Comrade Fatso (c) Macpherson Photographers

“Bread and Roses” is a song that has haunted my psyche for the last few years, right from the very first time I heard it in 2009. With the self-immolation of Mohammed Bouaziz in Tunisia (2011) that set off the Arab Spring, I gradually developed a new understanding of the song and just how subversive it is. I’ve tried to be faithful to the lyrics in this story and it is this new dimension that I attempt to fuse with them. I would like to thank Comrade Fatso and Chabvondoka for giving me the permission to riff off their track.

— Author’s Note

My belly wakes me again/ ndomuka nafour dzemakuseni. In my dreams I am someplace far away. I’ve been to America, South Africa, the moon, away from this house of hunger. Each night, I lay my head on the pillow and shut my eyes. For a few hours everything is alright again. Then I wake up, full bladder, stomach aching, Mama snoring on the bed and little Chiwoniso tossing and turning beside her.

A mosquito bites my arm. I let it feed for a moment, then squash it. I lie on my mat on the floor, looking at the moon peering through the torn curtain in the one window of our one room in Mbare. I get up, creep outside to the bathroom and bath. The cold water in the bucket winds me, but I grit my chattering teeth and endure, lathering myself in the sweet scent of Lifebuoy.

I’m starving. The guava tree’s not yet ripe. If the sales were good yesterday, Mama might give me a packet of maputi for breakfast. Otherwise, I’ll have to make do. I go back to our room, wake Mama and Chiwoniso. They bath while I ready our goods in sacks and load up the wheelbarrow.

My little sister’s twelve and goes to school. She’s really good at it. If she passes, we want her to go to university and become a doctor. Then we’ll get a house in the suburbs – no more sharing one room. That’s why me and Mama work so hard for her fees. There’s half a loaf in our room, but it’s for Chiwoniso to eat before she goes to school.

Mama and I set off early on Simon Mazorodze. Ndoenda kumusika/  the life of a vendor. I push the wheelbarrow, Mama carries a sack of rape on her head. Cars and buses pass us by. It’s six Ks to the city centre. My tummy rumbles. Mama’s singing some gospel song. I pick up the chorus, my broken voice intertwines with her voice above the hum of the early morning traffic.

We get to town, set up our stall on the side of the pavement under the shops’ awning. Mama’s selling rape and tomatoes/ tomatoes and rape. The pavements are lined with other women, women, who’ve become Mama’s friends. They chat and they laugh. Their stalls are full of colour, the browns of mazhanje, the greens of muriwo, the reds of madomasi, the yellows of mapopo, and every other colour on our flag. I take my tray of cigarettes and mints to sell at the kombi rank. Before I go, she grabs my shoulder, licks her thumb and removes mabori from the corners of my eyes.

Be good, she says.

I skip my way through the streets, as the city starts up. I go past the Indian shops, the electronic shops, the cafes, the hardware stores. I stop to sell a man a stick of Madison and take his bearer with its many zeroes. My first sale.

I meet Dzikamai, who sells, toothpicks and floor polish and we chum up to the rank. The cold morning air blows up my shorts. I jog to keep warm. I sell cancer. I sell tooth decay. I sell. I sell. I sell.

The morning whirls by as I weave between the kombis. I swear at hwindis. I see men in office clothes, children in colourful blazers on their way to posh schools, the mass of the unemployed milling about.

Then I see them, men in blue and grey fatigues, black boots on their feet. They are a tornado blowing through the street. The tall, light one at the front is their captain. He smashes tomatoes/ uses the baton stick for avocados/ all he knows is how to break coz he breaks for the laws sake. Vendors grab what they can save of their wares and flee. The police say we’re not registered, we have no licence. Do I need a licence to live/ is life theirs to give?

I remember Mama and run back to her. But the tsunami is right behind me. My heart is pounding through my ribcage. The women panic. They shout and scream. Babies on their backs cry out. They smash tomatoes, crush avocados/ destroy the table, destroy what’s illegal.

I’m helping Mama load up the wheelbarrow when he appears in front of us. The forces of good/ those who wage war on food. He raises his baton stick. The others are running. Across the road, citizens watch helplessly.

Mwanangu, usandidero. Ndapota, says Mama.

The baton stick comes down on her out stretched arm. I hear a bone crack. Something inside of me snaps. And then I’m kicking, and I’m biting, and I’m screaming, and I’m fighting, and I’m falling, and I’m drowning. Mama and I are under a sea of black boots and baton sticks. She covers me, using her own body as a shield.

Then I hear a roar, the vendors throw fruit like stones, the women from across the road advance, then the men follow. And they come in a mob, a whirlwind, and throw themselves at the police. The city comes alight with voices shouting, enough, zvakwana. The police scatter for we are many. The men hold me aloft. They raise me up into the sky.

And then we are marching, a hundred of us, a thousand, ten thousand. We sweep through the city. Bullets and tear gas and baton sticks can’t stop us anymore. The men and women chant, chingwa nemaruva/ bread and roses. We march to break down the doors of parliament and bring down the gates of the state house.

Watch the Live Performance that inspired Tendai Huchu’s lovely story. 

***

Tendai Huchu is the author of The Hairdresser of Harare. His short fiction and nonfiction has appeared in Wasafiri, The Africa Report, The Zimbabwean, The Open Road Review, Kwani?05, A View from Here and numerous other publications. He is currently working on his next novel, The Maestro, The Magistrate, & The Mathematician.

Synopsis: Living with an abusive father is unbearable and sometimes the only way to cope is to wish for his death. But as the character in this heartbreaking story finds, there are some injustices that death cannot undo. 

I cannot remember how big the cupboard in our kitchen was but I can remember that when we were kids, we used to throw open the cupboard and hide in it. It was long time ago. There were other places we used to hide in when papa would start his raving shouts, pacing round the whole house, and destroying everything that stood his way.

Papa was a slim man, tall, and haggard looking. His head was bald, which made him look more of a politician than a lawyer. He had long fingers affixed to broad hands. He was educated and could speak good English more than so many lawyers that visited our house. There were times we thought he was going mad. When he came back late at nights and driving recklessly into the nights would enter the quarters and demand for his food.

His shouts were always so loud that other magistrates and judges living in their different flats knew what was happening in our house at all times. He would beat mother so much till we became scared. We would watch from afar till he scowled at us. It was when we lived at the Magistrate Quarters and papa was the youngest magistrate in Ebonyi State. We were very young, my sister, Nneoma and I.

Papa would beat you for failing exams. If you passed, he would say that other kids passed too and that you had the same brain with all of the other kids that passed.

He would beat mother for asking questions like—why he came back late? Where he had been all day? And who he was carrying in his car?

If we were running around the quarters with other kids, he would come back and chase them away. One day, we were playing, papa came back and met mother inside the sitting room doing her hair. It had just stopped raining and he had asked the kids playing with us to leave. He started shouting and mother shouted back as usual. We rushed into the house and watched.

He hit mother with his fists and she bit him and ransacked his long face with her nails. He kicked her belly hit her head on the wall. She fainted. When mother slumped, I swooped on papa, and grabbed the black suit he loved so much. My elder sister, Nneoma joined in the fight. He threw us off even before we could scratch.

That day, when mother returned from the clinic and had lost a baby and Aunty Bennie made jollof rice. He knelt down in the sitting room and apologized to all of us. That night, I had a dream, but when I awoke, I forgot all of it.

The next day, papa left very early and did not return till four days later when Aunty Bennie came to the house on a hot afternoon and mother sped off with her in her new Toyota car. We wondered what might be the problem. The question topmost my mind was if father had died. But Nneoma said perhaps he was with another woman.

We awaited their return till an hour later. Mother went to her room and began crying. She locked herself and ignored all our knocks. In the evening, she came out of her room and handed a black nylon to Nneoma. I watched her swollen eyes and her puffy red face. She said;

‘Biko, please, burn this rubbish. Ensure your hands do not touch the contents. They are dirty. Who knows if she baths at all?’ Nneoma took the nylon and went to the backyard. I followed hastily like a dog ready to pounce on an intruder. I was as tense as she was.

‘What’s in there?’ she asked. I shrugged. We walked further down the backyard where Pride of Barbados lined in queues. She slowly opened the nylon and the contents fell on the red soil. The contents surprised us a lot. It was like the first time both of us caught Samuel, our driver, in bed with Eunice, my daddy’s sister. The lingerie was white and the brazier was white too. They looked neat but we could not stop believing that they were dirty.

‘What is this?’ Nneoma asked. She was staring at me. Her large face that resembled mother’s own showed surprise. I shrugged.

‘Perhaps mother caught papa with a girl and took her underwear,’ I said. Breeze rushed out from the trees and wanted to capture us into its embrace. The leaves fell on our hairs and to the soil.

‘Let’s ask Aunty Bennie when she shows up,’ she said. I nodded. I walked into the kitchen and came back with a dirty gallon of kerosene and matches. We set the underwear ablaze. The smokes were in columns, moving up to the sky like the incense that emanates from the censer during holy mass. Birds hovered and watched the smoke. Breeze came and the fire glowed. I felt my pants itch and imagined the ones burning to be mine. We used a stick to turn the materials, adding more kerosene occasionally till they were ashes. Silently, we walked into the house and watching the television in silence.

When Aunty Bennie came, she inquired about mother and we said she was in her room. We pleaded with her to tell us all that happened. She did.

‘A friend of mine stays at the University lodge, and your father has a girlfriend there…” she said, ‘She phoned to tell me that your father had come to see his girlfriend….’

We sat on a long sofa, very close to her. ‘Your mother had instructed me to pay my friend so that she would always give us information. So when she did, I came to alert your mother.’

‘We drove to the hostel and my friend pointed at the stupid girl’s room. Before I could hold your mother, she entered the room. My dear, it was a sight. Come see! Hmn, your father wore… the girl was covered with only a piece of wrapper. They startled when they saw us.’

‘She came to her feet and wanted to challenge your mother when your mother hit her with the pestle she was carrying. Your mother was shouting. Husband snatcher! Woooo! Wooooo!’ Aunty Bennie made the noise placing her right palm on her mouth to mimic mother. We laughed aloud.

‘All the people in the lodge came out to watch as your mother dragged the girl outside. Your father did not say anything. He did not even come outside. Your mother cajoled her and went inside the room and took her underwear which was on the ground by the side of the mattress. People were laughing,’ Aunty Bennie narrated.

We laughed uncontrollably and told her that we had burnt the underwear. She said the girl was pleading with mother when she was taking away the cloths. She said the girl’s lodge mates were cajoling and calling her names. We called mother a lion and I wondered how the girl would be feeling each time she remembered her cloths mother left with. She would think that mother would use them for sorcery. ‘If ever the girl has problem in life, she would think it’s from mama,’ I said.

Mother came out of her room and they began to discuss what they would do to the girl if they found her with papa again. They would use her buttocks to weave baskets, they had said. It was then that papa came back and began to yell. Mother had rushed to her room when his car drove in and locked her door.

Papa came in and ignored our greetings. He rushed to mother’s room and after hitting at the door for some time, yelling like thunder and cursing, he came back to the sitting room.

‘You, what are you doing in my house?’ he had asked Aunty Bennie. Before she could reply, he slapped her and pushed her out of our house. We watched, ready to run if he turned on us.

‘Do not show your ugly face in my house again! Never! You are evil, a witch, that is why you have not gotten married!’ We could hear Aunty Bennie’s sobs.

When he had locked the gate himself and got back to the house, we ran to our room and locked the door. He continued his screams. ‘You won’t run forever,’ he was telling all of us.

Some years after the incidence, papa’s mistress came to apologize to mother with her pastor. Mother said everything was fine. One day, mother asked me to follow her. She drove recklessly to a hotel at the express road. I was holding a big pestle. She ran to papa’s car and I followed. We were almost at the car when we saw papa emerging from the reception area with a fair girl.

The girl looked so beautiful. I held the pestle so tight and my eyes met for a split second with that of papa. He was in a trance, before he could utter a word mother swooped on the girl and tore her clothes and they began to fight. Papa ran back to the hotel. I stood beside papa’s car, watching. It all happened so fast. The girl began to run holding her torn clothes together. One of her breasts jumped out and she cupped it with her palms.

Mother made to chase her but turned back, ‘Give me that pestle!’ she shouted, fearfully I gave it to her, and she began to hit it at papa’s car. People watched.

Mother ignored my pleadings for her to stop. She hit the pestle everywhere. She hit it at the two windscreens and at the lights. Then at the sides and at the top. People were shouting at her to stop. The hotel security men came and held her. She got hold of herself and wiggled away from them. ‘Husband snatcher! I shall continue to fight all of you!’ she was shouting.

I could not tell my sister what happened till late at night when I woke her from sleep and narrated the incident to her. She sighed and went back to sleep. In the morning, my sister, Nneoma did not ask me to tell her the story again so that she could laugh as before, she just did not greet mother. I was surprised. In the afternoon when I asked her why she was being hostile to mother, she said mother should not have gone out to fight. That she was insulting herself.

That afternoon, mother came back from work and had barely removed her cloth when papa came in. He was angry, ‘Where is your mother?’ None of us answered. My younger siblings ran to their rooms. They were always afraid of papa. He walked very fast to mother’s room and we followed at a distance. It was a hot afternoon. He threw the door open and pounced on mother. We heard mother shouting. He locked the door.

For about fifteen minutes we could still hear the sounds of the beaten. And we could still hear the shouts from mother. Nneoma walked out of the house. I lurked around and when the beatings and the shouts ceased. I went to the door to eavesdrop. I had eavesdropped for almost a minute and heard nothing save sobs from mother. Then something happened. As my ears were placed on the keyhole, the door suddenly threw open and I fell into mother’s room.

Papa grabbed my neck and pushed me out. I fell to the ground. Then he turned and locked mother inside the room with the key and pounced on me. I could not believe it. He kicked my head, my belly, and my back. When I thought the beating was over. He undid his belt and used the leather to flog me. Mother was hitting at the door, but it was too strong to be broken.

Before papa died, as we had always prayed that he should. He was the talk of the town. Mother had once delivered and he came to see her. He left the hospital because the baby was a girl. The nurses gossiped and mother felt so bad. When she was discharged, she knelt down at the sitting room asking papa to carry the baby. We knelt down too. Then he did.

Papa said he needed a baby boy. He said that if it were to be during the olden days he would have sold all of us out to slavery and would use the proceeds to buy cows in return. He was serious.  When Papa died, I nearly thanked God. After the burial, our house was calm, and my siblings did not have to run into the room when cars drove in. I was in the university when he died. After the burial, mother feared not of beatings and of diseases and insults. But she became afraid of one thing. All of us too.

When Papa was alive we could afford everything we wanted. After his death we vacated the quarters and since papa built no house in the city, we relocated to a flat. Mama was a secondary school teacher and things changed. Papa had used all the money he had to change women just like he changed his clothing. As years passed on, we began to feel the gap created by papa’s death. We all began to wear okirika cloths. Mother began to miss papa so much. When there were parties in high places and she was not invited, she would say that it was because her husband was dead.

One day I asked mother if she would want papa to live again, she hesitated before saying, yes. Another day, I asked if she had ever wished papa to die when he was alive. She said nothing.

Now, as I watch this punching bag which we use to learn boxing, these memories torments my mind. I wish I never prayed for papa to die and I wish he did not die. If papa was alive, I would never have come to learn boxing. Papa wanted a male child, but it drove him to his death. He was shot by the same girl whose underwear mother had burnt several years earlier. Mother never used her clothes for witchcrafts but fate played an expensive trick on all of us. She was barren when she got married. She murdered papa to get back at mother. Thinking that mother caused her barrenness.

We found this out from the girl’s girlfriend, who confessed to mother. Mother wanted to tell the police but Nneoma was not in support of that. She said; ‘Our family has had enough insulting publicity already.’

I cannot stop blaming myself for papa’s death.  Nneoma withdrew to herself. Perhaps she had prayed for papa to die too. It’s funny how the world turns around and events juxtapose themselves. My friend prescribed boxing as therapy because I still have the fears that one day papa would show up and beat up mother. I wonder if we would hide in the cupboard afraid of seeing his ghost.

***

 The image in the post is part of a “photo essay” showing the lives of Nigeriens. See more of Joe Penny’s work HERE via African Digital Arts. 

Obinna Udenwe is a prize winning Nigerian writer. His works have appeared in the Kalahari Review, Tribe-write, Flair Magazine, Kadunaboy and in Literary & Travel Magazine. His debut novel, Satans and Shaitans, is set for release in October. When he is not travelling all over the world, he shares his time between Abakaliki and Enugu.

Icarus to Icari

the dead in us

fly with Daedalus

the living I

has caught the sky

between my wings

the zephyr sings

Icarus, icari

the dead in us

fly with Daedalus

we dwell in dreams

high on passing

gusts of emotions

our wings fall apart

at the seams

Icarus or Icari

The dead in us

Fly with Daedalus

I am the sky

I am the sun

No soul brighter than me

sink into the sea

I am the one.

 ***

The stunning image in the post is part of a digital project on African migration created by Prisco III via African Digital Art. See more images HERE. 

Gloria Kiconco was born in Rukungiri, Uganda in 1990 and moved to the United States in 1996. She returned to Uganda at her family’s behest in 2008 and completed a degree in Mass Communication at Uganda Christian University.

During her time at UCU she was an active poet and performer at the university, in Kampala’s local poetry scene and even in Nairobi where she performed slam poetry at a few local venues.

Gloria is passionate about all forms of writing, performing slam poetry, and reading. You can find more of her work on her blog rhymesbythereams.wordpress.com

Pub. Date: Jan 7, 2014. Penguin. 319 pp. Download HERE. 

In a 1986 interview, the Zimbabwean novelist, Dambudzo Marachera, speaks of a strange artistic sensibility. He speaks of how the will to write often takes him to “a region where a ghost has rights.” In the same interview, he confesses to having a bizarre fascination with history. “For me, as it was for James Joyce,” he says, “history is simply a nightmare from which I am trying to wake up.” As luck would have it, one of the two epigraphs in the opening pages of The Secret History of Las Vegas is Joyce’s quote: “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to wake.”

It  seems me that in this endlessly entertaining novel Chris Abani connects the dots between Marachera’s enigmatic statement about writing and Joyce’s  equally strange idea of history.  In Abani’s novel, it is possible to wake up from the nightmare of history. In fact, the labor of the novelist consists in inducing such an awakening. It’s just that one awakens, not to a “perpetual present” where the nightmare of the past is forgotten but to “a region where a ghost has rights,”—or, rather, a world where the past not only haunts the present but also has the right to address the future.

The Secret History of Las Vegas is an unsettling exploration into those violent and catastrophic moments that punctuate our sense of history as the story of human progress. It tells the story of Sunil Singh, a half Sikh, half Zulu South African psychiatrist who comes to Vegas, desperate to forget his involvement in the torture and death of many during the apartheid regime. In Vegas, Sunil is still plying the old trade. But this time, he conducts experiments on apes as part of a research project funded by the US military—to produce a serum that can manipulate psychopathic behaviors in humans. One day, he receives a call from Detective Salazar who is investigating a fresh case of dead bodies of homeless men found in dumps. While Salazar is trying to figure out whether these bodies are connected to a similar incident two years before, he finds a pair of conjoined twins in the vicinity of the body dump. Hoping that they are the serial killers he’s been looking for, Salazar asks Sunil to evaluate the deformed twin for psychopathic behavior. Sunil, Salazar, and the conjoined twin—named Fire and Water—become intertwined in a convoluted skein of stories bearing out the link between history, violence, and secrecy.

Abani’s novel has all the titillating elements that make crime fiction captivating—murders, prostitution, torture, forbidden love, government conspiracies, and so on. These elements are blended with an artistic sleight of hand that only a seasoned literary craftsman can muster (Secret History is Abani’s 4^th novel).  But what makes Abani’s novel so intensely gripping yet conceptually layered is the underlying metaphor of secrets. In Abani’s expert hands, the crime-fiction plot, driven by the secrecy of a violent crime, becomes a conceit for history itself.

As Sunil observes, “even in revelation,” Las Vegas is “obscured.” It’s “brightness was its own kind of night.” The cities we love the most are often those that, like Las Vegas, cast over our eyes a magical veil made of bright lights and big dreams. How do we get to the heart of a such a dissembling city? How do we unveil the darkness behind all that light? Abani’s novel offers us a way. It says to chase those nearly forgotten stories about the past that have become little more than “a confounding mix of hoaxes and urban legends”—stories about underground nuclear testing causing birth deformities, stories about desert ghost towns populated by this deformed humanity, stories about human bodies tortured and discarded in shallow graves during South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Abani’s novel seems to suggest that a true study of history—something that only the novelist can do— is divination. The truth about history does not reside in the hard, clear facts. These so-called outlandish narratives about the past of a city—every city has them—are divinatory beads on which we can “read the mind of the landscape, uncover its intentions and motives, and recalibrates is secret histories.” Abani’s novel is simultaneously a heart-pounding thriller and a brilliant thesis on history.

Last year, the South African science fiction writer, Lauren Beukes, challenged what we thought we knew about serial killers and crime fiction. But most of all, she challenged our assumptions about what constitutes an African novel. Shinning Girls is set in Chicago and features American characters. Of course, the novel has Africa written all over it. Try explaining the House, and you’ll see what I mean. Why do you think the unresolved mystery of the House caused western book critics so much grief?

The official synopsis for her next novel titled, Broken Monsters, is out. The story, set in Detroit, features human and animal bodies dissected and reassembled into monstrous shapes. If you’ve read novels by the Nigerian fantasist, Amos Tutuola, you’d see why Beukes is his bona fide literary daughter.

(c) Casey Crafford

A criminal mastermind creates violent tableaus in abandoned Detroit warehouses in Lauren Beukes’s new genre-bending novel of suspense.

Detective Gabriella Versado has seen a lot of bodies. But this one is unique even by Detroit’s standards: half boy, half deer, somehow fused together. As stranger and more disturbing bodies are discovered, how can the city hold on to a reality that is already tearing at its seams?

If you’re Detective Versado’s geeky teenage daughter, Layla, you commence a dangerous flirtation with a potential predator online. If you’re desperate freelance journalist Jonno, you do whatever it takes to get the exclusive on a horrific story. If you’re Thomas Keen, known on the street as TK, you’ll do what you can to keep your homeless family safe—and find the monster who is possessed by the dream of violently remaking the world.

If Lauren Beukes’s internationally bestselling The Shining Girls was a time-jumping thrill ride through the past, herBroken Monsters is a genre-redefining thriller about broken cities, broken dreams, and broken people trying to put themselves back together again.

Image of author via BooksLive

Hauwa and Buba’s love is as beautiful as it is forbidden. From the savage winters of New York to the sweltering heat of Kaduna, their passionate regard for each other stood the test of time. But they must come to terms with the truth: their love is doomed. The tiny sliver of hope that their love story could end happily hangs on a choice that only Hauwa can make. A love story with so much tenderness.  — Editor’s Note.

The day the call finally comes is a day like any other. I am reading aloud to Buba, just the way he likes. It is one of his favorite books too—Adam Bede by George Eliot. His feet are on my lap as he drinks from the glass of wine I poured him a while ago. Life is too good to be true so to remind ourselves of how it really isn’t. We read a book that holds more sorrow than any book should.

Buba’s phone starts to ring just as I turn the page to the beginning of Hetty’s trial and my heart skips a beat. If I were a braver woman, I would throw into a well the phone and every other thing that could intrude into this dream we are living.

‘Saanu Baba!’ Buba answers.

It is the call we have been holding our breaths for these past few weeks, and I can already tell its outcome from the way my lover’s eyes fall.

Where is he, his father wants to know. Does he realize the mess he has made out of things? Was it fair that he was holed up with another woman while his wife has seen none of him in weeks now? What kind of shame was he trying to bring on the family? All because of some gold digger?

‘Baba, Hauwa is not a gold digger. If you let me explain…’ Buba begins. ‘Baba, Baba, are you there?’

I know from the silence that follows that his father has cut short the conversation.

‘Shit!!’ Buba swears; the word, a relic from our days in New York.  ‘Darling, I am sorry you had to hear that.’

I shake my head to show him it is alright.

‘I should see about dinner.’ I say putting Hetty and her sorrows aside.

‘Come here.’ He says, his hands outstretched and I go because food is the last thing on my mind anyway.

He takes me in his arms and nibbles my ears. He starts to move and I follow his lead. He is as graceful as a cheetah and it takes everything not to cry.

‘You realize there is no music playing.’ I say.

‘There isn’t?’ He answers with mock surprise. I start to laugh and he buries his face in the crook of my neck.

‘We knew he was not going to be happy.’

‘Yes,’

‘He will never forgive me.’

‘He will.’

‘I want to be with you Hauwa.’

‘And I, with you.’

‘It is you that I have always loved. It is you that I will always love.’

‘I know.’ I say. ‘I know.’

The few times people have asked, we told them we met when we were fifteen. Our mothers disagree and tell us we met a long time before that as toddlers. I have no recollection of our mothers’ tale and neither does Buba so we stick with what we know.

It was 2001 and I had just finished my WAEC exams. As a treat and reward for all my hard work, my mother decided to take me on her yearly trip to Dubai. The treat turned out to be a chore as all I did was trail behind her as she shopped for all of Kaduna and then some. It was on one of these shopping expeditions that we ran into Buba and his mother. One minute I was grumbling about how horrible Dubai was and the next, I was staring into the brown eyes of the most beautiful boy I had ever seen.

‘Hajiya Bature!’

‘Hajiya Dogo! What a surprise! How are you? It has been so long. Is that Buba? Oh my goodness, look how handsome he is. This is Hauwa. Buba, don’t you remember her? She took away your sweets at your 3rd birthday party and you cried and cried.’

I groaned as my mother attempted to embarrass me with tales of a forgotten childhood. Buba just smiled, taking it all in his stride, his eyes never leaving my face. Maybe it was the tiresomeness of our mothers. Maybe it was the heat of Dubai or the lonesomeness of being away from home. Maybe it was all of this or maybe it was fate. All I know is for the rest of the trip, I and Buba were inseparable.

We never talked about how we felt. Even as teenagers we knew better. We were from different worlds; Buba’s father was Kaduna’s most prominent politician, a kingmaker of sorts.  My father did well for himself with his medical practice but we were not cut from the same cloth as Buba’s family. It was the 21st century yet Northern Nigeria was still firmly in the grip of a caste system that no one wanted to acknowledge.

But we were in Dubai for the time being and Kaduna was a million miles away. Our mothers went about their shopping and we went about falling in love. We talked about everything else during that trip—books, movies, Kaduna, our dreams, and even religion, but never about the way his eyes lit up when they saw me or the way butterflies I never knew resided in my belly danced when he held my hand. In the afternoons, we shared opinions on everything under the shade of the hotel lobby. In the evenings, when the sun had relented on its assault, we walked the streets of Deira hand in hand. He kept buying me things I did not know I needed. Leather sandals for my feet to replace the sneakers I had brought along with me from Kaduna. A gold veil because it went well with the shade of my skin. Sands from the desert for luck.

Back in Kaduna, our friendship took on a different flavor. We still couldn’t bear to be apart but now we were surrounded by our families and people who knew us so that when we walked the streets of Malali, we did so without holding hands and when we dreamed, it was with less hope.

My mother made meaningful noises every time I told her I was going out with Buba, but I was her only daughter and she had never really learned how to refuse me. I don’t know what his mother said to him, but she was always kind whenever I visited.

Time passed slowly as it always does when one is young and in a hurry to grow up. Buba got into Cornell, and I somehow convinced my Baba that Columbia was a good place to begin my journey to medical school. For the next four years, it was like Dubai all over again except for the cold winter semesters. I and Buba spent every free weekend together. Sometimes we settled for finding treasure in the gorges of Ithaca, and other times we sought them in the flea markets of Brooklyn.

I dated a couple of guys, all of whom Buba disapproved of. For his own part, I knew he dated a few girls here and there but he never spoke to me about them. It was almost as if he was afraid to tell me. My roommate would joke that I and Buba were in a twisted kind of open relationship. Buba never laughed when she said that, so I laughed loud enough for both of us.

He graduated a few years earlier than I did and went back to Kaduna. We continued to speak every day, and he visited as often as he could. To check up on me, he said, and my roommate once again mumbled something about how we had now evolved into a ‘twisted long distance open relationship’.

I was in my fourth year of medical school when he showed up with no warning.

‘Dude! How can you come all the way from KD and not tell me you were coming?’ I said, reaching out to hug him.

‘I wanted to surprise you.’ He said.

‘Well I am surprised. Yaya kike? How’s everyone? Mama?’ I asked, reaching out to hug him.

‘I had a fight with Baba. He wants me to get married, Hauwa.’

I called in sick and we spent the rest of the day watching Grey’s Anatomy and drinking wine.

‘So I get why I am sad, but what I don’t get is why you are sad?’ He said to me after the 6th or 7th episode we had seen. Maybe he was drunk and that made him brave enough to go to a place we had never before dared. But courage for love takes two, and I had none. I said nothing, handed him another glass of white wine, and he married Laraba two months later.

I threatened my mother that I would elope if she even attempted to mention the tiniest detail of the wedding over the phone.  My roommate stopped mumbling and made me chicken soup a couple of times because it was a family recipe guaranteed to cure heartbreak. I asked her how many heartbreaks there had been in her family. She shrugged and said ‘Plenty enough.’  I laughed and then cried while she held me.

Buba called a few times after the wedding but I couldn’t bring myself to answer and sound cheery so I emailed to say school was keeping me busy instead.

I passed my final exams and moved back to Kaduna to join my father in his practice. I met Abdul soon after and tried my best to ignore the way everything in the city was a gentle reminder of Buba.

One Thursday in late August, eight months after his wedding, I ran into Buba at Ramat.

‘Hauwa! You are in town?’

‘Hey Buba.’ I answered as cooly as I could manage.

‘Since when do you come into town and don’t tell me?’

‘Since you got married?’ I said trying not to sound bitter but failing.

His eyes darkened. He paid for the things I had come to buy at Kaduna’s excuse for a mall and pulled me into his car. We said nothing for a while and then he started to speak.

‘I really thought I wanted to do the whole politics thing but the more time I spend with these people, the more confused I am. Sometimes I can’t even tell if I ever wanted it or if it was just  about not failing Baba. I married a woman I do not love because I did not want to fail him. I am building a career that feels like a fraud because I am afraid to fail him. I feel like a fraud every time I tell Laraba that I love her. I feel like a fraud when I shake hands with people making promises I might never be able to keep…’

‘But I love Kaduna and I tell myself that maybe if I work hard at it, I can heal this place and get back the KD we grew up in. A place where Christians and Muslims can roam the streets free, brothers instead of enemies.  A place where young boys are in school and not on the streets as Almajiris. A place where… ‘

‘I love you, and it doesn’t feel like a fraud.’ I cut in.

It had been a long week, and I was tired. It had started out with my mother calling me to remind me of how at 28, my eggs were facing extinction and needed fertilizing. The sun had not let up all week, beating down on man and animal alike, determined to make us pay for the sins we had committed with the rains of the previous week. Abdul was demanding commitment amongst other things that I couldn’t give. These and other mundane things were what I chose to blame for the thing that came out of my mouth. It came out and I couldn’t take it back. I didn’t want to take it back.

It has been 2 weeks since and Buba has practically moved in with me. He goes to work, avoids his father and comes straight home to me. It is everything I dreamed and more. I called my mother and told her. She cried, calling me a fool and then recovered fast enough to ask me about wedding plans.  Buba called his mother and she said ‘Allah ya isa! Now, what do we do about your father?’

Buba tells me we have two options—he can divorce Laraba, marry me, lose both the elections and his father or he can stay married to Laraba, most likely win the elections and patch things up with the old man. There is a third option neither of us have ventured to speak about but late at night, when Buba is snoring softly. I have wondered if it will be so bad to be a second wife.

‘You are the woman I love and that is all that matters.’ He says, bringing me back to the present. His words are a perfect accompaniment to music that only we can hear.

‘We can make this work, Hauwa,’ He adds, almost pleadingly.

‘And Laraba? Baba? Your dreams for Kaduna? You would give up all of that for me?’ I ask as we continue to dance.

There is no hesitation in the ‘Yes’ that answers my question and that is how I know whose decision this really is. It isn’t Buba’s. It has been mine all along.

‘I will go pack your things.’ I tell him.

He wants to speak, but I stop him with a kiss. There is nothing to say so we dance instead. And when that dance stops, we take off our clothes and start another .

‘It was always you, Hauwa, and it always will be.’ Buba says to me as I walk him to the car where Mahmood, his driver waits with eyes averted from the sadness that is our love. Buba takes my hand, kisses it and is gone.

‘Goodbye Maigida.’ I whisper to the emptiness that he forgot to take with him.

It takes a few months but my mother gets her wedding date. She tells me I will grow to love Abdul. He is a good man and loves me. Thrice now, she has caught me staring into the distance as we haggle with cloth traders over the price of this wedding lace and that engagement Ankara. She comforts me by telling me that so what if Buba was first, what matters in marriage is who I let be last and who lasts. Maybe she is right. Maybe if enough time passes, I will even be happy.

For now, I wait till it is dark, till there is no one here to see, till it is just me and the memory of he who was first; before finding courage to love, courage to dance, to music only I can hear.

***

 Post image via Kachi Designs, a Houston based fashion designer. Check out more of Kachi’s pieces HERE. 

Kiah is a huge fan of short stories and ‘Music Only We Hear’ is one of the few stories of more than 2000 words that she has tried her hands on. She currently lives in the New York area but grew up in Lagos. When she is not writing, you will find her cooking or being mischievous, with the later being more often. You can read more of her short stories here.

 Adunni has got to be the most miserable Abiku out there. From the moment she’s born into the Lamorin family, it’s be an unending string of disasters. But After Adunni’s destruction spree from last week, Mother Earth decides to take things into her hand. She’s convened a meeting by the River of Tears. Everyone—Adunni’s earthly family, her playmates, and other spirit beings—have gathered to figure out what went wrong. The best part is that the arch-enemies—Adunni and Asake—meet again. Enjoy! 

Ebora must have used àféèrí, for we appeared, within the twinkling of an eye, in a blindingly white space. The thunderous noise of a waterfall met my ears as I reoriented myself.

As the gentle giant let go of my hand, I looked around and noted that we must be on a cumulus, one of those spaces where the skies and the earth met.

The waterfall must be the famed one fed by the River of Tears, the river itself fed by the tears human beings have shed through the centuries.

I heard the water was sweeter and headier than wine.

I was distracted from my contemplations by the arrival of others.

Off to my right were Chimeka, Bala and Asake (who was wearing a self-satisfied smile).

Seated on the waterfall was Mother Earth. She had chosen to appear in her human form, that of a tall, thick set, middle-aged woman. Her skin was the rich brown of a fertile soil. Her face was round and set off by high cheekbones that gave her eyes an Asian slant. Her hair was worn in long dada locks that flowed past her shoulders thickly and joined with the movement of the waters.

On her right hand-side was her most trusted servant, Ojola, whose outsized human head perched atop his snake body at a funny angle. Time was there too, a shriveled up old woman, whose eyes shone with mischief. The corners of her mouth were lifted with amusement.

Gbonka, father, mother (clutching the baby as if her life depended on it) and the two grandmothers were huddled together in a group off to my left.

“Thank you all for responding to my summons,” Mother Earth said. Her voice was soft and had a smoky tinge to it. I bet that voice tastes like coffee laced with Irish Cream.

I sniggered at her choice of words. Like one of us could have said ‘nah, I don’t want to be in your silly meeting,’ like we hadn’t been compelled!

“Enough of that Adunni! Your thoughts are darkening this space. Kindly control yourself,” Ojola ordered. Contrary to Ojola’s scary build, his voice was actually small, almost childlike, every syllable ending with a  squeak.

What was he going to do? Swallow me? Eish!

Mother Earth sighed and continued talking, “Kindly sit down. We are all friends here. We are still waiting for two more beings, and then this meeting can start.”

I felt the edge of a cushion on the back of my legs and was forced to sit down, even though I didn’t have to. Spirit beings never tired. Having us sit was meant to put the humans at ease.

“Excuse me please,” Ruth Lamorin said after a while, “may I be so bold as to ask where we are, who we are talking to and how we may address this … umm …” She looked around, “assembly.”

“Oh I’m so sorry, please can you all kindly introduce yourselves?” Mother Earth bared her teeth at Ruth in the parody of a smile. Ruth must have managed to offend her.

The gods are so easily offended, I surmised.

“I’m Asiko, also known as Time. I’m here as an independent observer,” Time said as she morphed into a middle aged woman, mimicking Ruth’s slight body.

“I am Ojola Iberu,” Ojola said rattling his tail to emphasize his fierceness.

“Asake. I am one of Adunni’s playmates,” Madam Judas said.

In quick succession Bala and Chimeka introduced themselves.

“I am Adunni. I am Abiku, the creator and possessor of the child in Labake’s arms. I am also bemused.”

“Please Adunni, don’t start now,” Ojola squeaked.

“I am Ruth Lamorin,” Ruth rose up to introduce herself but Mother Earth waved her back to her seat.

“It is alright, everybody here knows who you and your people are. There’s no need for introductions. Concerning where we are. This the point where the physical realm meets the spiritual, agbede meji orun oun aiye, and I am Ile, the Earth Mother,” Mother Earth tilted her head towards Ruth.

“She’s the very ground you walk on,” Ojola squeaked, “she’s the Mother All, provider of all you will ever need. From her you take your sustenance and to her you return. She is everything you’ll ever need.”

I rolled my eyes, really? What about Eleduwa the Supreme One? What about Orun the skies on which we are presently standing,  the controller of all the elements?

“Adunni, you shall conduct yourself with the gravity a being of your age and powers is expected to. Kindly stop darkening up this space.” Ojola said.

Ojola and the Abikus have never gotten along. Our penchant for gathering beautiful things around us disqualified him from our circle of friends. He is truly ugly. I wondered what Eleduwa was thinking when he made such an eyesore.

What’s the point to ugliness? As far as I’m concerned all ugly beings should not be. I know the gods go on about how inner beauty and purpose should determine the worth of a person and not their outer look, but the gods might as well gather the uglies into a special space and nurture them by themselves. Give me beauty, something nigh to perfection or give me nothing.

Like lightning Ojola slithered down the waterfalls and wrapped himself around me.

“I am not Ugly. You are the ugly one with your dying and waking like a cock, with your meanness, your awful treatment of human beings and any other form of life you believe is beneath you. Your arrogance makes you ugly!” His forked tongue flashed in and out of his mouth like greased lightning.

“Your eyes are pretty though.” I gasped.

“Bitch!” he squeaked nearly bursting my eardrums.

“Ojola! Adunni! Kindly control yourselves!” Mother Earth rapped out.

I shivered in revulsion as he slid off my body and slithered slowly back to its master.

“Not only are you ugly, Ojola, you also smell!” I yelled after him. I know I am being childish but, well, aren’t all Abikus? Aren’t we supposed to be petulant? To be perpetually child like in our happiness and anger, well, I am all these things.

I was trying to regain my composure when Elegbara flew in.

“You are late, Elegbara,” Mother Earth said.

“You were expecting me to be early? And have all of you miss this dramatic entrance?” Elegbara replied with a smile and kicked the man at her feet in the butt.

She dragged the cowering Edward towards the rest of his family.

“There’s no need for this!” Ojola, our self-appointed class prefect squeaked at Elegbara. “In this space, there’s no master, no vanquished, we are all equals.”

“Well if you had seen the disrespect he and his ‘prayer warriors’ showed me when I was trying to bring him here, you won’t be talking like this.” Elegbara said. “And if we are all equals, tell me why your mistress is seated on a waterfall, hair dramatically flowing in water. Queen of all she beholds.” She added.

Mother Earth ignored the jibe and turned to Edward, who was still curled into a fetal position at the spot where Elegbara had dropped him.

“Please rise up Isola Lamorin. We are all friends here. You don’t have to be scared. You may join your family.” Mother Earth materialised beside Edward and helped him up. Head still bent, Edward found a cushion as far away as possible from other members of his family and sat with his back towards them.

“Now that everybody is here, we will start the proceedings, and I think Adunni should be allowed to talk first.” Mother Earth said.

The cushion underneath me morphed into a hard wooden chair with a straight back. “I’m sorry but I have nothing to say. I still have no idea why I’m presently entangled in this drama. Aren’t the gods privy to the details of my birth to the Lamorin family?” I shrugged.

“Adunni,” Mother Earth said, “I understand your feelings, but I’d still like you to tell the assembled your own side of the story so that we can all make sense of this terrible, terrible entanglement.”

I wonder why she needed to pretend that she doesn’t understand what all this is about!

“I came to the end of my life/death cycle some years back and took a sabbatical. When it was time for me to return to the physical realm I called up files on different families available in the zone I had been assigned. Most of them I found boring, but the Lamorin’s kept popping up, due to Asake’s interest in them I decided to take a closer look.”

I knew I was rambling but I forged on.

“Anyway, I discovered that they are a young, childless couple. The father is a pastor’s son, the mother a witch’s daughter, neither had living grandparents.

“I also discovered that the reason they could not make children was because Gbenga Lamorin, the husband, had something wonky with his genes. He can pass on a deadly disease to any child made by him, therefore Nature had ensured that he won’t be able to conceive.”

“I decided such a couple would not only welcome a child for a few years, but would also mourn such a child deeply after he or she died, which suited me just fine. Which Abiku can ask for more? Give them three years of joy and a lot of heartache, then die. One can feed off their sadness for a long time. I would have become a god in their home!

“To my dismay, Mother, I found out today, after expending so much power to heal one of Gbenga’s seeds and implanting myself in Labake’s womb, that my findings were false. Not only did they have Gbonka, an old enemy of mine, they’ve had children, three Abiku’s to be exact!” I pointed an accusing finger at Asake.

“And I’m sure Asake has everything to do with messing up the information I got on them!” I bared my teeth at her and growled. She lifted an eyebrow and whispered something into Bala’s ear. The three laughed uproariously.

“Children, please … don’t,” Mother Earth said dispassionately.

“Asake.” She said, as my wooden chair returned to its original shape and Asake’s turned into a high wooden chair.

“Adunni  is such a self-righteous little prig. I’ve observed her over the years, how she aped human beings. She would spend time choosing families as though she were some kind of royalty. She had all these lofty rules, like never dying in one family more than once. Tell me Mother, how are the humans supposed to acknowledge the presence of the Abiku and fear them appropriately if we don’t trouble a family, at least, three or four times!

“I am well known for afflicting my human mother until she has passed menopause, ensuring she never has any children. That is the way things have been done even before we came into being.

“While other Abikus die between birth and three years of age, Adunni is known to have the ability to die at 8 or 9years. What is her power source our mother? How is she able to create life? No other Abiku has that ability, and we are supposed to be equals. How come she’s more powerful than the rest of us?

“To worsen matters, some other Abikus have started copying her style of doing things, since she apparently gets away with things an average Abiku wouldn’t even dare dream of. Well, I thought I should do something to bring the trend to an end, Great Mother of All, and that’s why I did what I did.” Asake finished on a triumphant note.

“And what did you do?” Mother Earth asked.

“It was pretty simple. I bargained with Aroba, the history of mankind, to tinker a little with the information Adunni got about the Lamorins. Of course I did this with the full permission of the true head of that family, Gbonka.” Asake said.

“May I say something?” Gbonka asked politely from the sidelines.

“Oh yes you may,” Mother Earth smiled at him fondly.

“Your Highness, Mother All, first off I’d like to thank you for giving me the opportunity to see you in the glory of your beauty while I’m yet alive.  thought I would only see you when I exchange my physical body for a spiritual one.” Gbonka bowed to her.

Mother Earth’s smile widened.

“Ah Gbonka, I can see you’ve not lost your charm after all these years.” She batted her thick lashes flirtatiously at him. “I’m looking forward to having you with me soon.” Then she turned all business, “Kindly tell us what you know of this whole mess.”

“Asake came to me close to a year ago. She wanted to teach Adunni a lesson but needed my permission to tinker with our family history. When I expressed doubts about the efficacy of her plans seeing that tinkering with the past usually ended up affecting the future, she assured me there’ll be no mishap. She had struck a deal with Aroba. He’d simply remove a part of our history and replace it after the scheme is completed.”

“History is like a rubber band. I simply expanded their truth to fit in with my truth and as soon as Adunni was born, Aroba removed my truth from theirs.” Asake interrupted him.

“Thank you for the interruption Asake,” Ojola’s voice dripped ice.

“She then showed me my grandson and all the trouble he’d been going through concerning childlessness,” Gbonka continued, “she reminded me that Adunni was a powerful Abiku and that she could heal my grandson. She promised to show me where Adunni buried her token of transformation each time she was born. Once I had that token, I could then entrap her, make her totally human or bargain for my son’s healing with it.

“When I asked her what she was getting out of the whole deal, Asake said she wanted nothing more than to see her mate fall flat on her face. I turned her down, not because I was not tempted to earth another Abiku, something I am well known for. It was something more personal. At that point in my life I was estranged from my son and his own son. I also knew how fervent a Christian my son was. He’s the pastor of one of the biggest churches in the country! I doubted I would be able to reach out, no matter what my grandson was going through.”

“But that night, Ifa Olokun a s’oro d’ayo spoke to me. He told me that I should join Asake in her vendetta, for it is inside the black pot that the white pap emerges. There is good within evil. That’s how I accepted Asake’s offer. Although, typical of an Abiku and their penchant for not keeping promises, she’s yet to show me where Adunni buried her token. Your royal highness, it wasn’t up to 24hrs after I told Asake she could fiddle with my family history that my grandson turned up at my door.”

Fascinating stories, but where is this leading? When am I getting punished? I just want this over with.

Ruth Lamorin stepped forward.

“Mother All, all these is not Asake’s fault, and it’s not my dear granddaughter’s fault. The root of all our problems is my husband, Edward, yes him! He’s a sly one, the crooked stick messing up the firewood stand.”

Born in Ibadan in the early 70′s, Ayodele Olofintuade spent her holidays with her grandfather who lived a stone’s throw from Olumo Rock. He nurtured her young mind by making her read Yoruba classics like Ireke Onibudo, Irinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje, Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irumole to him. She read Mass Communication at the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu.

She is a writer, spoken words artiste, teacher and editor, who has been a graphic artist, sales girl, cybercafe attendant, dance instructor and information technology teacher. She has worked with children in one capacity or the other in the past 13 years. She presently runs a project called Laipo Reads, a community/mobile library that makes book available to children. Olofintuade was the first runner up in the NLNG Prize for Literature 2010.

The image was exclusively designed for this project by the insanely talented Laolu Senbanjo. 

The story continues next WEDNESDAY.

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I think I’m a political person; I’m a person who’s interested in politics. I’m interested in the way the world works; I’m interested in understanding it. I actually think of myself as a political student. “Political writer” always makes me sort of  stop and think because, OK, what does that mean? And I think it makes me a little worried. Because it just seems to me, when you’re not a white male writing about white male things then somehow your work has to mean something. So people have said to me, “I read your first novel, it’s really a political allegory about Nigeria, isn’t it?” And I said, “No, it’s about a messed up family.” So I always sort of want to step back when I hear that. But I am very interested in politics. I think of myself as a storyteller and I write fiction, but as a person living in the world  who’s very interested in politics.

Read Full Interview

Image via

Wole Soyinka and Carmen Dell’Orefice

Meeting someone like Wole Soyinka or any literary celebrity for that matter can be a truly amazing experience.

You’ve read their novels, stalked them online, read every essay they’ve written, drawn inspiration from their views on life, literature, and politics. One day your dream of meeting this person comes true.

The easiest way to blow that one chance you have to share something meaningful with this person who figures so prominently in your intellectual life is to say:

“OMG. It’s (insert favorite literary celebrity name here) I love your work so much!”

Here is why. Lauren Beukes is the South African writer of Zoo City fame. Her most recent novel, The Shinning Girls, came out last year and was a summer hit. The novel is being adapted for TV by MRC and Leonardo diCaprio‘s media company, Appian Way. So, yeah, she’s a bonafide literary celebrity.

In an interview with Slipnet Magazine, Beukes begins with a rant on common mistakes people make when they meet literary celebrities.

That I find literary celebrity very uncomfortable, and I would really like it if you had something to say other than “OMG I love your work so much!” or “I hate your work so much” as the case may be. Let’s talk about other people’s books because I really don’t want to talk about my own, ever again!… I met David Simon [creator of The Wire – Ed] and the first thing I said to him was “I’m such a big fan!”, but where do you go from there? It’s a conversational dead end. I do get people engaging me – they want to talk about the book and I don’t want to talk about the book because it makes me feel self-conscious….I’ve written the book, I’ve done a thousand interviews on the book, I’m done with the book. I’d like to tell you about other books I’ve just read, or ones you’ve read, or find out what you do. I’m much more interested in you because I talk about myself all the time and I’m really bored with myself.

Read Full Interview

Here is my two cents on how to do it right:

The key to a memorable encounter with a literary celebrity is to keep your cool and show that you can engage with the celebrity as a person not as an impersonal icon. So no screaming, please!

A simple “how are you” and a warm smile is enough to get things rolling. Don’t forget to introduce yourself: my name is…I go to school at…Thanks for your visit, I enjoyed your talk.

What do you talk about in the three or so minutes you get with this person? I’ve had varying degrees of success in my own experience. I find that instead of talking about the author’s work—trust me they’re sick of it—talk about things that any  normal person would be interested in. Fashion compliments are always a nice touch—”those pumps are to die for.” Authors are different us. If they’ve made an effort to look nice, they’d appreciate it if someone noticed.  You can also ask them how they are liking their visit to your city or your school. If it’s rained all day, ask about how they are holding up with the shitty weather. You could even ask: “Read anything lovely of late that you’d like to share?” Whatever you talk about, stay on the lighter and funner side of things.

Golden tip: Keep things short and sweet. Don’t hold the author up. It’s tacky when the author has to be pulled away—more like rescued–from you.

Should you ask for an autograph or a picture? It’s totally up to you to decide. When Adichie came to Duke University, she took selfies with some of the undergrads and it was the most adorable thing in the world. But then she did it because she wanted to. So if you ask an author for a photograph and the person says no, it’s okay. It’s nothing personal. Just say a courteous thank you and move on.

The important thing is that you have a memorable experience that you will treasure and share with friends and family.

 See more photos of Soyinka and Wole Soyinka and Carmen Dell’Orefice in a Berlin even sponsored by Grey Goose Vodka. HERE. 

We settled into the warmth only,

Only those shadows could give, broke

Sunbeams into three.

One for you and I, two for every single knoll I

Crossed on this river of rediscovering you.

We flecked shadows on the walls, watched

Our touches sizzle, felt them crawl into spaces humid as

The heart.

And like those years before the year we wrote the epitaph

 on us. I held you in my arms,

your eyes: the tense in every present.

***

Image in post comes from Fabrice Monteiro’s work capturing moments on the beaches of Gorée Island via African Digital Arts. Check out more of Monteiro’s work HERE. Pretty cool stuff. 

Gbenga Adesina is a poet, an essayist and a collector of fictions across languages.

The first of a series of Q&As with the three most recent alumni of Ebedi International Writers Residency. 

Ebedi Writers Residency founded by Wale Okediran (Tenants of the House) is, perhaps, the best kept secret in the African literary community. Tucked away in Iseyin, a small town in the western parts of Nigeria, Ebedi gives resident writers  six weeks of peace and quiet in a beautiful and comfortable work/living space. Past residents include the likes of Doreen Baingana (Tropical Fish) and Yewande Omotoso (Bomboy).

Gertrude Uzoh is one of the three most recent residents. In the interview, the multi-talented writer talks about her time at Ebedi, her work as a musician, her social activism, and why love features strongly in her work. Enjoy! 

What’s the best part of living and writing at the Ebedi Writer’s Residence?
It’s the solitude it offers. Ebedi International Writers’ Residency offers some serenity and concentration away from the distractions of a regular everyday life. No serious author (or any artist at all) would want to miss on that opportunity of a six-week dedication to writing. And on a more personal level, my blast moments at Ebedi was my weekly interactions with the students of IDGS where I went with my co-residents to coach/mentor the students on creativity and the cultivation of their innate talents.

We hear that you’re working on a second novel? Is it about love, like your first novel?

Yes! Love is still a strong theme in my second novel. I actually had two works while at Ebedi; first is my second novel, and the other a short compilation of my original inspirations into what I call “Nuggets of Life”

Your first novel, One Love Many Tears: It Takes two to Tango!, came out in 2012. How has its reception been so far? What do people like about it? What criticisms, if any, has it received?

One Love, Many Tears: It Takes Two to Tango! has had a warm reception. People often comment that they like my choice of language, its simplicity. They also talk positively about the strong imageries the story creates in the mind as one flips through the pages. The cover design has a young woman’s face, supposedly a pretty woman, but with a face and eyes stained with tears. People always say that this is a captivating cover to perfectly depict the book’s title. So, alongside many newspaper reviews in the past and one TV review on AIT’s Kaakaki morning show, One Love, Many Tears has so far received good commendations as well as few critiques. Maybe with a stronger critique, the flaws of the book (like in all books and works of art) will come to light more but so far the only flaws mentioned has been few typos in a number of pages – but another re-submission will soon take care of all that. Some people also complained of the tensing – that is the use of tenses in the book. They feel I dabble between present and past tense—sounding as if I might be confused as the author, or that I do not know how to use the tenses well. But the truth is that my choice of using present tenses in most part of the book is a style.

Your description of Cynthia’s dejection in the first few pages of One Love Many Tears is striking. How are you able to depict suffering so powerfully? Are you drawing from any personal experience of tragedy?

Personal experience? That has always been a similar reaction from people after handling the book. No doubt I have had experiences of crying, laughing, sadness, joys and more, but these are normal human emotions. My ability to put them in writing or “depict them so powerfully” like you said is just my creative vibe or strength. This “power” also reflects my personality because I have very strong imaginations and emotions too, plus the fact that I like being as emphatic as possible while expressing myself.  The point was to create something moving and a story that “feels” so real when my readers flip through the pages. The book after all catches glimpses of what is possible in our everyday society, so if it is real enough in the readers’ mind and feelings, then it might make them begin to think deeper or possibly do something positive about such vices or virtues so-themed in the book. That’s one of the aims of the book anyway.

 “Uche Love” is an awesome for a nick name. Why did your friends call you that during your university days?

Hmmm. The name “Uche Love” came in my 300 level and stuck through my final year in the university and even up to this day among some of my classmates. I remember it came during the time I first acted on my strong motivation to talk to my class about love. *lol* I have always been a very shy person. When I say shy, I mean terribly shy, extremely reserved, and afraid. I would never volunteer to walk through a crowd or stand before an audience even if they were my peers. Sometime in my second or third year, I came across motivational books that helped me break free of fear and shyness. It’s funny, but it came upon me one morning that I fearfully but boldly walked to the podium and demanded for audience from my class. I was afraid, shy and almost falling into the pit— if only the floor boards would open up for me. *lol* Everyone as it appears was surprised and wondered aloud at what “this one” had come to do out and up here; but I did it. I went to the black chalkboard and wrote “Love 101” as the course code/title. *lol*. I was taking it so playfully at the time (may be just to hide my inner fears and nervousness), but I was so serious nevertheless. I continued repeating my “lectures” on love to my class (as well as other topics I know of like “Knowing yourself and your temperaments”, but usually the summary of my “talks” still boiled down to Love) every other day we get a free time in-between lectures. Now, my native name is Uchenna, so my classmates simply dubbed me “Uche Love”. It’s funny though, and not quite anything serious to recount with so much enthusiasm, you know, but to me breaking out of my self-inhibiting fear of crowd/people and shyness has been a major milestone in my self-growth and personal advancement. That’s how the nick-name came about.

You mentioned in an interview that writing is not your 9-5. What do you do for a living? Is it tough to juggle writing and a full time job?

I was once in a full time job, but I left it not too long ago because it doesn’t’ allow for my fulfillment and did not even give me the desired job satisfaction I needed. So now, I am free to pursue my desires—which are music and writing—with full commitment. I’ve also been spending time on my organization, Green Titans.  It needs all the love, attention and support it can get. Green Titans is a platform to encourage positive lifestyle in everybody, especially among young adults and teenagers. We accomplish this by advocating through entertainment, public sensitization and philanthropy. Currently, I am working on a Talent Mentorship/Coaching Program for young people of senior secondary school ages.

Many readers and writers see Chimamanda Adichie as an inspiring figure. Would you say that your work is in any way informed by the aspiration of writing like Adichie?

You know something? Honestly, I started hearing Chimamanda Adichie’s name for the first time only in 2010 when I started the first editing of One Love, Many Tears: It Takes Two to Tango! I came to know about her through one or two persons I contacted to help me proofread my manuscript for the book. When I came back to pick their outputs of the manuscript, they went like “maybe you’ll be our next Chimamanda Adichie” or “It seems you want to write like Chimamanda Adichie.” Now, it naturally got me curious when I kept hearing her name like that. Then in 2012, I came across her book for the first time—Half of a Yellow Sun. Unfortunately, I couldn’t read it as I was busy with work on One Love, Many Tears. But early last year, I finally bought her first book alongside Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, around the time of Achebe’s burial preparations. That was when I had the opportunity of reading her for the first time. I read Purple Hibiscus. A very interesting book I must say, but it was not the inspiration for my own writing. I have been writing long before I came to read Adichie’s book, so all I can do is really appreciate her work. As you may have read somewhere in a previous interview, I penned down the first lines of the book that later became One Love, Many Tears in 1998, about twelve years before hearing Adichie’s name for the first time. I never heard of her in my childhood inspirations and aspirations, and this makes me believe that she must be a new even though very strong wave in the literary world compared to some of the old folks I read before. Still, she is surely a force to reckon with, if I must say.

What do you like about being part of the ANA?
ANA is a strong and well-organized body of Nigerian writers/authors. No doubt, since I joined ANA few years ago it has been very informative and helpful to me as a new author.

I absolutely love that you are a singer. Is your stage name different from your pen name?
No. My name everywhere around my work remains Gertrude U. UzohB, be it a book, a poem or a song.

How would you compare novels and songs as forms of self expression?
To me, my songs are more personal. Music to me is more immediate and satisfying to the soul whereas a novel can take you days to finish reading. Music is concise in its own unique melodies and messages. Novels are long and detailed in their messages. But both can be quite sweet and thought-provoking to create, in my own experience. I love creating fine and even deep lyrics for my songs, and I enjoy it when I eventually make some sweet melodies out of the lines. It’s awesome to experience such creativity on a very personal level. But if I am writing a novel, I often need deeper concentration and sometimes have to be on the alert to take note of sudden inspirations for the book anytime and anywhere it comes.  But I’m grateful to God for both gifts. To me, the two are beautiful and go like a brother and a sister united by one string of passionate love. Both are fulfilling to me.

***

Fun Questions! 

What’s your favorite Nollywood movie? And why?
Living in Bondage! It’s an old film by Kenneth Nnebue, starring Kenneth Okonwor (Andy) and other veterans. There are more sophisticated and very compelling Nollywood movies today, but that’s the one that just came to my mind now. Many see it as the début of what we have today as Nollywood. The film was and still is the pace-setter.
Is Wole Soyinka better as a novelist or as a poet?
Honestly, I can’t compare. But I think he is good at both. He is a renowned and well-respected veteran in what he does, be it novels or poems.

Do you have a pet? If you do, why that particular animal? If you don’t, why?

No, I don’t; because I have not thought about having one. *lol*

List five Nigerian novels that blew your mind to bits when you first read them?

The Secrets of Nothing by Jude Ogu
In The Hearts of the Hereafter by Mezie Nwikwu
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adichie
Man of the Moment by Emmanuel C. Ojukwu
One Love, Many Tears: It Takes Two to Tango! : I am my own number one fan. I can tell you honestly that I have read my début novel for a countless number of times. I keep re-reading it, and each time it refreshes me as new. I keep reading it without getting bored of it, and I can tell you that I am yet to read this book many more times again in the future. The stories continue to move me in a way that you might begin to wonder: but you are the one that wrote the book, so why feel so strongly about it? Well, maybe because it is my first book, you know, with all the excitement of one’s first book; but I doubt if that’s just the reason. The truth is that I like reading myself too.

If you had to choose between a novelist or poet as a lover, which would you pick and why?

*lol* I’ll choose a poet, if that will be an only criterion. Reason: at least he will be writing me sweet poems and he can also appreciate my poems when I write him sweet ones too, plus the fact that I am at least sure that we share a similar spirit by having something in common as co-poets. *lol*

The idea that a person would desire death is insane. But an Abiku is not like us. Having to stay on earth without the possibility of dying young is an Abiku’s worse fate. In the past seven weeks, we’ve watched as Adunni—our beloved Abiku—struggled to turn around the misfortune of being born into the Lamorin family, how hard she’s tried to frustrate Gbonka’s attempts to make her stay. In the final episode, the truth behind Adunni’s misfortune comes to light. Yes, we all thought it was Asake and her gang that tricked Adunni into Gbonka’s den, but, as you’ll find out, the Gods are implicated in the saga.

From Ayodele, Laolu, and I: thanks to everyone who read the series, shared it, or left a comment. You’ve made the project so worth it. 

EPISODE 1 EPISODE 2

EPISODE 3 EPISODE 4

EPISODE 5 EPISODE 6

 EPISODE 7

Elegbara chuckled  as Ruth Lamorin threw accusations at her husband.

That was when I realised this was not about me. It never was.

Elegbara floated off the cushion on which she sat and patted Ruth on the back. “Sit down Ruth, I’ll take it from here. About 29years ago, Edward Isola Lamorin summoned me.” She said as she strolled towards Mother Earth.

She turned towards us and then drew a square mark in the air, “Let me show you a piece of my memory.”

A younger looking Edward Lamorin filled the screen. Except for a leather pouch slung over his shoulder, he was stark naked, standing in front of him was Elegbara in her male form, complete with the overdone red skin, horns, cloven hooves and the thick penis reaching down to his ankles.

The two were in a small clearing, a blazing fire in-between them. The surrounding trees completed the eerie scene with the crooked shadows they cast on Elegbara and Edward.

“I want you to fill up my church with people,” Edward said without any preambles, “I need people to come to the knowledge of Christ. It appears that they don’t like the truth. Most people would rather go to churches preaching prosperity than a kingdom minded church like mine.”

“Let us get this straight,” Elegbara said, “You, Edward, formerly known as Isola Lamorin, the pastor of a Christian church, has just summoned us, Elegbara, your friendly neighborhood devil, to help you fill your church up. You do not see the absurdity in your logic!”

“I have become all things to all men that I might, by all means, save some.” Edward said quietly.

“Your becoming all things to all men is by summoning demons supposedly from the pits of hell to help you. The same demons you are trying to deliver these same people from? Edward man,” Elegbara shook his head sadly, “you shouldn’t be here. You need to see a psychiatrist.”

“I am sure of what I want, sir.” Edward picked up a calabash from the ground and held it towards Elegbara.

Elegbara shook his head firmly. “Are you admitting that we are more powerful than your European gods?”

“I admit no such thing.” Edward’s arms held the calabash steady and his face was expressionless.

“Then what’s the point of this meeting?” Elegbara asked.

“I did not come here to discuss the whys and where-to-fores. I have already done the needful,” Edward placed the calabash filled with eko, palm oil, cowry shells and eggs carefully on the open fire. He inserted his hand in the leather pouch and shook a powdery substance over the fire. The red flames turned blue and burned brighter. “You cannot turn down my request. This is my sacrifice.”

Elegbara lifted up an eyebrow, “You know pretty well that we can always turn down the sacrifice. Not all sacrifices are acceptable. Yes, you do have the right to summon us, after all. It’s your prerogative, but you cannot compel us to accept your sacrifice.”

“I know you might say something like that and that’s why I brought this along.” Edward pulled a stone out of the pouch. He placed the smooth, oval shaped stone on the palm of his left hand and held it out to Elegbara.

“And what might this be?” he asked.

“You gave this to me when I was thirteen years old and had just been initiated into The Path. You gave your word that if I asked for anything it would be granted to me.” Edward replied coolly.

“Our word means nothing right now, as you no longer follow The Path,” Elegbara said.

“My following or not following The Path has nothing to do with your giving me the token. There was no caveat.” Edward insisted.

“If I grant you your desires, what will you give to me?”

“What do you want?” Edward asked.

“Give me your son and your church will be filled to the rafters within the year.” Elegbara said.

“Fill my church up within a month, and you can have his seed.” Edward replied.

“He shall know no woman.” Elegbara pronounced. One of the flames leapt out of the fire and hovered above their heads. The heat was so intense Edward started sweating, but he held his ground.

“He will have as many women as he wants,” Edward threw some powder at the flame burning above their heads, turning its intense orange to blue.

The two watched the fire as it consumed their words.

“He shall have Abiku,” Elegbara added, the fire turned back to its original orange and ate up the air rapidly.

“His seed is yours. You can do whatever you like with it.” As Edward’s words joined that of Elegbara in the air, the flame exploded, throwing Edward off his feet and burning the surrounding trees into ashes. It sealed their vows.

Elegbara watched dispassionately as Edward tried to pull his bleeding body off the ground. He nodded in approval as Edward finally managed to rise to his feet unsteadily.

Elegbara stretched his hand over the fire. The blue flames leaped joyfully as Edward handed the stone to him. He squeezed it into dust, as the dust was being swept out of his hand. elegbara made one more proclamation.

“You shall have no more children from your loins, Edward. So be it.”

Elegbara waved and the screen disappeared.

“He confessed everything to me a few years ago,” Ruth Lamorin said into the silence that followed Elegbara back to her seat.  “He told me he’s tried to break the hold of the devil over our family since he made that bargain, claimed it was the devil’s handiwork. That was when I made up my mind to contact Gbonka about our son. By then Gbenga had started questioning his blind faith in his father’s teachings,” She paused. “About two years ago, Gbenga resigned from his position as a Pastor in his father’s church, and I knew it was time I spoke to him about his grandfather.”

Gbenga flinched as his mother tried to reach out to him. He moved as far away as possible from her.

I understood why Mother Earth was displeased with Ruth. How could a woman know such a thing and stay married to a man who had betrayed her on all levels, worse still, hide such a thing from her only child? One never knows what goes on in the head of these human beings.

“So you knew all these and didn’t tell me mother. Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you allow him to do this to me?”

“Son,” Edward Lamorin said as he rose to his feet.

“Do not ever call me by that appellation again, I do not know you, Edward Lamorin, you are dead to me!” Gbenga’s distress filled the air with angry pregnant clouds. The clouds hung over the heads of his parents, threatening to birth his anger on them at any point.

Once again Mother Earth rose from her throne and flew down to Gbenga. She wrapped him in her arms as he sobbed, deep, heart wrenching tears, into her ample bosom.

“Let it go. You need to let it go,” She said to him.

The clouds decreased in intent and intensity, but they did not disperse completely. They hung over Ruth who looked at her husband with eyes filled with hatred and Edward, who had nowhere to hide his fear and shame.

“Please settle down everybody.” Mother Earth said as she settled on her throne. “Gbenga, I shall heal you and in exchange you will go and study our ways with your grandfather. You shall teach your children the path.”

“Nobody will take my baby away from me! I am not going to allow you to take her away from me.” Labake interjected, everybody looked her way.

“Nobody will take her away from you Labake. She’s yours, for the period she has given, you will have other children. The child you hold in your arms is a free spirit. She is not yours to keep. It is the way of the universe, there are some things as immutable as the law of gravity.”

“So Adunni is going to get away with the way she keeps tampering with the laws of nature!” Asake snapped.

“Well it appears so. I’m sorry you feel so strongly about this.” Mother Earth said.

“I should feel strongly about it, mother. I have always followed the rules. I have followed the path of the Abiku without questioning anything or wanting to change our modus operandi,” Asake paused.

“Look at it this way Asake. You have gotten away with quite a lot. You meddled with Aroba and betrayed a fellow Abiku.” Mother Earth pointed out.

“You guys used me! You used me to make a point. This has nothing to do with me. It has everything to do with humiliating Edward Lamorin who brought one of your own to shame. I should have known! The way everything went on so smoothly. I should have suspected that the gods had a hand in this.” Asake sounded really angry.

“And what do you intend to do about it?” Ojola said. “You wouldn’t have been used if you had not allowed yourself to be used. And anyway we are all at the power of the universe.”

“I guess I’m done here.” Asake said and melted into the air. She was followed by Chimeka and Bala.

“These children. I don’t think they’ll ever understand.” Mother Earth sighed sadly. “We are done here.”

“What about me?” I will get something out of this debacle. If the gods think they can just play me for a fool, they don’t know me. “What do I get from all these? Am I supposed to just crawl back inside the body of that baby over there and pretend that nothing happened? What about the power I used to create the baby you used to punish your darling Edward and help your precious Gbonka take revenge on his son?”

“It’s always about power with you Adunni.” Ojola hissed at me.

“Why do you sound surprised, after all Eleduwa made her like that.” Time added.

Mother Earth looked at me with a smile. “More power shall be added to you. More than you’ve expended in the past two years of your project.”

“I want specifics please.” I snapped.

Mother Earth removed one of the bead bracelets around her wrist and it appeared on mine.

“There! Now you’re one of my adepts aside from being Abiku.” She said.

“And its powers?” I asked as I admired the coral beads.

“It shall reveal itself in due time.”

I smirked.

“And since you are now my adept, Ojola will be in charge of monitoring how you use your powers.” She added.

That wiped the smile right off my face, Ojola laughed.

***

My name is Adunni, I am Mother Earth’s favourite Abiku. I’m presently occupying my earthly body, I am five years old.

My mother’s name is Labake. She is a storyteller, her first book, The Bargain, is a bestseller.

My father’s name is Gbenga. He is a Babalawo-in-training. My great-grandfather, Gbonka said he’s the best student he has ever had.

My Great-grandfather, as you already know, is one of the most powerful Babalawos the world has ever seen, but he’s so old and frail. He will die soon. I will make sure of that!

My paternal-grandmother, Ruth, shocked her family and the congregation of her husband’s church by divorcing him. She said she’d lived all her life for different people and that now she wanted to live for herself. Right now she’s travelling around Nigeria and studying the culture of the people. She regularly sends me gifts of unusual toys she’s found in the villages and towns.

My Grandfather, Edward, resigned his post as the head pastor of one of the biggest church in the country. He is presently traveling around the country hot on my grandmother’s trail. He claims not to care whether she remarries him or not, but that she’s the love of his life and that he’ll have no other.

I overheard my grandma Chinonye telling my mummy that grandma Ruth is trying to get a restraining order on him. Mummy said Grandpa Edward is one of those men that believe no woman can resist him. Grandma Chinonye said she was one of those women.

Father is still not talking to both his parents although he claims he’s forgiven them. As an Ifa acolyte he cannot afford to be unforgiving.

I hate Ojola, he’s always appearing when you least expected him.

My names are Jesutitofunmi, Oluwafikunayomi, Ajasayo the daughter of Lamorin. I have a little brother named Gbonka. He is very uninteresting. All he does is eat, cry and poop and run all over the place. Mother is pregnant with a new baby, the baby is going to be a girl.  I know that.

I am going to die very soon and since it has been predicted, mother has promised to throw me the biggest party ever.

“Aja,” mother called me and I stopped playing with my food. As usual I had left some on the plate for my playmates because yam porridge is our favorite meal.

I love my new playmates. They are fun.

Their names are Lola, Madu and Gozi.

Other children in my school are always looking at me funny when I’m playing with my mates. I laugh at them because they are blind. Only a few of them can see my playmates, but those ones like to pretend they don’t see them too. Stupid Emere children!

I looked at my mum’s rounded tummy and waved at my little sister to be, I’m glad I won’t be here when mother has her. I hate competition and the girl is going to be very beautiful.

“Yes, maami,” I said and smiled at her.

“You know that I love you and I want what’s best for you. I have already told you several times how much I’m going to miss you when you’re gone.” She smiled back at me, and moved closer to the open door.

I knew something was wrong.

“What is it, maami?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“You know you’re supposed to die next month.” She said.

“Yes, and I’m looking forward to it, especially the party that you promised to throw for me.” I stood up from where I was seated and clenched my fists.

“Well, you’re not going anywhere, Ojola has told me your real name.” She slammed the door as she sped out of the room.

I roared.

***

Born in Ibadan in the early 70′s, Ayodele Olofintuade spent her holidays with her grandfather who lived a stone’s throw from Olumo Rock. He nurtured her young mind by making her read Yoruba classics like Ireke Onibudo, Irinkerindo ninu Igbo Elegbeje, Ogboju Ode ninu Igbo Irumole to him. She read Mass Communication at the Institute of Management and Technology, Enugu.

She is a writer, spoken words artiste, teacher and editor, who has been a graphic artist, sales girl, cybercafe attendant, dance instructor and information technology teacher. She has worked with children in one capacity or the other in the past 13 years. She presently runs a project called Laipo Reads, a community/mobile library that makes book available to children. Olofintuade was the first runner up in the NLNG Prize for Literature 2010.

The image was exclusively designed for this project by the insanely talented Laolu Senbanjo. 

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1. You read Things Fall Apart. Then you skipped the next four decades. Now you can’t stop talking about Adichie.

2. You think Soyinka is the only African Nobel Laureate. This is either because you are plain and simply ignorant or maybe you do know of Gordimer and Coetzee and Mafouz but haven’t yet figured out that there is such a thing as a white African or that Egyptians are Africans. Yeah…either way, you’re ignorant. 

3. You can’t name two African science fiction writers. I take that back. You can’t name one African science fiction writer.

4. You keep saying Achebe is the father of African LITERATURE. Word of warning: careful where you say something like that. You could get slapped.

5. You are a believer in the ultimate African literary conspiracy—Achebe hijacked the African Writers Series and tried to make clones of himself by forcing African writers to write like himself.

6. Adichie and Teju Cole are the only contemporary African authors alive, as far as you’re concerned. They are perfectly perfect and can do no wrong. Everything they utter is pure divine truth. If you were God, you’d make them fall in love and get married and give birth to little Ifemelus and Juliuses…Thank God you’re not God!

7. Every African novel is a window into the soul of Africa. So you insist that your cousin going off to Peace Corp in Zambia should read Things Fall Apart or Wizard of the Crow because in your mind all African novels are pretty much anthropological tracts.

8. You’ve never read any work by Amos Tutuola but pretend you have anytime his name comes up in conversation.

9. You’ve not read a novel written by an author from, at least, one of these five countries: Equatorial Guinea, Lesotho, Madagascar, and Mozambique.

10. If you’ve included anywhere in your book review of an African novel: “Such and such novel is a powerful and evocative examination of [insert social issue here].”

Hard to believe it’s nearly one year since Tope Folarin’s beautiful story won the Caine Prize for African Writing. Folarin’s win made the summer of 2013 so much more interesting.

An American born of Nigerian parents, Folarin compelled many in the African literary community to reconsider their assumptions about who counts as an African writer.

Here we are in 2014 and another edition of the prize is about to begin. The official kick-off is slated for tomorrow when Wole Soyinka announces the five shortlisted stories at the inauguration of Port Harcourt as the new World Book Capital.

Literary prizes are great not because they decide on what constitutes great fiction but because they give new writers a space to share their work with a global audience.

What I love about the Caine Prize is that the organizers have figured out how to get the African literary community involved and invested in the success of the award.

Shortlisted stories are circulated online. Bloggers are encouraged to review the stories. These reviews become the basis for rich and lively conversations about contemporary African fiction.

I feel giddy thinking about all the cool stuff we have planned here at Brittle Paper—reviews of shortlisted stories, Q&As with the authors, and so much more. In the past few days, I’ve been sending emails, asking around to see who would like to be part of a 5-member review team. 

I’m pleased to announce that Richard Ali, Aaron Bady, Nick Ochiel, Pearl Osibu, and Kola Tubosun have all agreed to review the shortlisted stories for Brittle Paper. Expect sharp, provocative, and nuanced reviews.

Stay tuned to Brittle Paper for updates on all the fun and festivities around the 2014 edition of the Caine Prize for African Writing.  

Hi Brittle Paperians

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Gabriel “Gabo” Garcia Marques died a few days ago. What a loss! His 1967 classic, 100 Years of Solitude, is the definitive magic realist text. I remember reading the novel for the first time in the summer of 2011. It was such a sad and dreary summer. I lived through it only because I could escape into Marquez’s surreal universe.

Shakira joined the chorus of celebrities mourning the passing of her fellow countryman. The Columbian songstress left this lovely memorial on her website, which she signed with the alias, “Shak.” She also posted a photo of herself and Marquez. The photo was taken in Mexico in 2011.

Dear Gabo, you once said that life isn’t what one lived, but the life one remembers and how he remembers it to retell it…your life, dear Gabo, will be remembered by all of us as a unique and singular gift, and as the most original story of all. It’s difficult to say goodbye to you, with all that you’ve given us! You will always be in my heart and in those of all who loved and admired you. Shak

I read in the Toronto Star that there just might be a posthumous work of fiction titled We’ll Meet in August. 

I thought I’d add a Marquez quote on writing:

Ultimately, literature is nothing but carpentry. Writing something is almost as hard as making a table. With both you are working with reality, a material just as hard as wood. Both are full of tricks and techniques. Basically very little magic and a lot of hard work are involved. I never have done any carpentry but it’s the job I admire most, especially because you can never find anyone to do it for you.

— Paris Review, Art of Fiction, No 69 [read full interview HERE]

Images via Shakira’s website.

Leopard print cape by Valentino

Clearly, in the world of contemporary African fiction, being a brilliant novelist is no excuse for looking frumpy.

A few weeks ago, it was Chimamanda Adichie proclaiming, with the force and clarity of a manifesto: “A smart woman can love fashion.”

In a recent feature in the Italian magazine, La Republicca, Taiye Selasi takes this declaration to its most sublime conclusion in a suite of photographs that has her looking stunning in pieces by top designers.

These images of Selasi as a vision of feminine grace is the work of Max Cardelli, a renowned Italian photographer known for his work on women’s portrait.

The photo shoot which took place about two months ago seemed to have been a lot of fun. Speaking of the session with the Cartier ring, Selasi writes on her instagram page:

then the cartier courier came to the shoot wearing a three-piece suit and bearing the jaguar ring, stayed 30 min while we shot with it, and packed it back up in his bolted silver suitcase and drove off into the night…

Don’t you just love her life. #LitGlam! 

Dress by Tru Trussardi.

Ring by Cartier.

Minicoat by Fabiana Filippi

See more photos HERE.

Name: Okwiri Oduor

Nationality: Kenyan

Published Work: Dream Chaser (a novella)

Interesting Fact: She’s a Nairobi gal through and through.  She’s working on her debut novel and teaches creative writing at her Nairobi alma mater.

Caine Prize Story: “My Father’s Head” is about a woman who tries to draw a picture of her dead father. The trouble is that while she’s able to draw his body, she can’t seem to recall what his head looks like.

Why You Should Read It: The story is sad and surrealist in a sweetly unsettling sort of way. It’s about trying to remember a headless father. Need I say more!

Here is one of my favorite moments:

I remembered a time when I was a little child, when I stared into my father’s eyes in much the same way. In them I saw shapes; a drunken, talentless conglomerate of circles and triangles and squares. I had wondered how those shapes had got inside my father’s eyes. I had imagined that he sat down at the table, cut out glossy figures from coloring books, slathered them with glue, and stuck them inside his eyes so that they made rummy, haphazard collages in his irises.

Read full story HERE

Name: Diane Awebuck

Nationality: South African

Published Work: The Gardening Night. Cabin Fever. Home Remedies. A doctoral dissertation published under the title The Spirit and the Letter: Trauma, Warblogs and the Public Sphere.

Interesting Fact: Her first novel is completely autobiographical. She is inspired by X-Files and loves to read other people’s letters and emails. She’s a fan of Ray Bradbury, Barbara Kingsolver, and Antjie Krog. {source}

Caine Prize Story: “Phosphorescence” tells the story of a grandmother who goes skinny-dipping (swims naked) in the sea with her grand-daughter.

Why You Should Read it: The story of an old woman swimming naked with her troubled granddaughter is lovely. But it’s the writing that will get you. It’s delicate and pretty.  Here is my favorite moment:

Brittany bent and unlaced her sneakers. She divested herself of her ankle socks and her black jeans, her haunches thin as a deer’s. Her top went next, then the shirts – three of them, layered archaeologically – until she was standing in her girlish underwear, a mystifying combination of cotton and wire scaffolding. She doesn’t need a bra, thought Alice, looking at her un- promising chest. why is she even wearing one? Her granddaughter’s body was a collection of straws, white in the moonlight.

Read full story HERE

“Layered archaeologically?” That’s sublime!

Name: Billy Kahora

Nationality: Kenyan

Published Work:  ”Treadmill Love” and “Urban Zoning” are both short stories.

Interesting Fact: He was one of the judges of the Etisalat Prize for Literature and is the managing editor of Kwani?, a nairobi-based literary journal.

Caine Prize Story: “The Gorilla’s Apprentice” is a strange story about an old, orphaned Gorilla and a teenage boy. As the gorilla gradually loses its eye-sight, the boy searches for a deeper, trans-species connection with the beast.

Why You Should Read it: The idea of human-animal friendship set against the backdrop of Kenya’s post-election crisis is both bizarre and cool. Besides, there aren’t enough African stories about animals.

Here is one of my favorite moments:

Then the last question: ‘It-is-said-that-far-in-the-mountains-of-Rwanda men-have-learnt-to- talk-to-gorillas. Do-you-think-there-is-any-truth to-such-claims?’ Semambo felt the ground shift slightly beneath him, but as hard as he tried, he could not make out the face that had asked the question. The projector light was right in his face, hiccupping because it had reached the end and caused the words on the screen to blink. 

Read full story HERE

Name: Tendai Huchu

Nationality: Zimbabwe

Published Work: The Hairdresser of Harare

Interesting Fact: He dropped out of the University of Zimbabwe in his first semester and took up a job in a casino. He now lives in Scotland where he is a podiatrist. Believe it or not Huchu is actually a Brittle Paper writer. Read his “narrative remix” of a song by the Zimbabwean musician Comrade Fatso {HERE}.

Caine Prize Story: “The Intervention” is set in London. A living room full of Zimbabweans caught in an awkward moment on the day the nation’s election result is announced on Al Jazeera.

Why You Should Read It: It’s a one-scene story, so it’s fast and intense. I love how it fuses a domestic moment—a couple needing intervention in their relationship—with a moment of national uncertainty.

Name: Efemia Chela

Nationality: Ghana/Zambia

Published Work: “Chicken” is her first ever published work. It came third-place in Short Story Day Africa Competition

Interesting Fact: Her first ever published short story got her a Caine Prize shortlist. Talk about a beautiful start! She “enjoys wine-tasting, black and white movies, art, fashion as art and film photography.” She is married—sorry folks—but “to a film camera.” “They go everywhere together and have many square children.”  [source]

Caine Prize Story: “Chicken” is a set of three vignettes in which a character reflects on coming of age as  a young woman in an African city.  The first vignette captures the domestic flourish of an extended African family life. The second is an account of her bohemian post-university life of sexual experimentation. The third is her reclaiming her feminine body (sort of) through the experience of an irrevocable loss.

Why You Should Read It: Chela describes food like it’s sex. Here is one example:

From my father’s side came slow-cooked beef shin in a giant dented tin pot. Simply done, relying only on the innate flavour of the marbled red cubes of flesh and thinly sliced onion getting to know each other for hours. It was smoked by open charcoal fire and lightly seasoned with nothing but the flecks of salty sweat from nervy Auntie Nchimunya constantly leaning over the steaming pot. Mushrooms were cooked as simply as Sister Chanda’s existence. Fungi was hoped for in the night and foraged for at dawn. My favorites were curly-edged, red on top with a yellow underskirt and fried in butter. My lip curled as someone passed me a bowl of uisashi, wild greens and peanuts mashed into a bitty green mess. Little cousins cheekily defied their rank and begged for the prized parsons’ noses from the grilled chickens. My chickens. Their shiny mouths indicated they’d already had more than enough chicken for the night and their age. Tauntingly, I popped one of the tails into my mouth and refused to pass them the crammed tray.

Read full story HERE