have gone separate ways. We now live in two different houses. I call it a house because Gana can’t give you a home and home has ceased to be home without you.  Home is being with me – my sister from another mother. Home is where we played  along the muddy path to Katsina river. Home is where we giggled at sunset while watching black goats lock horns.

We hoped to be together forever. We will marry the same brothers. We will breathe under the same roof. Your  clothes shall be mine and mine shall be yours.We will sit together at our market stalls picking gossip about Daura women.  We only hope for the right suitors to pass by, those that erect homes, not thatched gida. We mean those not with the biggest farms or cattle steads but with a bounty of love.

Hope was all we had but hope was too blunt to prune the wiles of Musa. Till we found out we were never truly ours. We were borrowed from the ethereal space to fulfill the desire of our father. I remember us sitting under the mango tree last night, the one between our huts, on which pigeons scatter their feathers at dawn and owls scream at night.  We talked about your friend Taruwa who was getting married next week. We said we were still young and wanted to be like Kola, the youth-corper  with the starched white shirt and khaki trousers. We never knew we conversed to the winds as we waved goodnight.

This morning, I searched all through the huts. I ran to the stream to find you. On the muddy path, I traced your feet among the jumbled rest. I did not know he laughed at me. Musa stood by the doorpost, giggled over a bottle of brandy. The one who sired our past but also kept the future in a lock. They sold you like a slave to a petty thief.  Not like the brown skinned bull we had in the backyard that would have graced a fanfare. There was no marriage ritual. No exchange of calabash or funtua  dance of the maidens.

How could father be so cruel?

Mama later told me how it went while I dressed to school. How your mother, Sanya fought hard not to give you to Gana. How she told Musa to be patient for the blooming dots on your chest to be fully blown. Musa did not wait. His yam and tomato yield was poor last harvest. She said he was ashamed of his harvest among his talakawa union. So when he wanted to buy a new land, he looked to your innocent eyes and found the price. But he could have sold two cows and a he-goat. He could have sold anything but you. He could have even sold both of us to the same person. You were not stone broken with jagged axe, you were that luxurious gem dug from the deep in thick sweat.

They never knew I was part of the bargain. Our bodies they could separate, our spirits are knitted together. I cried, and cried thinking you will whisper your soft voice from afar.  But you appeared nowhere. You had been blindfolded into Gana’s house miles afar away. As I walked alone to school. The paths looked lengthy than usual. Everyone wondered where you were. Ali, the Zauzau prince who bought donkwa for us at noon break asked of you.  Our pot bellied teacher, Mallam Shettima asked of you thrice. He jokingly asked if your suitors with big barns had come. I had nothing to say. Malaima, our Head boy and his two wives also asked for you during the short break. Only Shehu Ali, our Koran teacher never asked of you. He knew. I saw it in his face as he wielded the long stick.

I still think I should have been the one. You said I was prettier, but he decided to keep me till another. Probably till another poor harvest, raid of Zauzau warriors or at the behest of Emir of Keteku. Only Allah knows, I am now a guesswork of my father.

How do you fare with Gana? What does he say to you? Does he caress your feet with sweet smelling nembe oil? Has he put black tattoo on your fingers? Has he kissed you yet? Can you bear the stench from his gutted teeth?  Do you lock your legs at moonlight sipping hot gahawa? I need to know how his palms feel in the cold? Does it soothe or prick your skin? Does he sit you on his legs hitting you with his hard penis? Do you lay his bed or carry his bath water?  Has he made love to you? How painful does it feel?

We are just twelve years, but we grew with Gana’s tale. He was a lazy bone that won’t work. He was more of a cursed one that eats his harvest and seed together. While others hurried to farm at dawn, Gana sits on the low stool filing his cutlass. Last five years as we were told, he was arrested on the village exit with a truckload of yams. He stole them from the Bwari farms. He was beaten and banished from the village. His house became a haven of rats with thick gloom hovering over it. Mama told us he had committed najasa in the forest. He took a trunk and hung himself. We never knew it was a lie. The same Gana is now your husband. Only Allah knows where he got his money from. He must have stolen it, the lazy man; for who will borrow him money?

Now I need you here and I miss you badly. I miss how we locked our legs under the moonlight sharing our tall dreams. I miss the dimple on your cheeks that pops laughter. I miss how we ran to the stream at sunrise to fetch bowls of cloudy water. I miss the quick march on the way to school. I miss you on the playground. I mean I miss you everywhere our feet touched.

I am here alone under our mango tree. I am still dressed in my school uniform though its evening. My bag is still fastened at my back. I see Musa walk into the yard with bounty of smile.  I am keenly watching the cutlass by the other side.

I am still wondering which day you would visit us. Maybe you will be happy in your new sequined dress, accepting life as we know it. Will you rebel against everyone running towards me? Then I can hand over to you a cutlass daring anyone to come close. Till then I will tell every soul that spanned this surface of what Musa did to severe the rope of kinship between us and probably someone, someday would find me justice.

The image in the post is by Omar Victor Diop, a Dakar-based Senegalese conceptual artist. See more of his work {HERE}.

***

Oluseun Onigbinde is the co-founder of BudgIT and also a public data analyst. He presently live in Lagos.

Nana Brantuo describes herself as a Ghanaian/Sierra Leonean American. In the two poems featured here—”Elmina” and “Kwesi”—she expresses so much so beautifully with so little.

Her poems are short, packed full of meaning, and pleasant to read, with just the right amount of sadness to leave you hankering for more. 
 

Elmina

The smell of human flesh,
brings tears to my eyes.
While the tourists pose on the rusted cannons,
While men and women sell local crafts for much needed cedis,
horror and rage fill my heart in the women’s holding cell.
Walking where women once wept,
praying to return to their native lands.

***

Kwesi

In Kumasi, I found myself lost in the confusion of Kejetia.
Searching for powder glass beads in a sea of sellers,
hustling for tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s rent.

Krobo beads in sight, I followed the pinks and blues and greens
only to feel the roughness of your hands.
And something about their warmth made me forget who I was.

Something about the yellow in your eyes and
the darkness of your skin, made my heart swell.

The image in the post is one of Njideka Akunyili’s pieces via African Digital Arts. Check out more of her work {HERE}.

***

Nana Brantuo is a second-year doctoral student at the University of Maryland, College Park. Check out her cool tumblr blog,  The New African. Her work has been published on For Harriet, an online community for women of African ancestry, as well as on HolaAfrica!, a Pan-Africanist Queer Womanist Collective.

I have borrowed Isara‘s subtitle from John Mortimer‘s play, A Voyage Around My Father. The expression captures in essence what I have tried to do with the content of a tin box which I opened some four years ago, that is, about two years after Ake was written. The completion of that childhood biography, rather than assuage a curiosity about a vanishing period of one’s existence, only fueled it, fragments of an incomplete memory returning to haunt one again and again in the personae of representative protagonists of such a period. Of course my own case may have been especially acute; I was in political exile when “Essay” ¹ died. All plans to return home for the funeral were abruptly cancelled when I received a message from the “Wild Christian” ² urging me to return home indeed if I wished to bury her with her lifelong partner. I recorded a message, which was played at the funeral, and stayed put in an indifferent clime.

Years later, I opened the metallic box, scraped off the cockroach eggs, and browsed through a handful of letters, old journals with marked pages and annotations, notebook jottings, tax and levy receipts, minutes of meetings and school reports, program notes of special events, and so on. A tantalizing experience, eavesdropping on this very special class of teachers of our colonial period; inevitably I would become drawn to attempting to flesh out these glimpses on a very different level of awareness and empathy from that of Ake.

I have not taken liberties with chronology, I have deliberately ruptured it. After all, the period covered here actively is no more than fifteen years, and its significance for me is that it represents the period when a pattern of their lives was set—for better or worse—under the compelling impact of the major events of their times, both local and global, the uneasy love-hate relationship with the colonial presence, and its own ambiguous attitudes to the Western-educated elite of the Nigerian protectorate.

Life, it would appear, was lived robustly, but was marked also by an intense quest for a place in the new order, and one of a far more soul-searching dimension than the generation they spawned would later undertake. Their options were excruciatingly limited. A comparison between this aspect of their time and their offsprings’, when coupled with the inversely proportionate weight of extended family demands and expectations, assumes quite a heroic dimension.

Isara then is simply a tribute to “Essay” and his friends and their times. My decision not to continue with real names, as in Ake, except in a few cases, is to eliminate any pretense to factual accuracy in this attempted reconstruction of their times, thoughts, and feelings. Like most voyages, this one has not followed the itinerary I so confidently mapped out for it; indeed it proved an almost impossible journey which came close to being abandoned more than once. “Ilesa” ³ is of course not simply one such institution nor Isara one such community. I hope the surviving “ex-Iles” ⁴ all over the nation will understand this compulsion to acknowledge in some form, and however tenuously, their seminal role in the development of present-day Nigerian minds, and will overlook the obvious lapses and areas of dissatisfaction.

W. S.

November 1988.

Being on a budget is no excuse for not satisfying your cravings for African novels. I took a quick look through amazon and found these great titles for cheap. Some are as low as $1.99.

There’re kindle editions though. Look through. See what you like, download, and start reading. If you don’t have Kindle, it’s super-easy to download the Kindle reader on your computer.

Anyway, enjoy!

***

Title: AFroSF (Kindle Edition)

Author: Edited by Ivor Hartman

Price: $3.99

Order {HERE}

Title: Zoo City (Kindle Edition)

Author: Lauren Beukes

Price: $ 1.99 (kindle edition)

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Title: Nothing Comes Close (Kindle Edition)

Author: Tolulope Popoola

Price: $2.99

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Title: The Purple Hibiscus (Kindle Edition)

Author: Chimamanda Adichie

Price: $3.99

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Title: Double Negative (Kindle Edition)

Author: Ivan Vladislavic

Price: $5.99

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Title: Zahrar The Windseeker (Kindle Edition)

Author: Nnedi Okorafor

Price: $5.99

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How is writing a novel different from writing a screen play? Why is Nollywood still struggling with writing a decent scripts? After almost 30 years of dominating the African film industry, what does the future look like for Nollywood?

Efe Mike-Ifeta, a Toronto-based Nigerian filmmaker, is on hand to respond to these questions while dishing out on his new project, Daddy’s Boy. 

Mike-Ifeta is one of the bright young Nigerian minds aspiring to redefine filmmaking in Nigeria. He is currently wrapping things up for the February premier of Daddy’s Boy, a feature length film he wrote and directed.

Tell us a bit about yourself—where you’re based, where you attended film school, and so on. Is Daddy’s Boy your first film project?

My name is Efetobore Mike-Ifeta and I am Nigerian. I am based in Milton, Ontario where I am a storyteller and currently the producer of an online kitchen show called Rosy’s Kitchen. I have a theatre arts degree from Delta State University (Nigeria), a graduate certificate in Documentary Production from Algonquin College and a Master’s degree in Human Computer Interaction from Carleton University, both in Ottawa, Canada. Daddy’s Boy is my first film project and it is something I have wanted to do for a long time but just did not have the right material until now.

Do you consider yourself a Nollywood filmmaker? Why or why not?

I wouldn’t say I am and quite frankly I have not thought of myself in those terms or in any such ‘filmmaker’ term until recently when I have been asked similar questions by the virtue of this project. Firstly, I think ‘filmmaker’ tends to limit my medium of expression to only films or videos and I do a lot more. With regards to considering myself a Nollywood filmmaker, it is a very tough question to answer, because I do not necessarily subscribe to the term Nollywood. I know it is an informal name but I think there is a sense of UN-originality to it and although most people might not consider it a significant issue to debate, I think at the very least, it is something worth pondering over. I am a Nigerian and one of the mediums I tell stories through is film. If I had to be labeled then I think ‘Nigerian filmmaker’ will do just fine.

If someone said to you, “pick any African novel to adapt to screen, and I’ll give you the money for it,” what would be your choice and why?

 The one African novel I will jump at without the slightest hesitation would be The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born by Ayi Kwei Armah. It is one of the very few books I have read multiple times and that still I long read again.  I first came by it in my father’s library as a kid. Now that I am older I know I had no business reading it then—with all the profanity in it. I did not quite understand what Kwei’s intentions were, all I knew at the time was that it was the most untamed diction I had ever seen used in a literary work. I thought to myself, ‘how brazen could a writer be?’

Armah tells the story of post independence Ghana under Nkrumah’s rule and centers around the tale of ‘the man,’ the central character, who struggles to be forthright despite the corruption that plagues his country. Ayi Kwei Armah also explores the idea of existentialism and the hopelessness of human endeavor but then he slowly builds up a parallel platform that shows the possibility of redemption and a new beginning. Presenting these struggles (through film) in the raw, no holds barred form in which Ayi Kwei Armah has put it will shine the light and draw attention once again to the things that plague us as a continent and hopefully begin one more conversation on how to rid ourselves of these demons.

Why did you write Daddy’s Boy? How did the idea for the story come about? In picking this particular story, did you consider its marketability, as in its chance for commercial success? 

I have always been fascinated with the family and all of its many dynamics. It rises as a unit in triumphant times but what happens when it is rocked to its foundations by duplicity from within? I wouldn’t say it was a conscious decision to create the situations that occur in the story but the premise of having an unspeakable event happen to a family, something almost like a taboo seemed like a perfect recipe to test the seeming outward immutability of a family’s loyalty and love towards each other.

I completed the story for Daddy’s Boy some 7 months before I came round to actually typing it up. I played with a dozen different scenarios on how I wanted the story to progress and whether or not I should resolve certain conflicts that were raised in the story or just leave it be for the audience to figure out. I knew somewhere in there was a good story, but I also knew that it is never enough to only have a good story. Honestly, commercial success was the last thing on my mind when the story was being developed. Just as it is said that a good song will sell itself, I believe a good story will as well and that’s what I have tried to do.

I’m guessing you read novels. How, would you say, the mechanics of constructing a script is different from that of writing a short story or a novel?

Firstly, I believe novels to be the ultimate test of a writer’s ability. When it is done right, mere letters on a page could literally be transformed into a visual experience, and it is the authors’ job to help the reader witness this experience and also become part of it. Novels are also painstaking and because the author has to rely solely on his audience’s imaginative ability and nothing more, he has to be detailed and descriptive, very descriptive. A novelist does not have the luxury of camera angles, wide, medium and tight shots and all the other things that are available in a screenplay. He has to create all of these visual elements with his words and in that, he has to be a skilled wordsmith. He is the primary creative artist, the director, the costumier, and the set designer.

Writing drama or a screenplay isn’t that demanding, at least not for the screenwriter. Screenwriters are hardly the primary creative artists on a project and most times do not even get to be on set when a project is being shot. That type of scenario could see a script evolve a lot and when it finally gets made, it becomes a completely different story entirely. A screenplay contains lots of dialogue, basic description of the action, of the characters and their emotions, camera angles, location, time of day etc. but nothing is really expected to be that detailed and the reason for this is that a screenplay is more of a collaborative artistic endeavor than it is one man’s vision except of course you are a Woody Allen or a Quentin Tarantino or a Tyler Perry.

However, both processes are driven by the same underlying story structure. The same story principles apply to both and do not change. In fact, we have seen and continue to see instances where a novel is successfully adapted to screen and a screenplay becomes the first draft for a successful novel. So, there really isn’t a watertight compartment. What I do is to walk that fine line. My screenplay reads like a novel. I write so that if for some reason it doesn’t make it to film, the reader at the very least gets a limited experience of what it would have looked and sounded like. So, I am very descriptive.

Apart from being the writer, what other hats do you wear in the production of Daddy’s Boy?

Executive producer, producer, director, actor, video editor and most of the time when I am not on screen, I am holding the camera. I have been heavily influenced by the greats: Stanley Kubrick, Spike Lee, John Singleton, Steven Soderbergh and by Woody Allen in particular. I believe that in order to preserve the integrity of your story; one has to become the primary creative artist on a project. A writer/director if you will. After Woody’s first film project was completely abused by the production studio in charge of making a film out of his screenplay, he vowed never to allow that happen again and has directed all his movies ever since, over fifty years now. I know a time will come where I might not be able to wear these many hats and function in so many roles but I will always seek to write and direct my material at the very least.

I’m struck by how riveting and cleanly-written the Daddy’s Boy script is. When I started reading, I couldn’t get my eyes of the computer screen till I finished. What accounts for the quality of the script?

 Thank you very much. I am glad you found it compelling. It is a simple story really; what has happened is that it has been told well judging from your feedback and a good number of other people who have had the opportunity of reading it.  A good story came at the right time to a good storyteller. Like I said earlier, I had gone back and forth with the story for some 7 months but the script itself was written in one night. That process thoroughly refined the story and took out all of the fluff and gave it a solid structure. When I eventually got to writing, I knew each character as though they lived next door from me.  Each one knew what they were supposed to say in response to the other, on every single page, and by morning I had a script that has hardly changed over the six months we filmed except for minor typos and spelling errors that had to be corrected. Let me also say that skill and ability comes from the Lord. He is the giver of everything. I simply made myself available and was a conduit for a greater force to operate through and the result is Daddy’s Boy.

Can you reflect a bit on the sickness of bad writing that plagues Nollywood? Why do you think Nollywood still hasn’t been able to figure out how to write? What are they not doing right?

I have always said this and know it to be true; a good story does not make for a good film if it isn’t properly executed. The story could look good on paper but if the time has not been taken to adapt that story specifically for the screen, then a filmmaker is sure to face some unique set of challenges. To begin, there is a dearth of good writers in general in the film industry and this might be because it is still very young compared to others forms of writing like prose, poetry and drama (stage plays) that began very early on after Nigeria’s independence. The industry is in dire need of good screenwriters. The very few that exists and are actually able to write and execute great stories on screen are drowned in all the mediocrity of the many others who just keep putting out home videos. But it isn’t all-bleak, there are people who have been consistent for a long time and are passionate about the craft before monetary gains. Ironically, in putting the craft first, they have also reaped big. This goes to show that this model works and can work in Nigeria. These people include Jeta Amata, Tade Ogidan, Ego Boyo, Kunle Afolayan and few others. These people have honed their craft and it comes through in their projects with regards to content development and its execution.

Daddy’s Boy is a story about family. Family is this place where we enjoy the warm, fuzzy feeling of love and security. And you do a amazing job of capturing that at the beginning of the story. But it looks like the film is also saying that in addition to those things, family is also a place where secrets fester and lead to strange forms of violence. Pretty heavy stuff. What drew you to these kinds of concerns?

Relationships are very interesting I find. Whether it is between siblings or between lovers. Whether it is within a family or in a corporate environment, it is still just as interesting. As humans, we have been created in such a way that we are capable of waging battle against ourselves, in our heads, and most times such encounters are even more violent than being in a fight with external forces. Being in a relationship (of any kind), not necessarily a family, only increases the chances of two things to occur; firstly, and like you have described it; the availability of a certain sense of warmth, love and security and on the other end of that same board is the provision of cold, hate and insecurity. Like a seesaw we go down each side every now and again, but it is only temporal. For some, they have been able to work at keeping the weight heavy on love and that ‘fuzzy’ feeling and for others the reverse is the case. Daddy’s Boy is pure fiction but these realities occur everyday, it may not be as extreme as it is presented in the story but our walls shields a lot from the neighbors.

 What did you find most challenging/fun about the production experience?

Making a film is a challenging process in and of itself. Daddy’s Boy was made almost on a zero dollar budget so that was challenging, very challenging. It forces you to be resourceful and analytical in how you approach filmmaking. I often say that Filmmaking (The process of filming) is problem solving. What do you do when you wish to shoot a sunny outdoor scene and the sun suddenly goes behind the clouds and won’t come out for 15-20 minutes? You quickly get creative so that you don’t waste the time of your talents and most importantly you don’t have rented equipment lying around doing nothing. You think quickly on your feet. Being able to take this story from mere thought to being words on paper and then having a set of talented actors bring your initial thought process to life by speaking them is the most fun a writer could wish for.

Cecilia Haslett

You play the doting husband who finds out something dark and unsettling about his father. Cecilia Haslett—who is endlessly gorgeous by the way—plays Angela, his sweet but troubled wife. From the little I’ve seen of the film, you both seem to have great chemistry. What was it like working with Haslett and all the other actors? 

Well, since she is not here, I am going to have to say thank you on her behalf just so she knows (when she reads this) that I took the time to acknowledge the compliment. I think her being ‘endlessly gorgeous’ as you have described did not hurt the process. I had worked with her on a commercial one year before so I knew a bit of her ability. When Daddy’s Boy was ready and her name came up for the role of Angela in one of our production meetings, we sent her a script immediately. When we finally heard her read, she was perfect, it was as though the character had been written for her. We fed off each other’s energy on set and the rest just happened naturally.

As the director, are you satisfied with the performance of all your actors? How did you get them to give their best?

I had worked with Omodudu Onidada, the lady that played Suzanne and her talent is just undeniable. It was my first time working with O.C. Okoye who played Philip, and he brought something special to the production as well. Chairo Ogbebor was also very generous and patient. I must say that this is the most talented bunch of people I have been on set with and the talent did not stop with the actors, it spilled unto the crew. It’s just a brilliant bunch and we did a brilliant job. With regards to making them give their best, I think the script did most of that work for me. Right from the onset when the scripts were sent out, it was always with the little note; ‘Please read this and see if this is something you are interested in’.  Everyone who worked on the project was sold on it from the get go and so a little directing made them soar.

Casting a child actor can be tricky. Nollywood is, as you know, is notorious for really bad child acting. What was it like working with Chairo Ogbebor who plays little Rukky?

Chairo Ogbebor

 Chairo was a delight to work with. His scenes were shot in Ottawa and he lives in Toronto. So, his parents actually had to drive him over for the days we were going to be filming. He was patient. Any filmmaker/actor would agree that being on set is far less glamorous than what is presented as the final product on film. There were long breaks in between sets that will make any kid his age become distracted and bored but he held up quite well. He is a smart kid and I think this will act as a springboard to other projects should he decide to keep doing this.

Could you reflect a bit on Nollywood at the moment? What’s your sense of the Nigerian film industry? Is there hope that things will improve at the level of writing, technical quality, and distribution?

 I think we are going through a phase, whether it is necessary for growth I do not know but I think it is a phase and it’ll pass. There is an interesting phenomenon in psychology known as proactive interference. When strong habits impede one’s ability to acquire a desired new habit or association, we experience a common phenomenon known as proactive interference. An example of wrong associations appear in common spelling errors such as “wierd” for “weird” and “neice” for “niece.” Some people can’t get these spellings correct, not because they do not know how to spell it right; it just has become a habit. I think this is what has happened to the Nigerian Film Industry.

As a country we know better, as film watchers we want better, as filmmakers we know we can do better, but we learned this ‘thing’ the wrong way to begin with and since we have somehow turned it into the third largest film industry in the world, I don’t think there will be any argument one will make that will make a significant change to the industry. We have somehow managed to believe and convince ourselves that a high production volume equates high-end quality. If we are producing so many films and the industry has been a feature on CNN then there must be something we are doing right, or so we think. But, we know all too well that twice as much isn’t twice as good. We need to go back to the start and learn how to run the movie business/industry but according to psychologists, it is difficult to ‘unlearn’ an incorrect fact. Again, I want to stress the fact that we know better as a country. We watch and for the most part are inundated with high quality materials that are produced in North America and Europe. Why is it then that we can’t replicate the same level of quality in our writing and production? It is not because we cannot, it is because we have chosen not to and this is because change is hard.

Things can only improve though. Just when it seemed our music industry could never compete on a global scale, we switched things around and the result is this massive partnership between artists from America and Africa. It might take a little while because music production is slightly different from filmmaking but we will get there. Afrinolly is a good start. We have seen what can happen when such platforms are created and I believe people who enter for the competition do it more for the craft than for the money.

What’s the timeline for the release of Daddy’s Boy?

Daddy’s Boy makes its world premier on the 14^th of February on YYTV where it’ll run for three days.

As a way of concluding, can you share with us what you love most about the Daddy’s Boy project?

I tend to work in view of my next project. What Daddy’s Boy has done for me is set a standard that cannot be ignored in future projects. We (production team) have done things with this project that still gets me pinching myself sometimes and I will often say to myself; ‘If this is possible, the next will be incredible’. I am just really excited about the whole process; birthing an idea, watching it take its first baby steps and then being a witness as it runs and takes flight. It is very fulfilling.

Give us two reasons to go check it out when it’s released. 

It is good storytelling by an amazing cast. That’s two I believe.

Watch the Trailer for Daddy’s Boy

Valentine’s season begins officially at Brittle Paper with this dreamy little poem. It’s a classic African love number. It’s an Ethiopian poem published in the March 1966 issue of the Achebe-run Black Orpheus literary magazine. 

In the next few days, there’ll be features on an African literary take on love, romance, and more. So be on the look out. 

Enjoy!

You lime of the forest, honey among the rocks,
Lemon of the cloister, grape in the savannah.
A hip to be enclosed by one hand;
A thigh round like a piston.

Your back—a manuscript to read hymns from.
Your eye trigger-happy, shoots heroes.
Your gown cobweb-tender,
Your shirt like soothing balm.

Soap? O no, you wash in Arabian scent,
Your calf painted with silver lines.
I dare not touch you!
Hardly dare to look back.

You mistress of my body:
More precious to me than my hand or my foot.
Like the fruit of the valley, the water of paradise.
Flower of the sky; wrought by divine craftsmen.

With muscular thigh she stepped on my heart
Her eternal heel trod me down.
But have no compassion with me:
Her breast resembles the finest gold

When she opens her heart–
The Saviours image!
And Jerusalem herself, sacred city,
Shouts “holy, holy!”

Originally published in Black Orpheus, no. 19 (March 1966)

Image by Senegalese photographer Fabrice Monteiro via African Digital Arts

    I stole the puzzle from my favorite philosopher, Walter Benjamin. He won’t mind, so let’s go ahead and have some fun with this.

All I’d say is that it is a pretty damn difficult nut to crack.  

Enjoy!

Six authors are sitting in a Danfo bus somewhere in Lagos. The lay out of the bus is such that three of them are sitting on each side. Adichie, Selasi, Soyinka, Binyavanga, Ikhide, Bulawayo. Their professions are—though not in the same order—essayist, historian, humorist, novelist, playwright, and poet.

Each one has written a book, which another one of the party is currently reading.

Adichie is reading essays.

Binyavanga is reading the book by the person sitting opposite him.

Selasi is sitting between the essayist and the humorist.

Ikhide is next to the playwright.

The essayist is sitting opposite the historian.

Soyinka is reading a play.

Selasi is the brother-in-law of the novelist.

Adichie, who is sitting in the corner, is not interested in history.

Soyinka is sitting opposite the novelist.

Ikhide is reading the book by the humorist.

Bulawayo is reading poems.

Your task is to match each name—Adichie, Selasi, Soyinka, Binyavanga, Ikhide, Bulawayo—to the professions: essayist, historian, humorist, novelist, playwright, and poet.

Post your answer on the comment section. 

Good luck and have a lovely weekend!

The original puzzle was reprinted in Walter Benjamin’s Archive

The image in the post is an illustration by Mariano Rio and part of a book project titled Why Spiders are Always Found in the Corners of Ceilings. See more of Rio’s work {HERE}

 Looks like fans of Teju Cole may have cause for celebrating. In addition to the US release of Everyday For The Thief, a non-fiction book about Lagos is well on the way.

The title is grim, provocative, and Sebaldian. Patently Teju! We can’t wait. 

Novelist Teju Cole has sold a nonfiction book to Random House, called Radio Lagos: Life, Death, and the Afterlife in Africa’s Biggest City. According to a press release from his publisher, the book uses “history, memoir, essay, interviews, and reportage to tell the story of Africa’s most essential and mysterious metropolis.” Cole wrote in the release: “Lagos is overpopulated but underinterpreted. It has an energy that can shift quickly, inspiring one moment, frightening the next. It is the city I know better than any other, and in Radio LagosI want to set down in an unfictionalized form as much of that complexity as I can.” Cole has previously written about Lagos in an essay in Granta. 

— WVAS

Image via Teju Cole’s Flickr

Wanuri Kahiu (R) on the set of Pumzi

Wanuri Kahiu is a brilliant filmmaker. Pumzi, her post-apocalyptic sci-fi short film, was screened at Sundance in 2010 to critical acclaim. In 2009, “From A Whisper”  won five out of 12 nominations at the African Movie Academy Awards held in Nigeria. 

In her TEDxEuston talk {watch video below}, Kahiu makes it clear that her sense of an ideal world for artistic creation is a world with “less labels.” To this ends, she begins her talk with a declaration: “My name is Wanuri Kahiu, and I’m a filmmaker. And I say I’m a filmmaker, not an African filmmaker, or an east African filmmaker, or a black female filmmaker or a Kenyan filmmaker. Because I’m a filmmaker. That’s what I am.”

It has become  fashionable to disavow “African” as a legitimate form of artistic identity. But are identities or “definitions” as Kahiu calls them, such bad things? Is “African” or “Kenyan” truly a prison house of political selfhood that constrains an artist?  Chinua Achebe was a self-proclaimed African writers and went on to write some of the most relatable, universal, and brilliant novels of the century. For Achebe and many in his ilk, tacking on an African identity to their art was enormously liberating and inspiring. 

Today it’s different. To claim that an African identity does nothing for ones art and sense of self is now considered hip and progressive. But that’s fine though. Generations find inspiration however and wherever they can. That an African identity galvanized the Achebes and the Ngugis of the world does not mean that it must inspire our own generation. After all, while the likes of Leopold Senghor drew considerable inspiration from their blackness, Christopher Okigbo claimed that blackness was a frame through which he just did not want to think about his work. Like the rage of blackness in the days of Negritude, maybe African identity is, for us today, a ghost from a past generation, slowly disappearing with the ending of an era.

But ghosts are ghosts because they refuse to stay dead. I’m often intrigued by the fact that  however much these artists disavow the category of “African,” it trails behind them and forms the basis on which they end up accounting for their work. Right after Kahiu makes the declaration about being just a filmmaker, she says: “For me being a storyteller has always been part of our tradition, and I’m gonna use Africa in the huge African sense of it and forgive me for that because like we said earlier Africa is not a country, but I’m gonna use, in a larger sense, the idea of being an African storyteller.” She goes on to explain that the narrative aspect of her work is tied to a certain idea of the African storyteller.

She has already said she is plain and simply a filmmaker, that she inhabits this pure identity of filmmaking untainted by ties to race, nation, and the continent. I’d have expected her to go on to speak of how she draws inspiration from an identity-less and un-labelled storyteller. She doesn’t and instead suggests that she finds it helpful to think of her work in relation to the category of “the African storyteller.” It’s funny but no matter what these artists declare, they get to a point beyond which it becomes quite absurd not to acknowledge an African identity of some kind. 

It seems to me that Kahiu and artists like herself are, at bottom, not truly against the label “African.” They are, instead, against a certain reductive, hollowed-out understanding of what it means to be an African artist—that one’s work is political (read: artistically inferior), that one’s work only applies to Africa and is therefore not translatable, that one has an ethical burden to produce work that address suffering and violence, that ones art is an anthropological object of study because it is an opening into the African reality.  That’s why I applaud writers like Taiye Selasi [even though there's so much about her literary politics with which I don't agree] who ceaselessly discourage critics and readers from these kinds of thinking.

I’m reminded of Chimamanda Adichie visit to Duke University last year. At some point she is asked The Question: “Do you think of yourself as a Nigerian writer, an American-Nigerian writer, an African writer?” She responds: “I think of myself as a writer, but I am all of those things and more. I’m African. I’m Nigerian. I’m Igbo. I’m black. I’m female.” What is brilliant about this response is the way it rejects any kind of absolute. Kahiu’s declaration—”I am a filmmmaker…not an African filmmaker,” is actually as reductive as defining herself solely as an African filmmaker. The reality is that she is much more than a filmmaker just as she is so much more than an African filmmaker. Notice that, for Adichie, the problem is not with political identities as such but with the tendency to make them reductive.

Adichie does have her own reservations about the term, “African writer.” At some point in the interview, she explains that the term is often burdened with a set of cookie-cutter expectations and values. But her solution is to opt for a multiplicity of identities—African, Nigerian, female, Igbo, black—rather than proposing the abolition of identities, which is at bottom another form of the single story. So I disagree with Kahiu. The slogan shouldn’t be “no more labels” but “let there be a multiplicity of labels.”

Watch the TEDxEuston Video:

Okonkwo, the late 19th century African man who lived in a village supposedly untouched by European modernity. He represents the fantasy of an African masculinity, pure and untainted by European ideals of the male body. Literary scholars embraced him. The love affair was instant. They said he was the hero of the pre-modern world. Okonkwo was Africa’s response to Conrad’s savages.

Sure, Okonkwo is a fine figure of cultural resistance. But he is also a sex god…okay maybe not a sex god but at least a figure of erotic fantasies.  Granted, Achebe does not make this point explicitly. But then he makes it quite easy to fantasize about the character. What is Okonkwo like in bed?—a question that lurks in the shadows of the story, hidden behind subtexts inviting us to look at Okonkwo’s body and imagine its erotic possibilities. 

Athletic body: The novel begins with a vivid picture of an 18 year old Okonkwo in a wrestling match. Taking us up close and personal, the narrator shows us nerves and muscles “stretching to breaking point” on arms, back, and thighs. Okonkwo is clearly ripped, but he is also “tall and huge.” He doesn’t walk. He bounces as though “on springs.”

Celebrity Status:  ”He was well known through out the nine villages and beyond,” we are told. From the kid who defeated a powerful opponent in wrestling, Okonkwo grew up to be rich and powerful, placing Okonkwo in a long like of novel character ranging from Mr. Darcy to Christian Grey. A self-made man, Okonkwo knows what it means to be once poor and then rich. What’s sexier than a man who defies society’s expectations that he will end up as poor as his own father?

Doting Daddy: Okonkwo has a daughter he loves to no ends. She is the only one who understand him. Ezinma is the child of Ekwefi—the one wife he truly loves. Okonkwo’s troubled relationship with his son has received a lot of attention. But it is in his fatherly bond with his daughter that we see that Okonkwo is tender and has vulnerabilities that makes him quite irresistible.

The Dark Side: An essential element of seduction. Being in a relationship with Okonkwo is not always a walk in the park. He has anger issues. He is a workaholic who gets violent when he is idle. Okonkwo is also a member of “the most secret cult in the clan.” His involvement in this cult shows he is a powerful man, but it is also his most mysterious side. Okonkwo’s dark side does get super-uncomfortably-dark when he kills his foster son and ends up killing himself, but from the perspective of the reader, this only deepens the enigma around the character

Between The Covers: Okonkwo has all these erotic qualities, but is he good in bed? If he is, how do we know? Is there proof? To start with, Okonkwo is the kind of guy who gets turned by something as simple as drumbeats. This happens while he is sitting in his hut, taking some time off before the wrestling match scheduled for much later in the day. From his hut, Okonkwo can hear sounds of drumming floating in from the village square. The narrator tells us that the sound “filled him with fire” making him “tremble with…the desire for a woman.”

There is also the story of how Okonkwo came to marry his second wife, Ekwefi. Okonkwo was poor when they first met. Even though he loved her, he watched as she was married off to some other guy and could do nothing. It took only two years for Ekwefi to decide that she couldn’t live without Okonkwo.

Sade [shahday] is a god-fearing and studious medical student. At least so her parents think until they find out that their daughter who has just escaped a ghastly accident has been living a life of decadence and deceit. But the shocker is when her mother finds out that Sade is carrying a secret—an unspeakable secret—that would test the most forgiving mother. 

A thrilling story of love, betrayal, and the costs of a mother’s devotion. Ola Nubi’s writing is careful, calm, and alluring. With just the right dose of suspense, she keeps you glued to the page. 

Enjoy. 

“Maybe you need to sit down, Ma?”

I stare at the tall young policeman.  He has two big tribal marks that run down his face like big black tears but his voice is gentle. I think he is new in this job.

I am sinking. The room is spinning around me. The policeman tries to calm me down, as I prostrate myself across the blackened tiles of the police station’s floor, hands on my head as I begin to rock back and forward silently like someone in mourning.  People are staring at me but I do not care.

Later on when they seat me in a chair I let myself think of you.

You were such a beautiful baby. A contented child and intelligent student. Such a loving, obedient and God-fearing daughter.

 Yesterday, I had dreams of becoming the proud mother of a Doctor and saturating myself in the glory of having given birth to a child of such supreme intelligence. Voices would lower in respect when I approached. That is Mama Doctor. People would mention their ailments to me at parties and I would tell them not to worry as you would diagnose what their problem was.

Today my dream died.

The accident on the Lagos – Ibadan expressway, had caused a terrible Go – slow. It stretched along like a road, in a multicoloured collection of different vehicles, for hours.

My fingers clench tightly around the clasp of my handbag until they ache. The pain does not help. The Policeman said that the car was unrecognisable. That you both had to be pulled out from it. “Madam, there was blood everywhere.”

The car was headed for Lagos, two suitcases in the boot. They show me your pink overnight bag and point to another much larger one. Smooth black leather with the initials T W.  It is the kind of suitcase that a man would carry.

He has been taken to the hospital too.

Security men in black suits are around and they lead us to a room.  They ask us questions we cannot answer.  They are joined by another man. A big man whose large drooping belly, strains against a jacket, weighed down by medals and commendations. He keeps shaking his head at us, as if we know more than we are telling him.  The security men leave and are replaced by a policeman.

“An important man has been shot and is fighting for his life. Your daughter is found lying besides him in the car. I find out that she recently purchased a jeep with his card. His bank book was found in her bag with a drivers licence.”

I stare at the superintendents heavy jowls. They are shaking now, along with his head as he pounds the desk. I am shaking too, with disbelief.

You don’t even know how to drive.

He turns to your father. “Mr Oni. I am sure you understand the seriousness of this matter. I need you to co-operate and tell me everything you know.”

Your father sighs. “We have brought our child up as a studious, hard working God fearing young lady. I am perplexed myself as to what has happened here. She came home a few weeks ago.  He puts his head in his hands. “I don’t know. I just don’t understand.”

The Superintendent points upstairs. “My boss, the Oga pata pata at the top, and the secret service people want me to send you people to Alagbon CID, pending further enquiries. This is a matter of national security. What do you want me to tell him?”

Your father throws his hands up in defeat, showing his palms. “Our hands are clean. We know nothing. We are just ordinary folk.”

The Superintendent signals to his sergeant, a small man whose uniform is several sizes too big for him. “Sergeant Innocent! Go and bring the case.”

Sergeant Innocent whose duty is to uphold the law and treat all suspects fairly until proven, to be not so innocent, has already judged and sentenced you.  I can see it in the twist of his lips as he scurries to his boss’s side like an obedient child.

“Yes Sah! Which case Sah?”

His boss seems to glow from within. His eyes bulge out of his head.  “The case that your mother brought here! What kind of a question is that? The case of the suspect of course.”

“Sorry Sah.” Innocent bows himself out of the room.  Silence swallows us up and as we wait I hear steps echoing on the hard concrete floor.

He comes back with your pink travelling bag, which he presents with a dramatic flourish and opens it slowly, like a magician with a box of wonders and tricks, ready to tempt the imagination.

“Open it.” The Superintendent is waiting, eyes on our faces as if they would reveal the information our mouths refuse to deliver.

Innocent opens the bag, and brings out a red bra covered in black lace and matching panties with most of the area that was supposed to cover a woman’s decency, missing. It was like a rat had chewed at it and any hope I have – that this is a nightmare – that will end, the minute I wake up, dies a quick and brutal death. I remember the story I learnt in my secondary school days about a woman called Pandora who against advice, opened a box that brought calamity upon the world.

Innocence runs his hands over the clean neatly folded skinny jeans, which I brought for you last time I travelled to New York.  They linger over the silk of a short red dress.

The quiet in the room is deafening.

The Superintendent turns to your father. “Are these the clothes of a studious, hard working God fearing young lady?”

Innocent is restless. “We also have more evidence. Many Fotos. ”

The Superintendent gives him a warning glance. “O.K Get on with it, we haven’t come to sleep here.”

My lips are shaking, my destiny is gone, and the roof over my home is exposed to the vultures to tear us to pieces.

Your father lowers his head and I realise that I am your only champion in this room. So I speak. “What do the clothes in this bag have to do with the accident?”

The Superintendent leans towards me, as if he is sharing a secret, he doesn’t want my husband to hear. “We are hoping you can tell us, Madam.”

“We have told you all I know.”

The sergeant hands his boss a small black phone which he presses. “We have managed to open this phone and retrieve the messages – Darling Toye. I love you and I can’t wait till we meet again.”  He scrolled down the phone, his eyes squinting at the screen. “See you this weekend. Love you . Told my parents am studying this weekend and can’t come home. Let’s meet up. Last night was …” He looks up at us. “There are more here but out of respect for you both, I will not read them out. There are also a lot of explicit photos of your daughter.”

My mouth opens at the same time as your father slams himself out of the room.

“Shall I go and bring him back?” Innocent eager to prove his efficiency was looking expectantly at his boss, who shook his head.

My sigh weighs a lot. It is full of memories, regrets. There is anger too.

How could you do this to me?

“How long was this going on Mrs Oni? We have reason to believe that she might have been used as bait by enemies of the senator. Her accounts show regular large deposits from a company which we believe is linked to him.”

“I tell you – I don’t know anything.”

The Superintendent sighs. “That may be the case but you have to understand my problem. I have a case to solve. You tell me that you know nothing about this, but I find it hard to believe, Madam, that you really thought your daughter was as innocent as you think. It is good that your husband has gone, so we can speak frankly. You see I am a father, a parent too. ”

Innocent coughs loudly. He is scratching his head.

“What about this Oga?”

The Superintendent shakes his head but it is too late to stop the Sergeant from bringing out a small packet with heart shapes on it, and holding it up in the air.

I stand up and tie my scarf around my head. My mouth is too dry to talk.  My heart, too broken to cry. “Since you are a parent Sir, you must understand why I need to go to the hospital.”

The Superintendents voice seems quieter. “Sergeant. I think we have finished this interview for the moment. You can turn off the tape now. ”

“Yes Sah.”

“I would like to continue with this interview tomorrow. You and your husband are free to go to the hospital now. We will however, send our officers to accompany you.”

I nod at him as he walks out, past the policeman on the counter who jumps up to attention and salutes.  Sergeant Innocent follows having killed innocence, with the large black suitcase in one hand and the smaller pink one in the other, their footsteps echoing on the hard concrete floor.

 ***

Your father is silent as he stares out of the window. Even our driver, a generally talkative character is remarkably reticent.

 I try to dredge up memories of my last discussion, the last time you came home to Lagos. Glowing with youth and energy, slim and pretty in your usual outfit of T- shirt and slacks, telling me how busy you were at University and how you were looking forward to our holiday abroad.

It was going to be your first trip to London.

We had made plans together how we were going to have this big graduation party in a couple of years to celebrate your graduation.  Then it would be some more years in Medical school.

How did you know this man? Where was he taking you? You told me you were studying this weekend?  What made you leave your campus?

I have no answers. Only questions.

Your father’s body stays turned away from me as he continues to he stare out of the window, even though there is nothing new to see along the long stretch of road leading to the hospital.

Eventually we get there. It is a simple two storey building with several cars parked outside. There are more security men rushing around on their phones.  One of them blocks the entrance wanting to know my name and why I am here.

“I want to see my daughter.” My voice is determined and louder than usual as I tell him your name.  I catch an embarrassed look from my husband as he wipes sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his Danshiki.

Reluctantly he steps aside to let me in.

We get to reception and I repeat my request.

The receptionist hardly looks up. “What is her name Madam?” One of the security men whispers something. She stares at me, her half open lips, shiny with cheap bright pink lipstick.

I wonder whether she has a hearing impediment so I repeat myself again – this time louder and in my native language. “Omo mi da? Where is my child?”

She gives me a cold look. “I do understand English, Madam.”

I put my hands on my hips and stare back. She picks up the phone, says something then continues writing without looking up.

“Doctor is very busy. Can you take a seat?”

We sleepwalk in the direction of some plastic chairs arranged in a row. There are about ten people waiting to be seen; an old woman and a young man, his arm in a plaster, a pregnant woman and a man and a little girl. The little girl is about three.

She is smiling at me. She reminds me of you a long time ago.

I ignore the little girl, and the chair.

“I will stand.”  I start to pace the floor, head down, mouth working in furious prayer.

“Suit yourself.” Your father sits down heavily and stares into the air in front of him as if in a trance.

It takes more prayer and another forty minutes for Doctor, a young man in a white coat to come down the stairs, his tone direct and businesslike as he speaks with us.  His professional detachment leaves me even more bewildered. Almost immediately I burst into tears.

It was my fault. I was the Mother. Even my own husband blames me.

Your father and the doctor continue their discussion in low, hushed voices and I interrupt them.

“Where have you put her? I want to see my daughter.”

The doctor nods. “They are just getting things ready Madam.  I will go upstairs and see if the nurses have finished.”

“What are they doing to her? “

The two men exchange glances.  I feel your father’s hand on my shoulder. The Doctor leaves.

“Evelyn…”

I look at him.  The man hasn’t called me by name for years. Not even during our most tender moments.  I want to say something but as the words form in my mind they get stuck in my throat as they travel up to my mouth.

The smell of disinfectant chokes my nostrils then a loud scream tears into my thoughts. It is coming from one of the wards upstairs.

A woman is cursing you and your generations yet unborn. She does so in our language which makes the words even more potent, piercing my flesh through to the inner marrow of my soul. I hear curses and more curses, loud and foul, filling up the spaces in my head that are not full of questions, pain and betrayal.

Shame burns me up.

A nurse beckons and I draw as much courage as I can into my heart, and command my reluctant feet to move.

***

I go in first. Your father stays outside while I close the door behind me and stare, as you lay there so still and silent. It is like you are sleeping.

I don’t know how long I have sat here crying. These tears just will not stop.

The voices outside are closing in on us. I hear the woman’s sobs followed your father’s quiet voice trying to calm and reassure. Then more words. They question our capabilities as parents. They say that we did not train you properly and that you are nothing better than a prostitute, a home-wrecker and that you deserve what has happened to you.

I see you through my tears as you lie on the bed, your beautiful eyes closed, unaware of the war breaking out around you. A story in which now you play leading role in the final chapter.

I begin to pray again, my mouth moving feverishly as I recite the Lord’s Prayer. Familiar, calming words in my unfamiliar world.

 Our Father who art in Heaven…….

Then silence. The shouting stops and your father comes in.

We look at each other again, then a small voice calls my name and I see you open your eyes.

“Mama?”

“Yes, Sade. We are here.”

Your eyes struggle to see my face for rejection or censure. I have no time for either. Your arm is attached to a drip and your left leg is bandaged and attached to a hoist.

“Mama. My leg hurts.”

“Papa Sade – can you get the nurse?  Our daughter has returned to us. She needs some pain relief.”

He doesn’t move. “Ask your daughter what was she doing in that car?”

I lower my voice into a whisper. “Now is not the time. Let us thank God she is alive.”

“Look at all the disgrace she has brought to the family. Then there is her brother at the bank and the other at school, how can they hold their heads high in the middle of this scandal!”

“Papa Sade! Ssssh.” I look to see if you can hear us and see tears making dry paths of moisture on your beautiful face as you struggle to speak.

Your father paces the room as he does when he is in the courtroom. “This is a very serious matter. Look at all this wahala! We have policemen and secret service downstairs wanting to know what you were doing in that car! For goodness sake – we all thought you were safely in school!”

Sade’s voice was weak. “They came out from a junction and started pursuing us, firing bullets. I was scared – I begged him to drive faster. Then we hit something and I can’t remember anything after that …”

“Somebody get the nurse…”

Your grip tightens on my hand as the door opens and a woman pushes the door open and comes in. A policeman follows her. Then suddenly her hands are on you, slapping and hitting any part of your body, which is not attached to some medical device.

I stare at her in horror, before my maternal instincts kick in and I pull her away.

She is her late thirties. I recognise her from the newspapers and television. Today she is without make up, jewellery or elegant clothes. Her simple African loose caftan doesn’t disguise that she is at least five months pregnant.

Shola Williams isn’t speaking with a well modulated English accent as she does when she campaigning with her husband promising to make the lives of ordinary Nigerians sweeter or carrying big bellied children with dull brown hair and dry skin for photographs.

Her eyes are lifeless, yet her chest is heaving with emotion as she faces you. “He is dead! Are you happy now!  You can go and tell the people that sent you that the assignment is over!”

I stand over your bed. “We are so sorry for your loss, but our daughter is innocent of any complicity in this.”

The woman faced you, folded her arms across her chest making her belly protrude further. “So Sisi Eko – what happened eh?”

“A car came out from a junction and started firing bullets. Then we crashed and I don’t remember anything else.”

Your father is shaking his head.” Madam. Let the police handle this matter. Interrogating my daughter is against her rights and it achieves nothing.”

“How could the bullets miss her eh? It is only because she was sent by his detractors – it’s all part of a plot!  You dare talk to me about rights? What about my husbands rights – what of the rights of my children to a father?”

I shake my head. “I am so sorry for this unfortunate terrible thing that has happened to the Senator. I pray they catch those responsible but I have no idea how this happened. This is not my daughters fault. They were driving and three men in a black car opened fire on them. She was hurt herself.”

Again I see pity in her eyes. “Did you know about this affair? “

I am silent.

The woman laughs. “So she didn’t tell you. If she could lie to you about what she has been doing with my husband for the past year….she could lie to the Police- to all of us!”

“Madam…please.” Your father tries to speak

She hardly looks at him. “I don’t have business with you. “ She wags her finger at you as you lay there with your eyes just staring into space.  Like you are in another world while we are left here fighting and shouting.  “So what was it – you stupid little harlot?  What did he promise you eh? Money – maybe a trip abroad?  You were just the latest conquest and have now become the last. They say that what a man loves most will kill him one day and now it has happened. I used to warn him but no, he would not listen. He thought I was just jealous. He had everything, and he gave it up for what?” She hisses. “You have made innocent children orphans! Yes, the two at home and the one in my belly. I curse you and everything you will ever be in life – that is if you have a life after this. The police will be up to take you away soon and I hope you rot in prison! I will personally make sure of it.”

Then she walks out and slams the door.

You burst into tears.  I want to comfort you but I see the look in your father’s eyes and decide that now might not be the right time.  I should have disciplined you more, made you study harder, and not let you go to parties or allow you to have boyfriends. I was the Mother. I was to blame.

He was just the Father.  Childrearing was my department, your success – his achievement and your failure – my responsibility.

“I’m going home. You can stay here with that disgrace you call your child, if you like!” His words are cold as he slams the door.  I hold you in my arms.  Now we can cry together in peace.

 ***

There are some times when you think that you will never see the end of a matter. Even a very serious matter like that of the Senator.  Some times I still wonder but it has been a year now.

The late Senator Toye Williams was a rising star in Nigerian politics and was expected to run for the position of President and his loss was keenly felt during the recent Presidential Election.

I do not know or understand how you managed to get involved with the Senator. Even though this matter has uncovered sides to you that I still don’t understand I have to continue to love you. It took a long time for me to gather all my courage together and ask you why you were having an affair with a man almost twice your age, but I know I had to do it if I was going to forgive you totally. I told you I needed to know the truth.

I regret it now.

It was about six months after the accident.

You had that same look in your eyes that you had when we came to see you in the hospital. Like you did not care whether you lived or died.

“I loved him, Mum.”

I realised that she was not the same girl who I used to drag to church every Sunday morning and evening. “He was a married man.”

She had a small smile on her face. “He was the only man who really understood me. I never had to get distinctions to be loved. He was loving, kind and very generous. Had a great sense of humour too. He told me I had the most beautiful smile in the world. He used to call me his First Lady in training. He could hold me like…”

I covered my ears. “Stop it! Stop it! I don’t want to hear any more of this nonsense. You didn’t go into this willingly. Tell me he deceived you, forced you…took advantage of your youth and inexperience.”

You went on, your voice cold and emotionless. “Mum I’m an adult. Nobody forced me. I wanted his baby you know. He was the one who was worried about my studies and what my family would think. He told me he was going to leave that witch and I believed him.  Then I got pregnant and he compelled me to have an abortion and a month later – I find out from the gossip papers that he is to become a father again at 50! I can still see the headlines – Senator Toye and Shola Williams at the Achievers Ball. Shola resplendent in a blue ball gown showing off her baby bump. It was all in the news. That was the day I promised to take my revenge. He thought he could continue to use me and play Happy families…No way!”

I think that is when I fell down. All I can remember about that dreadful night is that I could not feel my hands and legs or speak. If not for your medical knowledge I would have joined our ancestors by now.

Sometimes I wish I had.

 ***

Anyway. A mother’s love is like the sea. You can never tell where it begins or where it will end.

Now all you have to remind you of that sad event is a left leg that will always cause you to walk with a slight limp. There is also the reality that your older brother Rotimi will never forgive you for causing him to miss out on being promoted to Bank Manager.  His bosses did not want the publicity of hiring one of your relatives.

Things are a bit better now that the Police have informed us that they have conducted their investigation and that you had not been implicated in the assassination. For once in my life I am happy at their ineptitude. Rotimi got a job in a smaller bank and your younger brother no longer has to hear all those horrible things said about you at school. I cannot believe that secondary school boys could be so crude and wicked.

I have to take things very slowly now. Ever since that scare where I the mini-stroke, I try not to let things get to me anymore. It is not easy but what can I do? Your father introduced me to a very good doctor who is monitoring my condition and he says I will live long enough to see my children’s children.

Anyway, it is good that you are in London now. Your father and I both decided that the one year’s compulsory National Youth service was not an option.  I think it was better for you to finish off your Medical training abroad. It is good that we had some money saved. I believe that your love of the medical profession will give you a good future, so that that the past will be an unwelcome guest and not a regular visitor in our lives.

Your father has decided to marry again.  At first I was so hurt and disappointed. During the last year when I needed his support the most – he was often away on business. Now I realise what kind of business it was.  I realise that everyone has ways of coping with crisis.  I turned to church and he turned to women.

A very young woman.

I carry no malice for him or the girl.  My load is heavy enough; malice will make it even harder to carry.

Lola is about your age, 26. Very pretty and very intelligent. She is in her final year in University where she is studying law.

How things have changed? When I was a young woman all I wanted to do was go to University but all I could do was manage to acquire a few ‘O’ Levels before marriage and motherhood were decided for me. Your father would not allow me to go back to school while you were all so young and as you got older it seemed more impossible. I had to content myself with reading as many books as I could find to better myself and increase my proficiency in the English language, so as not to shame your father. He has a very important job as a Lawyer and I made it my duty to ensure that he could always be proud of me when we had guests.

So many opportunities for the young woman of today and yet so many squander it away.

Now your father’s new wife is putting me through the same thing that the senator’s wife suffered, I pray that you will never again be the source of another woman’s suffering, another fatherless child’s pain.

I love you enough to want better things for you, my daughter.  You see, a mother’s love is a very serious matter. It is like the sea.  You can never tell where it begins and you will never know where it will end, because it has no ending.

One day, when you become a mother you will understand.

 ***

Post image by Jamilla Okubo. Pretty amazing stuff. See more of her images {HERE} 

Award winning writers, Ola Nubi was born in London to Nigerian parents. She received an MA in Creative writing and Imaginative Practice at the University of East London. Some of her short stories are feature on africanwriting.com, StoryTime, faithtowrite.com and naijastories.com. Her short story, “Green Eyes and an Old photo,” is in the 2013 African Roar Anthology  edited by Ivor Hartman while “Ilusion of Hope” appeared in the NS Publishing short reads series—Wiping Halima’s Tears. She has a romance novel due for publication later this year.

Find more of her work {HERE} and {HERE}

Follower her on Twitter @createandwrite

A few day ago, I made everyone who read {THIS} think about what Okonkwo was like in bed.

Since I didn’t want to leave anyone in the unfulfilling world of fantasy, I asked Kiru Taye, Nigeria’s queen of erotica, to take you into Okonkwo’s bedroom so you can see for yourself.

If you are a true Things Fall Apart fan, you’d know that Okonkwo’s second wife, Ekwefi, was previously married to another man. Taye simply expands this thread of the story to include the bits that Achebe left out. 

Taye plays with chronology a bit, but that’s okay. 

Enjoy! 

Oh by the way, the story is pretty EXPLICIT. Be advised. *evil cackle* Lol. 

Okonkwo paced the confined space of his hut. His feet bounced off the mud floor, his back and shoulders ached with tension. In three long strides he reached the end of one wall, grunted and turned to stomp in the other direction.

Silver light from the moon filtered through the cracks in the door, shedding some light in the otherwise gloomy chamber. He had blown out the flame from the wicker lamp hours ago. Only a rich man could afford to waste money burning the lamp all night long.

A harsh intake of breath filled his lungs with air smelling of damp earth. The patter of the overnight rain on the thatch roof stopped a while back. He’d lost a sense of time after spending most of the night tossing in bed. Moreover he was an early riser. Only lazy men like his father spent their lives in bed when there were things to be done.

His feet pounded the floor as his pacing increased. Thinking about his father was like stacking kindle firewood on the raging inferno already coursing through his veins.

The man was the reason he was in this predicament in the first place. Indolent, wimpish, extravagant and impoverished, his father stood for everything Okonkwo despised.

“Kpai kpai.”

He recognized the soft, urgent knock at the door which aroused and soothed him in equal measures.

His heart rammed into his ribs in acknowledgement of his early morning visitor and he sucked in a sharp breath. Swiveling, he was at the door in two strides. Ekwefi stood before him. A light breeze whipped the loose wrapper shielding her body from the chill in the air. It plastered against her skin revealing her feminine form in acute detail as the light from the moon bathed her in an ash gray ethereal halo.

His breath died in his lungs as his heart thundered. His manhood awakened stretching in the direction of the prize it sought.

“Wh—what are you doing here?” he asked, allowing his earlier annoyance to come to the fore.

A tentative smile curved her full lips and her pink tongue swiped the bottom one once in a nervous gesture he’d come to recognize after months of their doomed courtship.

Every other notion was superseded by the urge to claim her mouth and subdue her questing tongue.

“I—”

He cut off her words by sweeping her into his arms and maneuvering into his chambers backward. He didn’t stop until she was lying flat on the mud bed covered with a woven raffia mat.

In the distance, the sound of drumbeats matched his heart rate as he stared down at the beauty lying beneath him. He reached out and untied her hand-woven wrapper, the intricate brocade pattern identifying her status. He refused to let the implications spoil his admiration of the luscious bundle he’d just unwrapped.

Her hair was plaited in twirling rows and converged at the top in a crown-like fashion. To him, she was a queen in repose, offering obeisance to her king.

In the dim light, her dark skin gleam as if it were polished wood, the swell of her breasts, full and ripe, her hips wide and shapely enough to cushion him in slick warmth. To bear his children.

But she isn’t yours.

The unwelcome thought reared its head and he stiffened momentarily. Her presence here was reckless and dangerous. A taboo.

If he had his way she would be his wife. But he had nothing to pay her bride price with except ambition and that counted for nothing unless he had the wealth to back it up.

He had no family wealth to rely on. His father had squandered what little he had and was now heavily in debt.

“I do not have long,” Ekwefi’s melodious voice drew his attention once more.

“You will stay for as long as I want you to stay.” There was a brisk tinge to his voice. It took all his restraint to stop from roaring his frustrations out loud.

Watching the one woman he loved and knowing he couldn’t have her, killed him. Nearly drove him insane.

But he had a plan and now that the plan was in motion he could relax a little. One day he would marry Ekwefi. For now he would have her any way he could.

Cocking his head to one side, he trailed the tip of his first finger around her collarbone. The pulse on her neck jumped and desire glazed her coppery eyes. The adoring way she looked at him made him feel he could achieve anything. For her, he would and more.

He loved this about her, the ease to which she responded to his touches.

Her lips parted slightly as she slipped her tongue out quickly. Every thought of censure left his mind and he dipped his head to claim her lips.

The fire in his veins made his actions urgent and rough. But she welcomed it as she moaned into his mouth and writhed beneath him.

The hand that breached her nether region was calloused from farm work and found her to be slippery with desire. Okonkwo dipped his finger into her wet heat. Her inner walls contracted around it. Her loud moan filled his chamber.

Ekwefi’s mind and body melted, the man looming over her became the centre of her world. These days she lived for these stolen, forbidden moments with him.

If they were ever caught…

She didn’t process the rest of the thought as his hand left her body. She was bereft of his touch and whimpered her displeasure.

“In good time.” He chuckled at her impatience.

Ekwefi closed her eyes, relishing the sensation that slowly built up within her body. When it came to her body, he was her lord. Every touch, every caress proved his mastery.

Even as she tried to regulate her breathing, it increased along with her heart rate. To control the tremors racking her body in anticipation, her fingers clutched the bedclothes.

He replaced his hand with his lips. They feathered kisses all over her back, setting her body off with tingles. Sensations flashed through her core weeping with overflowing juices. As if he sensed it, his fingers breached her lower lips, dipping in and out as his other hand played with the button at her centre.

“You are so warm, so slippery.”

Parting her leg, he delved in with his mouth. His tongue stroked her in a long sweep before tunneling into her wet folds.

Mindless sensations overtook her body. She writhed, unable to control her body’s response as he took her higher and higher toward her peak. As she coasted the wave, he pulled back.

“Please,” she whimpered. She didn’t mind begging for release. His effect on her was powerful and exhilarating, a potent elixir she needed.

“Please what?” He stood up and flipped her over once more so she lay on her back.

“Please…let me have my release.” She licked her lips as she watched him, her hunger for him clouding her eyes.

“Not until I’m deep inside you.”

He took off his clothes a piece at a time. She stared at his body in awe.

A powerfully built man, his well-toned upper torso was always in view, wide shoulders and chest that tapered at the waist.

His muscular tone was a result of hours spent working hard, farming and training as a wrestler.

One day he would be the champion across the nine villages, he’d said. Perhaps he would be if the gods allowed it.

Muscles rippled with each of his movement like the undulating flow of a river.

With all his clothing on the floor, he stood bare before her, his manhood jutting magnificently upward. Excitement coursed through her. Tremors traveled through her as he knelt between her legs.

Leaning over her, his lips swooped down on hers, reigniting the shameless desire within her. His tongue invaded her mouth. She tasted her tangy sweetness on his lips.

His earthy spiciness assaulted her nostrils with each breath she struggled to take. Her body keened with inflamed feelings.

He roamed her body with his hands, tweaking and rubbing her breasts, which grew heavier, and nipples that got tighter. They moved lower to caress her stomach and waist. Overcome by rippling sensations, she couldn’t tell where she ended and where Okonkwo began. When he lifted his head, she was gasping for breath.

“I need you, please.”

She looked into his eyes, pleading. The emotion she saw in their dark depths knocked out her breath. In that moment, his soul was laid bare to her. This wasn’t just a nonchalant affair to him. He was serious about claiming her permanently.

But how could that happen. She already belonged to another.

Uncertainty warred with her need to find fulfillment in his arms. The huskiness in his voice wrapped around her already heated body. The blunt head of his manhood nudged at her moist entrance. With one push he filled her till he could go no farther, his sacs rubbing against her buttocks.

Her pulsating core clenched around him. Overwhelmed by feverish heat, she shouted his name and shattered into a thousand pieces. He muffled the sound by kissing her again.

When he lifted his head, he had a boyish grin on his face.

“Shout like that again and you’ll awaken everyone in the nine villages.”

His teasing words reminded her of their illicit actions.

Instead of being frightened and halting him, she encouraged him with her smile and body.

As he withdrew slowly and drove into her, she couldn’t help the soft moans that escaped her lips. He continued the excruciatingly slow pace for a while, building her up until she started panting for release again.

Moving her legs around his waist, she held on to his shoulders and tried to increase the pace. But he gripped her hips and continued his slow motion. She couldn’t even begin to compare Okonkwo with her husband, Maduka. Okonkwo’s lovemaking was set apart. Every touch, every movement of his body against hers drove her to the peak of her pleasure.

Soon he was setting a fast tempo, pounding into her. The sound of their joining bodies resounding in the small room.

Having learned the new rhythm, she held on to him and kept up with his pace, enjoying every smack of his body against hers.

His lips melded with hers, his tongue matching his body’s actions. He moved his hand between them and touched her hooded flesh and she exploded, screaming his name into his mouth.

After several more strokes, he let out a groan and spilled his seed inside her. Rolling to the side, he pulled her with him and held her close.

 With her head on his chest, she heard the irregular beating of his heart.

“I’m going to fight Amalinze the Cat in a wrestling match.” His voice was low and deep, and she detected some emotion in there too.

When she lifted her head to look at him, his eyes still shone with intensity, but there was tenderness there too.

“Fight him. Are you sure? He has been undefeated for seven years.”

He shrugged. “It is time for his reign to come to an end. Moreover when I beat him, my fame will grow across the villages and I can take you as my wife.”

She sat up, staring at him with mouth agape. “Do not joke.”

“How—how can I joke with such a thing? D—do you think I find it funny that you live with another man when you should be mine?”

She knew how much he hated their situation, but it couldn’t be helped. Things could be a lot worse for both of them.

“Okonkwo, we have talked about this. I cannot leave me my husband and move in with you.”

“When I beat The Cat and become rich and famous, you will be unable to resist me.”

His fingers caressed her face gradually melting her resolve.

“I may not want to leave my husband.” She suppressed a smile as she teased him.

“Then, I may have to commit murder.” There was something about the way he said it that had her looking up at him.

He pushed her back on the bed and pinned her with his body. He kissed her until she was out of breath. “No other man will ever make you feel this way.”

“I will beat Amalinze and you will become my wife,” he whispered huskily against her face before she drifted off to sleep.

***

Disclaimer: Neither Brittle Paper nor Kiru Taye owns the two original characters featured on this story. Characters remain the property of Chinua Achebe.

The image in the post is by  Suresh Natarajan. See more of her work HERE. Really of cool stuff. 

***

Kiru Taye is the award-winning and best-selling author of His Treasure. Born in Nigeria, she currently lives in the UK with her husband and two children.She writes historical, contemporary and paranormal romance. She is a founding member of Romance Writers of West Africa and also an associate member of Romance Writers of South Africa. She is currently published by Breathless Press.

You have to read this!

Last year, Chimamanda shared her philosophy on make up and cosmetics with the British-Zimbabwean actress Thandie Newton. If you missed it, read it {HERE}.

This time, in a Q&A with ELLE magazine, she shares a good bit on eating healthy, shoes, her obsession with hair blogs, and, of course, her novels and the writing life. 

Apparently, Adichie isn’t a fan of the idea that  “women who [want] to be taken seriously [are] supposed to substantiate their seriousness with a studied indifference to appearance.” A woman does not have to despise fashion to be taken seriously. So it’s not surprising that, as the Elle magazine writer puts it, Chimamanda “unapologetically loves clothes.”

Enjoy Reading. 

“Do you dress for other people?”

I’ve just spent a few weeks in my ancestral hometown, [Aba, in Anambra State] which is quite conservative, and I don’t dress there as I would dress in Lagos or in London or in New York. I find myself looking for more conservative things to wear—but I quite enjoy it. I want to look in the mirror and like what I see, and increasingly it doesn’t matter so much to me what other people think of what I’m wearing.

On what it being called a feminist means to her: 

It means that I am present in the world, and that I realize that there is a problem with the way we’ve constructed gender. The expectations on women that most of the world subscribes to—I don’t think we are born with them. I think we create them. I want a world where men and women have equal opportunities. I want a world in which the idea of a man being with man, and a woman being with a woman, doesn’t cause a form of obstruction to anything that they want to achieve in their life.

 On Loving hair blogs

This is actually the reason I’m not getting much writing done, because I spend too much time on hair blogs! It’s ridiculous. And then there’s the YouTube channels and I’m just watching all these women who are like, ‘I’ve just discovered a new Shea butter!’ [laughs] It’s hilarious.

“Do you like to cook?”

When I’m in a good mood I like to cook. But I don’t like saying it in public because I find myself being resentful of the idea; “Now you will make a good wife. You can cook, right?” So when people ask me I go, “No, I don’t like cooking!”

I could eat lentils for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I like fresh salads. My brothers think I’m a bit of an Americanized health nut. This is not true—I just think people should eat well.

“You split your time between Nigeria and the US—is one more of a home than the other?

Nigeria is where my best shoes are, and to me that’s a sign of where you really live. My favorite shoes are here.

Home is where my shoes are…Lol.

Read the full interview {HERE}

In this video clip of an interview in Denmark,  Taiye Selasi shares one small bit of personal detail about the labor that went into producing her debut novel. 

Selasi began writing Ghana Must Go in Copenhagen. The first 100 pages came uninterrupted in what she calls, “one contiguous flow.”

The next 200 was a different matter. First there was six months of writer’s block between page 100 and page 101.

Desperate situation calls for desperate measures.

“I moved to Rome,” she says, “I broke up with my lover. I changed everything that I could think to change and finally I was able to write again.”

#NOTE to my fellow writers, next time you feel lost and the words just aren’t coming, you must ditch boy to regain the zen-like flow of your creative power. It’s called the casualties of creativity.

On a more serious note, Selasi’s experience points to the strange and costly beauty of the labor of writing.

There’s more in the interview—why she hates the term “multinational” as a form of identity, why she hates being questioned about returning to Ghana, why Afropolitanism emerges from a place of crisis, and much more.

The interview is engaging. The literary diva is chipper and elegant in the 14-minute reflection on writing and the politics of identity.

Enjoy!

Copyright: Louisiana Channel, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, 2014,

Feature image by Nadav Kander {HERE}

Abiku is the Yoruba word for a caste of spirit beings strangely bound to death. They are born to life as human children but die soon after their birth only to be reborn for yet another cycle of death and rebirth.

Though ageless and immortal, Abikus appear to the human eye as children beautiful beyond words. An Abiku is a scourge to mothers. A curse to families.

Adunni: The Beautiful One Has Not Yet Died is an eight-story/image ensemble built on the strange and terrifying world of an Abiku.

For millenia, Adunni has had a good run as an abiku—no bereaved family or powerful Babalawo has tried to prevent her return to the spirit world. Ages of successful, glitch-free comings and goings have made her powerful, envied by fellow Abikus, and loved by Mother Earth. But her luck runs out when she is born into the Lamorin family.

Adunni: The Beautiful One Has Not Died  is a gripping story of betrayal and lust for power. It is also a story of death and the struggle to overcome death.  Conniving and power-hungry gods are pitted against weak, selfish, and clueless humans. A pastor’s fervor is set against a Babalawo’s wisdom. A mother’s undying love is tried by a child’s terrifying power. Adunni’s story is not, for all this, a mythological fable. It occupies that weird place where mythology tips over into urban fantasy. Adunni is set in present day Lagos and written by Ayodele Olofintuade, who knows so much about Yoruba cosmology that she can break the rules in unexpected ways.

The story project began with a submission I received from Ayodele. The submission was a story about an Abiku that gets trapped against her will in the world of the living. Struck by Ayodele’s rewriting of this age-worn mythological figure, I asked for seven more stories. Here we are today, with an eight-story series set against the most enchanting artwork done exclusively for the project by Laolu Senbanjo of Afromysterics.

The accompanying artwork is an essential part of the story. Senbanjo’s art is a cross between images and stories—the way a story might appear in a dream or a trance. Crowded with colors and images, his artwork induces the feeling of being over-stimulated with sensations.  Gazing at Senbanjo’s art, one imagines time caving in folds and space becoming something quite bizarre. Whether it’s a drawing of Mandela, Achebe, a Lagos city street or a mythical figure, Laolu’s work feels like something coming from an elsewhere. There was never a doubt in my mind that Senbanjo was the only one who could do justice to the mystery and evil in which the Abiku’s life is enshrouded.

Adunni: The Beautiful One Has Not Yet Died is a curated narrative project made up of stories and conceptual artwork. The saga begins on February 19. Don’t miss it!

Want to know more about the Abiku phenomenon, read my post at Bella Naija {HERE}

ADUNNI is an 8-episode series about an Abiku—a spirit-being in Yoruba mythology that is born into the human world, dies, and is then reborn in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. In the first episode, Adunni has just been reborn into the Lamorin family. Her fellow spirit-beings are keeping her company during her naming ceremony—the last rites of passage to the human world. Just when she thinks the ceremony is going swimmingly, a potentially catastrophic glitch occurs.

Click {HERE} to learn more about the series.

Or just read on! 

***

“Poetry is often quite personal, autobiographic and linked to specific moments when I seek catharsis. I don’t think of myself as a poet. I use poetry as a kind of medicine for loss, heartache, coming to terms with various things. So it’s medicine first and then art which means my poems are often no good! Or if they’re a little good I’m too lazy to make them better.

The first edition of the Etisalat Prize for Literature is nearing its grand finale. The winner of the 15, 000-pound prize will be announced on the 23rd of this month.

The event is scheduled to take place at The Marquee, Federal Palace Hotel & Suites in Victoria Island, Lagos. The dress code is black tie/traditional. A light dinner and cocktails will be served at 6pm until 7pm when the ceremony begins.

If you get a chance to attend, expect to see the literary who-is-who on the continent–academics, book critics, high-profile writers and bloggers. Of course, the three finalists—Noviolet Bulawayo, Yewande Omotosho, and Karen Jennings—will be there. Also look out for the likes of Pumla Gqola, Billy Kahora,  Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Ellah Allfrey, Kole Omotoso, Ama Ata-Aidoo, and Margaret Busby.

Billed to serenade the literary stars with soulful African music is celebrated African music legend – Youssou N’Dour.

Keep in mind that the day before, on the 22nd, there will be a meet-the-writers event at Freedom park. It starts at 4 pm. Space is limited, so get there early.

Etisalat Prize for Literature is the first ever pan-African literary award—a literary award for Africans by Africans.

It’s enjoyed massive amounts of love from the online African community of bloggers and writers and also from the media, with exclusive features on the BBC UK, Al Jazeera, Xin Hua and the January issue of British Airways Highlife Magazine.”

In addition to the £15,000 cash prize, the winner will “attend the Etisalat Fellowship at the prestigious University of East Anglia (mentored by Giles Foden – Author of the Last King of Scotland) and a three city book signing tour alongside the other two runner ups.”

All three finalists must be giddy with excitement. I’m sending good vibes their way and wishing them the best.

May the best woman win!

For more information on the Etisalat Prize for Literature visit – www.etisalatprize.com