The sun is out again today, a perfect summer day, but given the flirty (blistering hot one minute, shiveringly cold the next) weather that has been our lot since April, there’s no telling how long this reprieve will last….
I’m walking down the street admiring the neat lawns, the profusion of brightly coloured flowers cascading down the sides of the freshly painted black railings that line the park, hay-fever medicated to the hilt, when I notice her. She is standing, looking lost, at one corner of the street, from time to time consulting a piece of paper in her hand, and looking up, tentatively, at passersby. As I approach her, she walks, or perhaps, glides to me, draped in black from head to toe and asks, in English tinged with the winds of the Horn of Africa “Do you know where the big mosque is?”
I sense that she has waited to ask me because she is wary of the response from most of those who have come before me. Unfortunately I am unable to help, only being in the area for a meeting, I do not know it well. And so, having looked around for any street signs to a mosque, I shake my head and move away, leaving her to continue her sifting, trying to find a friendly face to ask….
The LibCon (Is there a clue in the Con bit?) coalition moves into its third week in office, all the drama of the immediate post-election period having subsided. It was an interesting time and I often wondered while the uncertainty and negotiations lasted, if this was what it felt like to live in historic times. On the tube, on the buses, on the streets, life continued in its mundane cycles,even if it was unclear who would be running the country….
Back home in Nigeria, it seems a rash of pugilism has broken out this week- from a so-called “royal father” beating up and burning his wife, to the Speaker of the House of Representatives nearly coming to blows with a fellow legislator. The same speaker, who not too long ago was paraded as a perfect English gentleman. As for the hopefully seen to be deposed Deji of Akure, his shamelessness knows no bounds- perhaps an argument for the dissolution of the traditional rulership institutions in Nigeria, whose role in contemporary Nigerian society is less and less clear to me, the more I examine the issue...
I've just finished a rash of books on Pakistan, not quite planned that way, but it has been good to more or less, totally immerse myself in a society that I don't really know much about. I started with Fatima Bhutto's (grand-daughter of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and niece of Benazir) Songs of Blood and Sword, which I found slow to get into, and not perhaps, the most lyrical or accomplished writing- but she tells a very powerful story of her family, the tragedies and intrigues that make the Borgias look tame by comparison, and succeeds in painting a very different picture of the liberal,progressive Benazir than I had been familiar with...
Then I moved on to Mohsin Hamid's first novel, Moth Smoke, again set in 21st century Pakistan. Although I'd read and enjoyed his Booker winning The Reluctant Fundamentalist, I hadn't had the opportunity to read this earlier offering and it's well worth seeking out. It's a fascinating story of two friends from different backgrounds and how their friendship unwinds. The writing technique and the plot is not as assured as in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, but the beauty of the words, the deep thinking behind the writing and the unexpected twists make for a great read reminiscent in places of The White Tiger
My final Pakistan book is Ali Sethi's The Wish Maker, which uses Pakistan from the mid eighties to the present as a backdrop for a sprawling, beautifully executed saga of the lives of two cousins coming of age in contemporary Pakistan. I thoroughly enjoyed it, even if in a few places, it seemed to drag, but Sethi is certainly a writer to watch, and I'm definitely a fan...
And on the subject of writers to watch, the New Yorker released its list of 20 writers under 40 to look out for this week. With a decidedly American viewpoint, nevertheless,our own Chimamanda makes the cut. Going through the list, there were many writers on there, of whom I'd never heard. A quick googling of those on the list led me to conclude that I'd probably be more interested in reading the women on the list-judging from my experience reading Gary Shytengart, Wells Tower and Jonathan Safran Foer- but perhaps I'll be persuaded....
The excellent British Museum exhibition Kingdom of Ife closes this week with a number of events. If you haven't been to see it, the loss is yours, but you can still get the catalogue...
It seems there's been a rash of literary events in Nigeria these past few weeks from Book Jam with Sade Adeniran, Chuma Nwokolo, Chimamanda Adichie and Binyavanga Wainaina to the Nigerian Breweries/Farafina creative workshop and reading led by Adichie to Lola Shoneyin's Infusion in Abuja and now Fidelity bank is sponsoring another creative writing workshop led by Helon Habila in July. You can apply here Ten, fifteen years ago, who would have thought the Nigerian literary scene would be abuzz the way it is now. Tolu Ogunlesi does a very good summary of the last few years here
And if you're interested in Nigerian writing and looking for new books, then try these:
Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives
Jackie Kay's Red Dust Road
Kachi Ozumba's The Shadow of a Smile
Adaobi Nwaubani's I Do Not Come to You By Chance
Sade Adeniran's Imagine This
Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters Street
And if you're in London in July, don't miss the London Literature Festival especially the Caine Prize Reading on the 4th of July
Sunday, June 06, 2010
Sunday, September 20, 2009
A question of etiquette, Dave Eggers' new offering and the sins of the son...
She comes into the shop where I often stop in on my way to work to buy a freshly squeezed juice drink. She is often dressed in the same simple black dress (or perhaps she simply owns a lot of them), and is often wearing sneakers. She is perhaps in her late twenties or early thirties, blonde and slim. Each time she orders the same drink and on more than one occasion when our visits to the shop have coincided, she is just finishing an energy bar. At least I assume that she is, because she is usually holding the wrapper and delicately inserting a finger into the space between her upper teeth and her cheek to extract what I imagine must be a lump of freshly chewed, sticky mass of energy bar. I often wonder at her lack of self-consciousness while engaged in this task, but sympathize as it is one bit of social etiquette that I am yet to work out what the appropriate answer is. How do you dislodge that lump of sticky food paste that lodges in that area (peanut butter sandwiches are a particular hazard), without employing the discreet or indiscreet use of a single digit.....answers on a postcard please
I trek out to the Riverside Studios in west London for the reading to mark the launch of the memoirs of Michael Mansfield QC, Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer. I have taken the trouble to buy a ticket online and so when I arrive, hot and sweaty, having walked briskly from the tube in the muggy September weather that we are currently enjoying, ignore the long line of punters, queuing up and march to the counter, confident that there will be a separate collection point for pre-bought tickets. Alas, there is not and so I join the queue, ten people further back than I would have if I had just meekly joined the queue in the first place and end up missing the first ten minutes of the event. It isn't a reading in the conventional sense, he does not read from the book, but is an hour and a half of a monologue, with Michael perched on what looks like a barstool and offering up random thoughts and reminiscences. It is surprisingly engaging and I find that he holds my attention to the very end, but then as I remind myself, as a barrister, that is exactly what he has spent the larger part of his life doing....
I've just finished Dave Eggers new book, Zeitoun, which is another foray by the celebrated author into the realms of oral history presented as grippingly as a novel, similar to his earlier magnificent What is the What. This time, the hero is Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian American leaving in New Orleans who finds himself caught up in a Kafkaesque experience following Hurricane Katrina.
In the library, as I do from time to time, I type in the words "Nigeria" into the search box on the catalogue, just to see what new books may have been acquired. This time I am rewarded by finding The Forger's Tale:The Search for Odeziaku, in which Stephanie Newell, an English academic charts the story of John Moray Stuart Young, a wealthy English homosexual trader who was one of the wealthiest men in Onitsha in the early 20th century, building a fortune from the palm oil trade. Apparently he makes a fleeting appearance in one of the short stories in Achebe's Girls at War collection.
The recent news about the apparent rejection of the Nigerian Ambassador designate to the US, Professor Tunde Adeniran on the basis that his son was recently arrested for rape in Baltimore, appears to descend into farce, as claims are made throwing the boy's paternity into question. An aunt of mine has often argued that part of Nigeria's problem has been the fact that most of our leaders have had pretty messy personal lives, citing the numerous affairs, girlfriends, mistresses and wives attributed to most former leaders. Stories like these probably only serve to buttress her arguments...
BTW our erstwhile Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was in London to give a talk at the LSE last week, I missed it, but there's a report here
I trek out to the Riverside Studios in west London for the reading to mark the launch of the memoirs of Michael Mansfield QC, Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer. I have taken the trouble to buy a ticket online and so when I arrive, hot and sweaty, having walked briskly from the tube in the muggy September weather that we are currently enjoying, ignore the long line of punters, queuing up and march to the counter, confident that there will be a separate collection point for pre-bought tickets. Alas, there is not and so I join the queue, ten people further back than I would have if I had just meekly joined the queue in the first place and end up missing the first ten minutes of the event. It isn't a reading in the conventional sense, he does not read from the book, but is an hour and a half of a monologue, with Michael perched on what looks like a barstool and offering up random thoughts and reminiscences. It is surprisingly engaging and I find that he holds my attention to the very end, but then as I remind myself, as a barrister, that is exactly what he has spent the larger part of his life doing....
I've just finished Dave Eggers new book, Zeitoun, which is another foray by the celebrated author into the realms of oral history presented as grippingly as a novel, similar to his earlier magnificent What is the What. This time, the hero is Abdulrahman Zeitoun, a Syrian American leaving in New Orleans who finds himself caught up in a Kafkaesque experience following Hurricane Katrina.
In the library, as I do from time to time, I type in the words "Nigeria" into the search box on the catalogue, just to see what new books may have been acquired. This time I am rewarded by finding The Forger's Tale:The Search for Odeziaku, in which Stephanie Newell, an English academic charts the story of John Moray Stuart Young, a wealthy English homosexual trader who was one of the wealthiest men in Onitsha in the early 20th century, building a fortune from the palm oil trade. Apparently he makes a fleeting appearance in one of the short stories in Achebe's Girls at War collection.
The recent news about the apparent rejection of the Nigerian Ambassador designate to the US, Professor Tunde Adeniran on the basis that his son was recently arrested for rape in Baltimore, appears to descend into farce, as claims are made throwing the boy's paternity into question. An aunt of mine has often argued that part of Nigeria's problem has been the fact that most of our leaders have had pretty messy personal lives, citing the numerous affairs, girlfriends, mistresses and wives attributed to most former leaders. Stories like these probably only serve to buttress her arguments...
BTW our erstwhile Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala was in London to give a talk at the LSE last week, I missed it, but there's a report here
Sunday, September 13, 2009
School starts, Almodovar's return and an exposition of clay feet
Just walking into the train station, two young boys emerge, both dressed in school uniform- black blazers, a blue shirt and a tie. The older, probably about twelve or thirteen is holding on to the hand of the younger , who is maybe ten and they are obviously brothers. The younger boy's uniform is shiny and new, obviously just bought, while the older's while neat and clean, is more of a vintage. The younger boy's face is bright and earnest and he struggles to keep up with the quick steps of his brother.
As they walk along, a larger crowd of boys in the same uniforms emerge in the distance and I notice that the older surreptitiously drops the hand of the younger, as he squares his shoulders and plunges right into the centre of the crowd of old friends. As I leave them to go into the station, I notice the younger brother, slightly bewildered on the fringe of the crowd, looking lost. I flash him what I imagine is a cheering smile and enter the station, hoping he will be alright on what is obviously his first day at big school....
On the platform, there is a little boy of maybe five, curled up on the bench, dressed again in uniform, complete with cap, cuddled up to his grandfather's chest who reads to him from a large children's book ...
To the cinema to see the new Almodovar film, Broken Embraces, as I expect, it is a sensuous feast of colours, the glorious yellows and rich reds of Spain, with shots from unusual angles and a story that grabs and hold my attention till the closing scenes. The reviews I had read had suggested that the plot was labyrinthine, with a film within a film, but to me it all appears very easy to follow. The part of the plot where the secretary becomes the mistress of her wealthy boss in order to pay for her father's treatment could have come straight from Nollywood and evokes unpleasant memories of Lagos...
I've now finished Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street. a tale of four African women working in the red-light district of Antwerp. It reflected the thorough research that she had done on the subject, and the story was engaging, if slightly implausible in parts. It is a sympathetic look at the lives of women whose voices are often not heard and well worth reading. Jonathan Cape have also recently published Ghanaian Nii Ayikwei Parkes "African whodunnit "novel, Tail of the Blue Bird and Malawian Samson Kambalu's The Jive Talker, subtitled How to Get a British Passport ( that title alone should guarantee it does well in Nigeria :-) and also published Segun Afolabi's Goodbye Lucille. I hope it means someone at Jonathan Cape is building an African writer's list....I've ordered all three to show my "moral support"
It's quite a year for new offerings from writers of Nigerian extraction, what with Chika's new book, Chimamanda's collection of short stories and new offerings from Helen Oyeyemi (White is for Witching) and Diana Evans (The Wonder)....
It's always a pleasant surprise to stumble across an established writer that I've never read, and even better when my second dip into their oeuvre is as captivating as the first. So it has been with the writer, TC Boyle, also known as T. Coraghessan Boyle. The unusual second name, captured my attention, when at a loose end one Saturday in the library. I then took out and read The Inner Circle, his novel about the sex researcher Professor Kinsey, narrated by one of his early acolytes. I enjoyed it so much that I have now just finished The Women, his account of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright's life, again seen through the eyes of a protege. He writes beautifully and does a brilliant job of exposing the clay feet of the two "gods"...
Last night to dinner with a friend to celebrate his elevation at work, he had cooked a kedgeree- (think jollof rice with hardboiled eggs and smoked fish), served with a delicious dal and yoghurt. The kedgeree reminded me in many ways of the jollof rice my grandmother used to cook, using palm oil instead of groundnut oil and any odds and ends she found in her kitchen...
Finally, the death of acclaimed Nigerian lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi last week after a dogged fight with lung cancer was sad. Not surprisingly, acres were written about his achievements and his principled commitment to improving the lot of the Nigerian masses and yet, when the man stood for President a few years ago, very few, if any of us came out to support or vote for him...perhaps because of the joke that said even if elected as president, he would organize protests against himself...
Seriously, we are the poorer for his loss
As they walk along, a larger crowd of boys in the same uniforms emerge in the distance and I notice that the older surreptitiously drops the hand of the younger, as he squares his shoulders and plunges right into the centre of the crowd of old friends. As I leave them to go into the station, I notice the younger brother, slightly bewildered on the fringe of the crowd, looking lost. I flash him what I imagine is a cheering smile and enter the station, hoping he will be alright on what is obviously his first day at big school....
On the platform, there is a little boy of maybe five, curled up on the bench, dressed again in uniform, complete with cap, cuddled up to his grandfather's chest who reads to him from a large children's book ...
To the cinema to see the new Almodovar film, Broken Embraces, as I expect, it is a sensuous feast of colours, the glorious yellows and rich reds of Spain, with shots from unusual angles and a story that grabs and hold my attention till the closing scenes. The reviews I had read had suggested that the plot was labyrinthine, with a film within a film, but to me it all appears very easy to follow. The part of the plot where the secretary becomes the mistress of her wealthy boss in order to pay for her father's treatment could have come straight from Nollywood and evokes unpleasant memories of Lagos...
I've now finished Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street. a tale of four African women working in the red-light district of Antwerp. It reflected the thorough research that she had done on the subject, and the story was engaging, if slightly implausible in parts. It is a sympathetic look at the lives of women whose voices are often not heard and well worth reading. Jonathan Cape have also recently published Ghanaian Nii Ayikwei Parkes "African whodunnit "novel, Tail of the Blue Bird and Malawian Samson Kambalu's The Jive Talker, subtitled How to Get a British Passport ( that title alone should guarantee it does well in Nigeria :-) and also published Segun Afolabi's Goodbye Lucille. I hope it means someone at Jonathan Cape is building an African writer's list....I've ordered all three to show my "moral support"
It's quite a year for new offerings from writers of Nigerian extraction, what with Chika's new book, Chimamanda's collection of short stories and new offerings from Helen Oyeyemi (White is for Witching) and Diana Evans (The Wonder)....
It's always a pleasant surprise to stumble across an established writer that I've never read, and even better when my second dip into their oeuvre is as captivating as the first. So it has been with the writer, TC Boyle, also known as T. Coraghessan Boyle. The unusual second name, captured my attention, when at a loose end one Saturday in the library. I then took out and read The Inner Circle, his novel about the sex researcher Professor Kinsey, narrated by one of his early acolytes. I enjoyed it so much that I have now just finished The Women, his account of the famous architect Frank Lloyd Wright's life, again seen through the eyes of a protege. He writes beautifully and does a brilliant job of exposing the clay feet of the two "gods"...
Last night to dinner with a friend to celebrate his elevation at work, he had cooked a kedgeree- (think jollof rice with hardboiled eggs and smoked fish), served with a delicious dal and yoghurt. The kedgeree reminded me in many ways of the jollof rice my grandmother used to cook, using palm oil instead of groundnut oil and any odds and ends she found in her kitchen...
Finally, the death of acclaimed Nigerian lawyer, Gani Fawehinmi last week after a dogged fight with lung cancer was sad. Not surprisingly, acres were written about his achievements and his principled commitment to improving the lot of the Nigerian masses and yet, when the man stood for President a few years ago, very few, if any of us came out to support or vote for him...perhaps because of the joke that said even if elected as president, he would organize protests against himself...
Seriously, we are the poorer for his loss
Saturday, September 05, 2009
Lost bloggers, Yinka Shonibare and a not-by-chance offering
I suppose I only have myself to blame, but coming back to blogville after a long time away, it seems so many of my favourite bloggers, have like me, fallen silent, many of them leaving the same kind of cryptic messages that I left when I disappeared. Glad to see that Jeremy's Naijablog is still going strong , as are Talatu Carmen's Abubuwan da nake tunani, Ore's Notes and Kpakpando. Solomonsydelle and Ms Catwalq remain faithful, but visiting the blogs of many of my fellow contributors to the 14th and Serenity project is a sad and desoalte experience, the last posts, weeks or even months old, spawning a strange and inexplicable sadness. Singto seems to have disappeared on a love-fuelled quest and while Chxta and Toksie continue to blog after relocating home to Nigeria, the hilarious Atutupoyoyo , Adaure and art activist Molara Wood seem to have been swallowd up in the feverish hecticness that is Lagos
And where or where have Jaja, Nkem and Mr Fineboy gone?
Ah well, I suppose it is the way of the virtual world, here today and gone tomorrow...
The plan was to visit the High Line, New York's latest outdoor space, widely touted as the best thing since sliced bread, and so at a loose end on an afternoon, I headed for what I thought would be the entrance, clutching the review from the Financial Times which had what I thought was a useful map. In the event I found myself on the banks of the Hudson, dodging traffic, feet aching and with no way of entry to the nouveau nirvana.....Apparently it's a one-way entrance. Beaten I wandered under the bridge trying to make my way back to the nearest subway station, when a poster for Yinka Shonibare MBE's exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum caught my eye. I made a detour and emerging into the sunshine of Brooklyn spent a delightful couple of hours admiring his exquisite reinterpretations of Western art classics in his signature Dutch wax prints..
Adaobi Nwaubani does not come to us by chance. She has pulled off a stunning feat in her debut novel I Do Not Come to You By Chance, taking the phenomenon of the 419 trade and exposing the flipside in a witty, unnervingly accurate depiction of the milieu that shapes and drives those emails that waft into our inboxes on a regular basis. There are many laugh out loud moments and I urge you to go now and grab a copy of this first offering from the first Nigerian based author to emerge on the international literary scene in a long time....There has been such a harvest of African writing this year, and I imagine it is time I revised my Nigerian/African reading list
It's literally the end of summer and as the weather turns, the leaves begin to flutter down, driven by strong gusts of wind that seemingly appear from nowhere. It's that strange time when it's too early to carry a coat or a jumper and yet, wearing my light cotton shirts, on occasion, I find a gust of ice creeping between the cloth and my skin raising gooseflesh...
And where or where have Jaja, Nkem and Mr Fineboy gone?
Ah well, I suppose it is the way of the virtual world, here today and gone tomorrow...
The plan was to visit the High Line, New York's latest outdoor space, widely touted as the best thing since sliced bread, and so at a loose end on an afternoon, I headed for what I thought would be the entrance, clutching the review from the Financial Times which had what I thought was a useful map. In the event I found myself on the banks of the Hudson, dodging traffic, feet aching and with no way of entry to the nouveau nirvana.....Apparently it's a one-way entrance. Beaten I wandered under the bridge trying to make my way back to the nearest subway station, when a poster for Yinka Shonibare MBE's exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum caught my eye. I made a detour and emerging into the sunshine of Brooklyn spent a delightful couple of hours admiring his exquisite reinterpretations of Western art classics in his signature Dutch wax prints..
Adaobi Nwaubani does not come to us by chance. She has pulled off a stunning feat in her debut novel I Do Not Come to You By Chance, taking the phenomenon of the 419 trade and exposing the flipside in a witty, unnervingly accurate depiction of the milieu that shapes and drives those emails that waft into our inboxes on a regular basis. There are many laugh out loud moments and I urge you to go now and grab a copy of this first offering from the first Nigerian based author to emerge on the international literary scene in a long time....There has been such a harvest of African writing this year, and I imagine it is time I revised my Nigerian/African reading list
It's literally the end of summer and as the weather turns, the leaves begin to flutter down, driven by strong gusts of wind that seemingly appear from nowhere. It's that strange time when it's too early to carry a coat or a jumper and yet, wearing my light cotton shirts, on occasion, I find a gust of ice creeping between the cloth and my skin raising gooseflesh...
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Spiritual attacks, Thai lunch and the Voice of Zimbabwe
I am sitting at my desk in our new open plan office, it has been decreed that open plan will break us out of our silos. Funnily enough, all the bosses seem to have ended up with desks right by the windows, with good views. So much for the "democratization of the open plan office" we were promised.
I hold the phone away from my ear as the person at the other end prattles on about "pushbacks" and "dependencies", I wonder where they pick these phrases from. Why is it unacceptabel to speak simple plain English in a business context? As I put the phone down, gently rubbing my ear, my mobile phone buzzes in my pocket. I've had it on permanent vibrate mode ever since the embarassing mobile phone going off during eminent professor's lecture incident in my early years in London. But that's another story.
I glance at the screen and see that it is one of my favourite aunts from Nigeria. She has been unwell and I had sent her some CDs of religious choral music (that old favourite of the aspirational Nigerians of my parents' generation,Handel's Messiah and some psalms) that she had requested, together with the inevitable "little" something. As it's nearly lunch time, I slip discreetly into an empty meeting room to take the call. As I look out onto the bustle of central London, the cars locked in a seemingly purposeless circling, our conversation begins
"Auntie, Good afternoon, how are you?"
" I thank God my son, thank you so much for the things you sent- and you even put in some money"
"Ah, auntie, it's nothing, what's this about you not being well, what's the matter?
"Hmm, Naijaman, it was not easy, for months I felt like there was a sharp pobject bearing down between my shoulder blades.I couldn't sleep, I could hardly turn my neck..."
"Ah, that sounds serious, did you see a doctor at the teaching hospital?"
"Yes I did, I saw several..."
"And what did they say?"
"Well, they couldn't find anything wrong, not even after all their tests, and that's when I realized it was a spiritual attack. They were trying to get my brother and because they have been told that I'm a prayer warrior with a ring of fire around him, they decided to get me away first. But they have failed....to the Glory of God"
There are a million possible responses to all of this- I could ask who "they" are, I could ask why her brother needs to be got, and so on, but I stay silent, murmur soothing sounds, marvelling at the incongruity of the worlds I inhabit and slowly, pressing the end button, head for lunch
Lunch is at my favourite Thai restaurant a stonethrow from the office. They do a fabulous 3 course lunch. I nearly always have the same thing, crispy wontons the crisp pastry bursting with the juicy prawn filling, then the Pad Krae Prow (pork in a basil and chilli stir fry sauce) and then the banana fritters served with a small scoop of vanilla icecream- the hot fritters and fozen ice cream meeting in the mouth to create a sensation....
As I eat, I read Petina Gappah's amazing new collection, An Elegy for Easterly, which lays bare the various facets of contemporary Zimbabwe. I do not know Zimbabwe, have never been there, and yet reading these stories, I feel that I know it so well that I could recognize the characters in it if I met them on the street. And the wit, the delicious humour, almost Wildean is stunning. Petina has visited this blog in the past and I'm pleased that she's produced an excellent first offering. Watch out for her, coming soon to a bookshop near you! My favourite quote (not from the book but from an interview) was (I paraphrase) "The publishers came with this blurb, it read, she is the Voice of Zimbabwe and I said, take it off, the Voice of Zimbabwe is a radio station"
In any case it appears her publishers won and there is a blurb saying she is the voice of Zimbabwe
I hold the phone away from my ear as the person at the other end prattles on about "pushbacks" and "dependencies", I wonder where they pick these phrases from. Why is it unacceptabel to speak simple plain English in a business context? As I put the phone down, gently rubbing my ear, my mobile phone buzzes in my pocket. I've had it on permanent vibrate mode ever since the embarassing mobile phone going off during eminent professor's lecture incident in my early years in London. But that's another story.
I glance at the screen and see that it is one of my favourite aunts from Nigeria. She has been unwell and I had sent her some CDs of religious choral music (that old favourite of the aspirational Nigerians of my parents' generation,Handel's Messiah and some psalms) that she had requested, together with the inevitable "little" something. As it's nearly lunch time, I slip discreetly into an empty meeting room to take the call. As I look out onto the bustle of central London, the cars locked in a seemingly purposeless circling, our conversation begins
"Auntie, Good afternoon, how are you?"
" I thank God my son, thank you so much for the things you sent- and you even put in some money"
"Ah, auntie, it's nothing, what's this about you not being well, what's the matter?
"Hmm, Naijaman, it was not easy, for months I felt like there was a sharp pobject bearing down between my shoulder blades.I couldn't sleep, I could hardly turn my neck..."
"Ah, that sounds serious, did you see a doctor at the teaching hospital?"
"Yes I did, I saw several..."
"And what did they say?"
"Well, they couldn't find anything wrong, not even after all their tests, and that's when I realized it was a spiritual attack. They were trying to get my brother and because they have been told that I'm a prayer warrior with a ring of fire around him, they decided to get me away first. But they have failed....to the Glory of God"
There are a million possible responses to all of this- I could ask who "they" are, I could ask why her brother needs to be got, and so on, but I stay silent, murmur soothing sounds, marvelling at the incongruity of the worlds I inhabit and slowly, pressing the end button, head for lunch
Lunch is at my favourite Thai restaurant a stonethrow from the office. They do a fabulous 3 course lunch. I nearly always have the same thing, crispy wontons the crisp pastry bursting with the juicy prawn filling, then the Pad Krae Prow (pork in a basil and chilli stir fry sauce) and then the banana fritters served with a small scoop of vanilla icecream- the hot fritters and fozen ice cream meeting in the mouth to create a sensation....
As I eat, I read Petina Gappah's amazing new collection, An Elegy for Easterly, which lays bare the various facets of contemporary Zimbabwe. I do not know Zimbabwe, have never been there, and yet reading these stories, I feel that I know it so well that I could recognize the characters in it if I met them on the street. And the wit, the delicious humour, almost Wildean is stunning. Petina has visited this blog in the past and I'm pleased that she's produced an excellent first offering. Watch out for her, coming soon to a bookshop near you! My favourite quote (not from the book but from an interview) was (I paraphrase) "The publishers came with this blurb, it read, she is the Voice of Zimbabwe and I said, take it off, the Voice of Zimbabwe is a radio station"
In any case it appears her publishers won and there is a blurb saying she is the voice of Zimbabwe
Saturday, August 22, 2009
As I was saying....
The sunlight streams through the slightly chilly breeze and I make my way up the steps through the ornate carved doorway into the church. As I move forward, I notice the dreadlocked ma, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt of doubtful cleanliness, standing just within the portico, outside the door, who grins and says "Morning brother"in a patois tinged tone, as he clasps his hand in front of him in a mock- approximation of what Presidents do, while listening to their peers at a bilateral press conference.
I pause at the doorway to collect the Order of Srvice from a grinning usher and just then hear some commotion at the door behind me. An African family have just arrived and Dreadlocks, my friend is objecting loudly to the teenage son entering the church with as he puts it "his trousers around his ankles". The parents stride ahead pretending they have nothing to do with the boy, and the boy tries to do the same, but Dreads is having none of it, he chases after him, up the aisle, almost into the main body of the church, and finally, the boy, defeated, pulls up his trousers, sparing the congregation the sight of his striped boxers, while his sisters titter and the first bars of the opening hymn ring out.....
News that the londonpaper is to close fills me with a sense of glee, perhaps, now the other free evening paper, London Lite which seemed to have been set up in direct competition to thelondonpaper will also now close and all our train carriages, stations and streets will be the cleaner for it. Besides it will be good to enter a station on the way from work without first having to run the gauntlet of vendors pressing the rival papers insistently on you.... I do feel sad for the vendors, who mostly appeared to be from the Indian sub-continent or African-whether this was a planned recruitment strategy or merely the function of relatively poor pay, I never knew. Now they will have to find new arduous immigrant work in the straitened economic times. I wonder if it will also affect the cleaners as there will be a lot less rubbish to pick up...
In Nigeria, the ripples from the closure of some of the 5 biggest banks continue. In the Financial Times this morning, I read that the EFCC is now to go after the internal and external auditors of the banks in question. Will this be the Nigerian Enron? Hardly, knowing how my beloved country operates. It will probably all fizzle out in a few weeks, but the reactions, predictably are amusing- there are the usual insinuations about ethnic sentiment on the part of the Central Bank Governor. So he, northern prince of Kano that he is, is for instance, accused of a vendetta against Southern banks. Yet of the 25 banks left standing, only 1 could at best be described as a Northern bank. So isn't it inevitable that the numbers of those culled would reflect this? Then there are the "It is the work of my jealous enemies" group, insisting that they shall be vindicated, seeing as they are holy people. Reading some of the comments on the scoop breaking NEXTwebsite, I reimagine the crash of Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock and co, this time with the bankers insisting divine justfication and their manicured wives holding nightlong prayer and fasting sessions in their plush 5th Avenue apartments....
I've just finished Sarah Waters book, The Night watch, longlisted for the Booker Prize this year. I enjoyed it, as it was brilliantly evocative of a pivotal era in British history, the immediate post-war period with the decay of many large estates and families. Although it is billed as a ghost story, I didn't find it scary at all, but then that's often the case with me- somehow, a horror film can evoke the sense of fear where a book can't. And yet, I'm often transported to different worlds by books, so there must be something about the failure of my literary imagination.
Next up on my list, a clutch of recent African writing, which to my shame, I have been too busy before now to read. But I have gone to Daunt's and ordered them and this morning will be picking up, in no particular order, Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly a collection of what I am told are jewel-like stories, polished and glittering, set in contemporary Zimbabwe, Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters Street following 4 Nigerian prostitutes in Belgium, Adaobi Nwaubani's I Do Not Come to You By Chance, probably the first novel on the 419 phenomenon and Brian Chikwava's Harare North, detailing the lives of Zimbabwean immigrants in London, which apparently they call Harare North... By the way, where are the new Nigerian male writers? There's Adichie, Atta, Unigwe,Nwaubani, Shoneyin,Agary on the female side....have we men been rendered voiceless?
Meanwhile across the ocean, poor Brother Barack is under fire as millions of uninsured Americans vociferously attack his plans to give them cover (I read that somehwere, can't remember where, and it made me chuckle. But seriously, the whole debate lays bare the difference in culture between the US and Europe, especially the throwing around of the word "socialist" as if it were a particularly slimy and dangerous thing to be....
So the plan is to resume blogging, once a week, every week, without fail......hope it works, or rather, the demands of the day job permit
I pause at the doorway to collect the Order of Srvice from a grinning usher and just then hear some commotion at the door behind me. An African family have just arrived and Dreadlocks, my friend is objecting loudly to the teenage son entering the church with as he puts it "his trousers around his ankles". The parents stride ahead pretending they have nothing to do with the boy, and the boy tries to do the same, but Dreads is having none of it, he chases after him, up the aisle, almost into the main body of the church, and finally, the boy, defeated, pulls up his trousers, sparing the congregation the sight of his striped boxers, while his sisters titter and the first bars of the opening hymn ring out.....
News that the londonpaper is to close fills me with a sense of glee, perhaps, now the other free evening paper, London Lite which seemed to have been set up in direct competition to thelondonpaper will also now close and all our train carriages, stations and streets will be the cleaner for it. Besides it will be good to enter a station on the way from work without first having to run the gauntlet of vendors pressing the rival papers insistently on you.... I do feel sad for the vendors, who mostly appeared to be from the Indian sub-continent or African-whether this was a planned recruitment strategy or merely the function of relatively poor pay, I never knew. Now they will have to find new arduous immigrant work in the straitened economic times. I wonder if it will also affect the cleaners as there will be a lot less rubbish to pick up...
In Nigeria, the ripples from the closure of some of the 5 biggest banks continue. In the Financial Times this morning, I read that the EFCC is now to go after the internal and external auditors of the banks in question. Will this be the Nigerian Enron? Hardly, knowing how my beloved country operates. It will probably all fizzle out in a few weeks, but the reactions, predictably are amusing- there are the usual insinuations about ethnic sentiment on the part of the Central Bank Governor. So he, northern prince of Kano that he is, is for instance, accused of a vendetta against Southern banks. Yet of the 25 banks left standing, only 1 could at best be described as a Northern bank. So isn't it inevitable that the numbers of those culled would reflect this? Then there are the "It is the work of my jealous enemies" group, insisting that they shall be vindicated, seeing as they are holy people. Reading some of the comments on the scoop breaking NEXTwebsite, I reimagine the crash of Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock and co, this time with the bankers insisting divine justfication and their manicured wives holding nightlong prayer and fasting sessions in their plush 5th Avenue apartments....
I've just finished Sarah Waters book, The Night watch, longlisted for the Booker Prize this year. I enjoyed it, as it was brilliantly evocative of a pivotal era in British history, the immediate post-war period with the decay of many large estates and families. Although it is billed as a ghost story, I didn't find it scary at all, but then that's often the case with me- somehow, a horror film can evoke the sense of fear where a book can't. And yet, I'm often transported to different worlds by books, so there must be something about the failure of my literary imagination.
Next up on my list, a clutch of recent African writing, which to my shame, I have been too busy before now to read. But I have gone to Daunt's and ordered them and this morning will be picking up, in no particular order, Petina Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly a collection of what I am told are jewel-like stories, polished and glittering, set in contemporary Zimbabwe, Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters Street following 4 Nigerian prostitutes in Belgium, Adaobi Nwaubani's I Do Not Come to You By Chance, probably the first novel on the 419 phenomenon and Brian Chikwava's Harare North, detailing the lives of Zimbabwean immigrants in London, which apparently they call Harare North... By the way, where are the new Nigerian male writers? There's Adichie, Atta, Unigwe,Nwaubani, Shoneyin,Agary on the female side....have we men been rendered voiceless?
Meanwhile across the ocean, poor Brother Barack is under fire as millions of uninsured Americans vociferously attack his plans to give them cover (I read that somehwere, can't remember where, and it made me chuckle. But seriously, the whole debate lays bare the difference in culture between the US and Europe, especially the throwing around of the word "socialist" as if it were a particularly slimy and dangerous thing to be....
So the plan is to resume blogging, once a week, every week, without fail......hope it works, or rather, the demands of the day job permit
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Family budgets, an earlier Adiga and political feuds
It's a crisp spring morning, the sun is out and its warmth can actually begin to be felt again. I descend into the Underground wondering if it was wise to have agreed to meet this friend in Jermyn Street. On the train, I find myself squeezed up against a family of five- father, mother and three children- two boys and one girl. the girl is the youngest- she is perhaps 8 years old, her blonde pigtails dangling against her mother's shoulder. Her two brother are probably ten and eleven, and as the train pulls into Piccadilly, one of them moans "Daaad, I'm hungry". The father tattoos peeking out from underneath one the biceps barely covered by the short sleeves asks "didn't your mother feed you just now?"
Only a sandwich he replies and his father swings round to fix the mother with a stare, sandwiches for ten quid, he asks and a i walk up the escalator, the mother defending her purchases, I wonder if I have just glimpsed the credit crunch writ live....
Just reading Before the Assasinations by Aravind Adiga,author of the White Tiger. It's been lent to me by an Indian friend and it seems like it was rushed out to take advantage of his new post Booker fame. It's a series of unlinked vignettes set in Kittur in South India and I guess it was an earlier attempt at writing pre-The Whie Tiger. It's interesting to see some of the themes that recur in The White Tiger, just less developed...
The photograph of Atiku and Obasanjo embracing on the website of Thisday yesterday highlighted the old adage " No permanent friends and no permanent foes in politics" Pity those who spent their energy, resources and blood in the feud between the two. It reminded me of IBB's daughters wedding where the Abiolas, the Abachas and Babangidas merrily celebrated together. I still keep those pictures to remind myself....
Thanks to all those who expressed concern, solicitations and felicitations during my long absence. All's well, life happened
Only a sandwich he replies and his father swings round to fix the mother with a stare, sandwiches for ten quid, he asks and a i walk up the escalator, the mother defending her purchases, I wonder if I have just glimpsed the credit crunch writ live....
Just reading Before the Assasinations by Aravind Adiga,author of the White Tiger. It's been lent to me by an Indian friend and it seems like it was rushed out to take advantage of his new post Booker fame. It's a series of unlinked vignettes set in Kittur in South India and I guess it was an earlier attempt at writing pre-The Whie Tiger. It's interesting to see some of the themes that recur in The White Tiger, just less developed...
The photograph of Atiku and Obasanjo embracing on the website of Thisday yesterday highlighted the old adage " No permanent friends and no permanent foes in politics" Pity those who spent their energy, resources and blood in the feud between the two. It reminded me of IBB's daughters wedding where the Abiolas, the Abachas and Babangidas merrily celebrated together. I still keep those pictures to remind myself....
Thanks to all those who expressed concern, solicitations and felicitations during my long absence. All's well, life happened
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Credit crunch autumn, Sisyphean tasks, Sarah Manyika, Nnenna Okore and other miscellany
It has been so long since my last blog that as I finally sit down to write an update, I find that I have forgotten my log-in password. After two attempts, I finally type in the right words and feel a wave of relief as I am let in...
It is autumn in credit-crunched London and the days are often sunny but the pavements and roads are slowly acquiring a cover of brown crinkly leaves as the trees shed their garb as a chill enters the air. I retrieve my hat (with my recent haircut, my head is cold) but note that soon, the rest of the cold weather gear will have to make an appearance- first the coat, then the scarf and then the gloves and then the layers. Now I begin to understand why a Nigerian friend says she loves getting dressed in winter....
Walking to the tube station, I spot a cleaner with a weird machine blasting at spots on the pavement- it soon becomes clear that he is engaged in the thankless task of blasting the chewing gum spots from the pavement. I have read somewhere of the vast cost to councils of cleaning up chewing gum from the pavement, but watching this poor man blast away at spot after spot and then seeing people drop new bits of gum on the parts that he has already cleaned, I am reminded of the legend of Sisyphus, eternally condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hillside, only for it to roll back each time he reached the summit...
In Marks and Spencer, I dash in late one evening to grab a bottle of milk for tomorrow's cereal, and after queuing find myself face to face with a check-out clerk that I am pretty certain is Nigerian. My eye goes to his name badge to confirm my suspicion, but it only bears the unhelpful moniker "Trainee". Why , I think to myself humiliate someone with the badge- is the idea to alert us to the possibility that our service might be less than perfect? Surely the badge could say " Ola (Trainee)" or whatever..
In the event when I move to his corner, he greets me with a parroted spiel of obviously recently memorized words" Goodeveningsorryforkeepingyouwaitingwould youlikeabag.. The words tumble in an unrestrained rush from his lips as if he is afraid that pausing for breath would rob his memory of the next line in the obviously carefully crafted script. All the while, he does not make eye contact, seemingly staring at a space behind my left shoulder in a bored and lethargic manner. As I leave, the last customer for the night, I hear him whispering into his phone in Nigerian pidgin.....
I find myself in Leicester Square one Sunday and discover that the large building at one corner which included the Swiss Centre has been torn down, leaving a gaping hole in the heart of the West End. Suddenly the higher floors of some of the buildings behind it are exposed to view, and I marvel that I have walked past this area so often without noticing so much....
While I have been away, so much has happened- from Chimamanda's Macarthur "genius grant" to the emergence of Sarah Palin to the credit crunch to Colin Powell doing the Yahooze dance at the Royal Albert Hall- too much to talk about
On the credit crunch, it is so reassuring hen it is clear that even the so called experts have not got a clue what the right thing to do is. Meanwhile politicians squabble over who to blame, when in reality pretty much everyone carries their own share.
A late summer holiday gives me the chance to catch up on my reading- from Oona King's fascinating accounts of life as a young mixed race Blair Babe in Parliament in House Music to Edward St Aubyn's chilling Some Hope which I later discover is based on his own life- including being raped by his father at the age of five
Two new books worth getting are Sarah Ladipo Manyika's In Dependence and the UEA Anthology of Creative Writing 2008
At the reading for the UEA Anthology, in a packed downstairs room at the Poetry Cafe, the air fervid with the compressed ambitions of fifty potential Ian McEwans and Anne Enrights, my eye was caught by Christie Watson dressed head to toe in dazzling red, as she read from her forthcoming novel set in the Niger Delta.....
Finally for Londoners, don't miss two Nigeria events over the next few weeks- Nnenna Okore's stunning Ulukububa exhibition at the October Gallery and the Partnership for Nigerian Health Conference at UCL next month
I've also stumbled on a number of interesting Nigerian related ,art blogs in the last few weeks, Bisi Silva's
Princeton art professor Chika Okeke-Agulu's and Santa Barbara professor Sylvester Ogbechie's
Also stumbled across this about Abuja on Monocle, the uber-hip magazine
It is autumn in credit-crunched London and the days are often sunny but the pavements and roads are slowly acquiring a cover of brown crinkly leaves as the trees shed their garb as a chill enters the air. I retrieve my hat (with my recent haircut, my head is cold) but note that soon, the rest of the cold weather gear will have to make an appearance- first the coat, then the scarf and then the gloves and then the layers. Now I begin to understand why a Nigerian friend says she loves getting dressed in winter....
Walking to the tube station, I spot a cleaner with a weird machine blasting at spots on the pavement- it soon becomes clear that he is engaged in the thankless task of blasting the chewing gum spots from the pavement. I have read somewhere of the vast cost to councils of cleaning up chewing gum from the pavement, but watching this poor man blast away at spot after spot and then seeing people drop new bits of gum on the parts that he has already cleaned, I am reminded of the legend of Sisyphus, eternally condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hillside, only for it to roll back each time he reached the summit...
In Marks and Spencer, I dash in late one evening to grab a bottle of milk for tomorrow's cereal, and after queuing find myself face to face with a check-out clerk that I am pretty certain is Nigerian. My eye goes to his name badge to confirm my suspicion, but it only bears the unhelpful moniker "Trainee". Why , I think to myself humiliate someone with the badge- is the idea to alert us to the possibility that our service might be less than perfect? Surely the badge could say " Ola (Trainee)" or whatever..
In the event when I move to his corner, he greets me with a parroted spiel of obviously recently memorized words" Goodeveningsorryforkeepingyouwaitingwould youlikeabag.. The words tumble in an unrestrained rush from his lips as if he is afraid that pausing for breath would rob his memory of the next line in the obviously carefully crafted script. All the while, he does not make eye contact, seemingly staring at a space behind my left shoulder in a bored and lethargic manner. As I leave, the last customer for the night, I hear him whispering into his phone in Nigerian pidgin.....
I find myself in Leicester Square one Sunday and discover that the large building at one corner which included the Swiss Centre has been torn down, leaving a gaping hole in the heart of the West End. Suddenly the higher floors of some of the buildings behind it are exposed to view, and I marvel that I have walked past this area so often without noticing so much....
While I have been away, so much has happened- from Chimamanda's Macarthur "genius grant" to the emergence of Sarah Palin to the credit crunch to Colin Powell doing the Yahooze dance at the Royal Albert Hall- too much to talk about
On the credit crunch, it is so reassuring hen it is clear that even the so called experts have not got a clue what the right thing to do is. Meanwhile politicians squabble over who to blame, when in reality pretty much everyone carries their own share.
A late summer holiday gives me the chance to catch up on my reading- from Oona King's fascinating accounts of life as a young mixed race Blair Babe in Parliament in House Music to Edward St Aubyn's chilling Some Hope which I later discover is based on his own life- including being raped by his father at the age of five
Two new books worth getting are Sarah Ladipo Manyika's In Dependence and the UEA Anthology of Creative Writing 2008
At the reading for the UEA Anthology, in a packed downstairs room at the Poetry Cafe, the air fervid with the compressed ambitions of fifty potential Ian McEwans and Anne Enrights, my eye was caught by Christie Watson dressed head to toe in dazzling red, as she read from her forthcoming novel set in the Niger Delta.....
Finally for Londoners, don't miss two Nigeria events over the next few weeks- Nnenna Okore's stunning Ulukububa exhibition at the October Gallery and the Partnership for Nigerian Health Conference at UCL next month
I've also stumbled on a number of interesting Nigerian related ,art blogs in the last few weeks, Bisi Silva's
Princeton art professor Chika Okeke-Agulu's and Santa Barbara professor Sylvester Ogbechie's
Also stumbled across this about Abuja on Monocle, the uber-hip magazine
Friday, August 29, 2008
Addressing elders and other miscellaneous musings
Before I leave for the meeting, I ask one of my colleagues to print out the briefing paper for me. As he hands it to me, I notice that one of the names on the list for the team that I am to meet is Nigerian. Getting to the office, the receptionist is chirpily efficient, from her groomed blonde hair, pulled back in a ponytail to the well-manicured nails with which she taps at the terminal in front of her, confirming that I am expected. I enter the meeting venue and we are all introduced, first names only- here my dilemma surfaces- the Nigerian is much older than I am, and in Nigeria I would ordinarily call him Sir, or at least preface his name with the friendly but deferent Oga. In this London office, I grin and call him boldly by his fist name, wincing inwardly, decades of "good home training", casually tossed aside....
I have just finished Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation, a humorous but informative tour of US presidential assassination trivia. When a friend offered it to me, I was sceptical but once I started I was hooked. Vowell's humour is grounded by a deep knowledge and intelligence which makes it even more rewarding. I wasn't only laughing when I finished, I was thinking as well...wondering for instance how the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln which fought the Civil War and signed the Emancipation Proclamation morphed into the Republican party of today...
Also on the recently finished list is the Kenya issue of Farafina which I had been meaning to read for a while. It made for great reading and highlighted what great talent there is across the continent....
We sit in the garden after a dinner of delicious salmon and tender lamb chops infused with rosemary and served with a Scotch bonnet pepper jam, a delicious mix of searing heat and sweetness. As we sit, sated, we listen to the wife of a friend, originally from the North of England, but now a true-bred Londoner, talk about going home for her father's funeral. As she talks about the gaping gulfs in attitudes and manners and culture that now exist between her and some of her friends and family members, I am struck by the awareness that estrangement is not just a question of language, or kilometres....
The Olympics have come and gone and for the first time ever I am so busy with work and with meeting up with visiting friends and relatives from Nigeria, in London for the summer that I do not manage to watch any of the events live. Thankfully BBC iplayer means that I can catch up on the breathtaking moments. Funny how in the euphoria over the events the media went quiet on China and human rights.... poor Tibetans
I have just finished Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation, a humorous but informative tour of US presidential assassination trivia. When a friend offered it to me, I was sceptical but once I started I was hooked. Vowell's humour is grounded by a deep knowledge and intelligence which makes it even more rewarding. I wasn't only laughing when I finished, I was thinking as well...wondering for instance how the Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln which fought the Civil War and signed the Emancipation Proclamation morphed into the Republican party of today...
Also on the recently finished list is the Kenya issue of Farafina which I had been meaning to read for a while. It made for great reading and highlighted what great talent there is across the continent....
We sit in the garden after a dinner of delicious salmon and tender lamb chops infused with rosemary and served with a Scotch bonnet pepper jam, a delicious mix of searing heat and sweetness. As we sit, sated, we listen to the wife of a friend, originally from the North of England, but now a true-bred Londoner, talk about going home for her father's funeral. As she talks about the gaping gulfs in attitudes and manners and culture that now exist between her and some of her friends and family members, I am struck by the awareness that estrangement is not just a question of language, or kilometres....
The Olympics have come and gone and for the first time ever I am so busy with work and with meeting up with visiting friends and relatives from Nigeria, in London for the summer that I do not manage to watch any of the events live. Thankfully BBC iplayer means that I can catch up on the breathtaking moments. Funny how in the euphoria over the events the media went quiet on China and human rights.... poor Tibetans
Friday, August 15, 2008
Storytelling, childhood memories, lunchtime reading and worrying signs from Yaradua
The young boy is sitting opposite me, his mother beside him. He is playing an interesting game, taking the Hula Hoop snacks one by one from the crinkling foil bag and adorning his fingers with them. The hoops slip down neatly and marvelling at the smallness of his fingers and looking at my stubby fingers, I think that once too my fingers were that small and the Hoops would have gone down with ease. His mother watches him half detached with that stoic look of fear, determination, hope and weariness that is often worn by many new immigrants, a look I know well, having once worn it....
A few days later I am sitting in a leafy garden at one of the parties that are de rigueur in the summer, and spy a bowl of Hula Hoops, gingered by my memory, I go and grab a handful. I find that as I thought, my fingers are too big to squeeze them on, and eating them I find I dislike the vinegary taste of them...
Poor Georgia and Georgians, to take the international community (read USA and NATO) at its word. The whole thing reminded me of the playground fights back in primary school, where one bully would goad a weaker boy to attack another bully, implying that they would back them up if bully 2 erupted. Often bully 1 would watch from the sidelines while weaker boy got mammothly thumped...
In London, the weather oscillates between bright sunny, fine days and tropical type storms with strong winds and heavy rain. one morning, I find myself drenched walking from the tube to my office, even though it is only a short walk and I have an umbrella. I spend the rest of the day slowly steaming in my drying out clothes...
Yesterday, the papers were awash again with pictures of youngsters who had achieved their A levels. The results were published yesterday and it is virtually obligatory that all the newspapers will have photographs of youngsters celebrating their results- often trying to find a group with a particular quirk- some recently arrived refugee who makes 3 As or twins or triplets who all do well. Yesterday, many of the papers focused on the Okes, quadruplets of Nigerian heritage brought up by a single mother in Woolwich. Almost inevitably, the papers also focus on the endless debate about whether the standards of the exams have fallen- this year there was a 97 per cent pass rate prompting the same arguments about whether it meant schools were doing a better job or not. Judging from my limited experience of the youngster I met last week, predicted to gain three As, but shockingly inarticulate, verbally or in writing, I wondered....
I'm reading The Hakawati by Rabi Alahmeddine, it's an ambitious sprawling book, including an almost modern version of the Arabian Nights interspersed with the story of a young boy growing up in Beirut. It's an ambitious style and I'm not always sure the switching back and forth works, but the story grips me, leaving me wanting to know more- the ultimate mark in my book of a true story teller...
Thinking of storytelling reminds me of my childhood in Nigeria where my mother and grandmothers told us Nigerian folk tales complete with songs, often every night, but on other nights, my mother would read to us the fairy tales found in the Ladybird books, of princesses and peas; and Hansel and Gretel... Reflecting on the dual heritage, I'm grateful for the richness of my memories...
I read recently and was underwhelmed by Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone, his account of his experiences in Sierra Leone during the war there, including his time spent as a child soldier. The accounts were harrowing and yet I felt that there was something lacking in the telling...it felt a bit too dry...
Other recent reading include a book abouth the infamous Kray twins, criminal lords of the East End in London in the Sixties, which I found tedious but which contained the interesting story about the Krays' attempts to set up some sort of scam involving a seaside resort apparently set in Enugu, Nigeria. Try googling Krays and Enugu for more on this...
I'm also struggling through Saul Bellow's The Dean's December, which is actually the first time I have tried reading Bellow. I'm finding it hard going- a bit too ponderous for me and I wonder how much of that is my mood at the moment- perhaps I'm so busy and stressed with work that I find it difficult to ponder deeply meaningful fiction. And yet, I think Alameddine addresses many contemporary issues adopting a suitably light approach
Another afternoon, it's lunchtime and I carry my book to the cafe where I am to have lunch, placing my order at the queue, I spot a colleague sitting on her own eating her lunch. i smile and wave to her and then struggle with whether I ought to go over and join her. In the end I decide she'd probably I didn't anyway and so I sit on my own and read my book. I wonder if she will think me aloof and I suspect this is one of those peculiarly English situations where neither party really wants to sit with the other but are forced to out of politeness. Thankfully, I'm not English and so am allowed some latitude- perhaps I don't quite understand the etiquette- an excuse that I grab with both hands...
In Nigeria, the brouhaha around the demotion of some police officers including the former boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu reeks of the typically Nigerian muddleheadedness. Some people celebrate thinking Ribadu has got his comeuppance for his arrogance and yet, although no great fan of Ribadu's I can't help but wonder if the exercise is justified. Assuming that due process had not been followed in the promotions, is demoting them the best way to address this? What about the impact on the morale of some of he officers who were actually promoted because of their good performance?
What with the appointment of various individuals of potentially questionable integrity to key posts, it appears that President Yaradua is losing the battle with the forces of negativity, meanwhile the alleged picture of his young son, toting a gun and brandishing currency notes posted on the Photo Speak section of the Sahara Reporters website adds to my sense of unease, as does this Youtube video of his wife's visit to Harlem
And to show that it isn't just Yaradua that is at issue, there is the now infamous Obama dinner, which had me shaking my head in wonder...
A few days later I am sitting in a leafy garden at one of the parties that are de rigueur in the summer, and spy a bowl of Hula Hoops, gingered by my memory, I go and grab a handful. I find that as I thought, my fingers are too big to squeeze them on, and eating them I find I dislike the vinegary taste of them...
Poor Georgia and Georgians, to take the international community (read USA and NATO) at its word. The whole thing reminded me of the playground fights back in primary school, where one bully would goad a weaker boy to attack another bully, implying that they would back them up if bully 2 erupted. Often bully 1 would watch from the sidelines while weaker boy got mammothly thumped...
In London, the weather oscillates between bright sunny, fine days and tropical type storms with strong winds and heavy rain. one morning, I find myself drenched walking from the tube to my office, even though it is only a short walk and I have an umbrella. I spend the rest of the day slowly steaming in my drying out clothes...
Yesterday, the papers were awash again with pictures of youngsters who had achieved their A levels. The results were published yesterday and it is virtually obligatory that all the newspapers will have photographs of youngsters celebrating their results- often trying to find a group with a particular quirk- some recently arrived refugee who makes 3 As or twins or triplets who all do well. Yesterday, many of the papers focused on the Okes, quadruplets of Nigerian heritage brought up by a single mother in Woolwich. Almost inevitably, the papers also focus on the endless debate about whether the standards of the exams have fallen- this year there was a 97 per cent pass rate prompting the same arguments about whether it meant schools were doing a better job or not. Judging from my limited experience of the youngster I met last week, predicted to gain three As, but shockingly inarticulate, verbally or in writing, I wondered....
I'm reading The Hakawati by Rabi Alahmeddine, it's an ambitious sprawling book, including an almost modern version of the Arabian Nights interspersed with the story of a young boy growing up in Beirut. It's an ambitious style and I'm not always sure the switching back and forth works, but the story grips me, leaving me wanting to know more- the ultimate mark in my book of a true story teller...
Thinking of storytelling reminds me of my childhood in Nigeria where my mother and grandmothers told us Nigerian folk tales complete with songs, often every night, but on other nights, my mother would read to us the fairy tales found in the Ladybird books, of princesses and peas; and Hansel and Gretel... Reflecting on the dual heritage, I'm grateful for the richness of my memories...
I read recently and was underwhelmed by Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone, his account of his experiences in Sierra Leone during the war there, including his time spent as a child soldier. The accounts were harrowing and yet I felt that there was something lacking in the telling...it felt a bit too dry...
Other recent reading include a book abouth the infamous Kray twins, criminal lords of the East End in London in the Sixties, which I found tedious but which contained the interesting story about the Krays' attempts to set up some sort of scam involving a seaside resort apparently set in Enugu, Nigeria. Try googling Krays and Enugu for more on this...
I'm also struggling through Saul Bellow's The Dean's December, which is actually the first time I have tried reading Bellow. I'm finding it hard going- a bit too ponderous for me and I wonder how much of that is my mood at the moment- perhaps I'm so busy and stressed with work that I find it difficult to ponder deeply meaningful fiction. And yet, I think Alameddine addresses many contemporary issues adopting a suitably light approach
Another afternoon, it's lunchtime and I carry my book to the cafe where I am to have lunch, placing my order at the queue, I spot a colleague sitting on her own eating her lunch. i smile and wave to her and then struggle with whether I ought to go over and join her. In the end I decide she'd probably I didn't anyway and so I sit on my own and read my book. I wonder if she will think me aloof and I suspect this is one of those peculiarly English situations where neither party really wants to sit with the other but are forced to out of politeness. Thankfully, I'm not English and so am allowed some latitude- perhaps I don't quite understand the etiquette- an excuse that I grab with both hands...
In Nigeria, the brouhaha around the demotion of some police officers including the former boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Nuhu Ribadu reeks of the typically Nigerian muddleheadedness. Some people celebrate thinking Ribadu has got his comeuppance for his arrogance and yet, although no great fan of Ribadu's I can't help but wonder if the exercise is justified. Assuming that due process had not been followed in the promotions, is demoting them the best way to address this? What about the impact on the morale of some of he officers who were actually promoted because of their good performance?
What with the appointment of various individuals of potentially questionable integrity to key posts, it appears that President Yaradua is losing the battle with the forces of negativity, meanwhile the alleged picture of his young son, toting a gun and brandishing currency notes posted on the Photo Speak section of the Sahara Reporters website adds to my sense of unease, as does this Youtube video of his wife's visit to Harlem
And to show that it isn't just Yaradua that is at issue, there is the now infamous Obama dinner, which had me shaking my head in wonder...
Monday, August 04, 2008
Bookslam, Nonso Anozie and a whiff of nepotism
Walking out of the tube station, I am at a loss whether to turn left or right- the map on the wall of the tube station isn't much help, and so I find myself taking a gamble and heading in a direction that I assume to be the right one. It soon becomes clear that it isn't, and it has begun to rain, a fierce drizzle of the irritating kind that sometimes appears in London, making me want to shout at it, make up your mind and fall like a proper tropical storm, rather than keeping up this piss-pissing all day long. It is a Thursday night and as I am in the edgy trendy area between Notting Hill and Kilburn, I pass revellers a plenty. After several false turns, I find myself walking down a deserted walkway that ends up at the back of a council estate. There is a gathering in front of one of the flats, many young black men and women, all dressed in black. I assume that they are coming from a funeral until I walk a few steps further and run into another crowd, this time all dressed in green. Conscious of the recent headlines about gangland stabbings, I quicken my steps and soon find myself standing under the Westway, the huge fly-over in West London. the air is alive to the sound of skateboarders, twisting, turning and landing with a loud thump. Someone, the council perhaps has converted part of this space to a skateboarder's paradise with a wooden floor that sweeps and swoops back on itself providing a loud echoing thump from the many skateboarders packed into the space. Wandering past them, I come across a nightclub type queue which I initially pass and then realize that it is the queue for Bookslam, the literary nightclubbing event started by author Patrick Neate that I am headed for. The very polite security men soon let me in to the vast dark cavern of a night club where the event takes place, which is filled with some cool rhythmic music at a volume that allows conversation. I buy myself a drink and stumbling to find a place to sit, I bump into the star of the evening, James Frey- he of the Oprah scandal around the "fictionalized memoir" A Million Little Pieces. He politely extricates himself from me and thankfully I haven't spilt any drink on him.
Patrick soon mounts the stage and introduced the first act, a hilarious young poet called Byron Vincent who soon shakes me out of my work induced apathy. Then it is time for Frey who asks the crowd of maybe 200 if they would rather hear about sex or guns. Sex is the near-unanimous choice and so he launches into a reading from his new book, a novel, Bright Shiny Morning set in California. I am caught up in the story and when the next act Bryn Christopher launches into his rousing gospel-infused R and B songs, I head to buy a copy of Frey's new book and queue to have it autographed.
He asks me what he should write and when I tell him my name and shrug, he asks if I mind if he swears. I shrug again and that is how I end up with a book inscribed "To XXXXXX, the coolest motherfucker in London, indeed, indeed" What that means coming from arguably one of the world's best known fabricators is a matter for conjecture, but I have had a good night, having tucked into the affordable Thai food on offer at the night....
Nonso Anozie is a British-Nigerian actor much in the news this week with the debut of the film Cass in which he stars. The film based on the life of the "infamous football hooligan" Cass Pennant has received good reviws. Anozie is perhaps following in the footsteps of Cyril Nri,Chiwetel Ejiofor, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje and David Oyelowo. As is Chuk Iwuji another rising British Nigerian actor...
Recently stumbled across this website which appears to have interesting events listed...
In Abuja and here in London, rumours brew thickly of an imminent cabinet reshuffle. There is much discontentment on both sides with the current leadership, but while a regicide appears imminent in London, there appears to be no such luck in Abuja....or could the still rumbling election petitions provide any surprises?
Meanwhile a little bird whispers to me that the current Nigerian Chief Justice much praised for his uprightness has in the last six months sworn in not one but two of his sons in as judges- one of the Federal High Court and the other as a member of the Abuja High Court judiciary. Perhaps David Milliband need not worry about whether or not to appoint his brother and fellow cabinet member Ed to a high office of state if he succeeds in toppling Brown- he can take notes from our own Chief Justice, although whether the UK press will be quite as obliging as the Nigerian press remains to be seen....
From Farafina Publishers come news of their latest offerings including Nnedi Okorafor Mbachu's Zahra the Windseeker and The Weaverbird Collection, edited by Akin Adesokan, Ike Anya, Sarah Manyika and Ike Oguine
I've recently finished two relatively hefty tomes from British literary stars of years past- Hanif Kureishi's Something to Tell You, i found really difficult to get in two but halfway through, became more engaging, if still somewhat unsatisfying; while Adam Mars Jones' Pilcrow, an interesting account of a disabled boy growing up in Fifties Britain was engaging page by page but seemed to go nowhere, and by the end, left me slightly puzzled with why I had to plough through all those pages...
The Booker longlist is out and the only book on the list that I have read is Linda Grant's The Clothes on Their Backs, which I quite enjoyed soon after it was longlisted for the Orange Prize, but which frankly isn't really all that....
Patrick soon mounts the stage and introduced the first act, a hilarious young poet called Byron Vincent who soon shakes me out of my work induced apathy. Then it is time for Frey who asks the crowd of maybe 200 if they would rather hear about sex or guns. Sex is the near-unanimous choice and so he launches into a reading from his new book, a novel, Bright Shiny Morning set in California. I am caught up in the story and when the next act Bryn Christopher launches into his rousing gospel-infused R and B songs, I head to buy a copy of Frey's new book and queue to have it autographed.
He asks me what he should write and when I tell him my name and shrug, he asks if I mind if he swears. I shrug again and that is how I end up with a book inscribed "To XXXXXX, the coolest motherfucker in London, indeed, indeed" What that means coming from arguably one of the world's best known fabricators is a matter for conjecture, but I have had a good night, having tucked into the affordable Thai food on offer at the night....
Nonso Anozie is a British-Nigerian actor much in the news this week with the debut of the film Cass in which he stars. The film based on the life of the "infamous football hooligan" Cass Pennant has received good reviws. Anozie is perhaps following in the footsteps of Cyril Nri,Chiwetel Ejiofor, Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje and David Oyelowo. As is Chuk Iwuji another rising British Nigerian actor...
Recently stumbled across this website which appears to have interesting events listed...
In Abuja and here in London, rumours brew thickly of an imminent cabinet reshuffle. There is much discontentment on both sides with the current leadership, but while a regicide appears imminent in London, there appears to be no such luck in Abuja....or could the still rumbling election petitions provide any surprises?
Meanwhile a little bird whispers to me that the current Nigerian Chief Justice much praised for his uprightness has in the last six months sworn in not one but two of his sons in as judges- one of the Federal High Court and the other as a member of the Abuja High Court judiciary. Perhaps David Milliband need not worry about whether or not to appoint his brother and fellow cabinet member Ed to a high office of state if he succeeds in toppling Brown- he can take notes from our own Chief Justice, although whether the UK press will be quite as obliging as the Nigerian press remains to be seen....
From Farafina Publishers come news of their latest offerings including Nnedi Okorafor Mbachu's Zahra the Windseeker and The Weaverbird Collection, edited by Akin Adesokan, Ike Anya, Sarah Manyika and Ike Oguine
I've recently finished two relatively hefty tomes from British literary stars of years past- Hanif Kureishi's Something to Tell You, i found really difficult to get in two but halfway through, became more engaging, if still somewhat unsatisfying; while Adam Mars Jones' Pilcrow, an interesting account of a disabled boy growing up in Fifties Britain was engaging page by page but seemed to go nowhere, and by the end, left me slightly puzzled with why I had to plough through all those pages...
The Booker longlist is out and the only book on the list that I have read is Linda Grant's The Clothes on Their Backs, which I quite enjoyed soon after it was longlisted for the Orange Prize, but which frankly isn't really all that....
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
A fleeting return...
Getting on the train, I see him at the far end of the platform, I recognize him by the colourful African print shirt which he wears these days in the summer to the office. I move to wave to him and then notice that he is engrossed in an active, almost aggressive conversation with the woman beside him. She is smartly dressed in a grey trouser suit, and my first thought is that she must be sweltering in that outfit on this hot summer day. She seems to be haranguing him about something and so not wanting to embarrass him, I move to the far end of the carriage and bury my head like a good Londoner in one of the free Metro newspapers that litter the carriage. For the umpteenth time I wonder whether the newspaper companies responsible for all this extra litter pay extra to the local authority for cleaning up. These are the same newspapers that harangue us daily about reducing our carbon footprints and I can't help but wonder how many extra kilograms of carbon the free newspapers they churn out are adding....
When it is time to get off at my stop, I notice that my colleague and the woman who I now think must be his wife gets off as well. I am surprised as I am going to a meeting at a hotel and so quicken my steps. As I enter the lobby, I pause at reception to ask where the meeting is being held. In that instant they catch up with me and I stammer out a good morning. His reply is perfunctory and he makes no effort to introduce me to his companion. As I move towards the room where my meeting is to take place, I bump into a lawyer friend who appears surprised to see me- are you testifying in the investigation, he asks. I know it was your office but I didn't see you mentioned in the documentation. It is then that the truth sinks in, rumours have swirled about how my colleague has threatened to take our employers to an employment tribunal. Evidently some sort of pre- meeting is going on- as I make my way to my meeting, I reflect on the coincidence that has roped us all together this July morning....
I have just finished reading the autobiography of Clarence Thomas, the African-American judge on the US Supreme Court, whose confirmation hearings nearly two decades ago descended into a fightfest as he was accused of sexually harassing Anita Hill, a former subordinate who was also AfricanAmerican. Reading it, I am filled with sympathy for him, coming from a very poor family from Georgia and struggling up the ladder in a country where his dark skin made him the target of much derision not just from whites, but also from his black schoolmates who dubbed him America's Blackest Child. What that sort of trauma can do to a man's psyche can only be guessed at, but in reading the book I am filled with pity for him....I am also struck by how many people do not remember who he is, while for me the image of his accuser Anita Hill, pretty with her face tearstained testifying before the Senate is indelibly marked in my memory...
Speaking of memory, I've just finished Dancer, by Colum McCann, whom I have only just discovered. McCann vividly recreates or reimagines the life of the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov that you almost believe that he is writing from memory... I'll be looking out for more books by McCann, whose lyrical voice sings with the stereotypically Irish rhythms of his heritage
Theatre loving Londoners are in for a treat with the programme of plays by Tiata Fahodzi, the Black British Theatre Company opening at the Almeida from the 28th of July to the 1st of August featuring actors from Nigeria and Ghana among other places, including Cyril Nri , Superintednt Adam Okaro from the television series The Bill
In Kenya, the Kwani Literary Festival is set to kick off in Nairobi featuring a slate of African writers including Ishmael Beah, Monica Arac de Nyeko (who recently outed herself as a fan of this blog), Chimamanda Adichie, Dayo Forster, whose Reading the Ceiling I enjoyed and of course, the host Binyavanga Wainaina. It sounds like good fun for those lucky enough to be in Nairobi...
Sefi Atta's new book, Swallow is out on Amazon now and here she talks about it with Ike Anya
So much to blog about, and so little time....I'll try to be more disciplined....
When it is time to get off at my stop, I notice that my colleague and the woman who I now think must be his wife gets off as well. I am surprised as I am going to a meeting at a hotel and so quicken my steps. As I enter the lobby, I pause at reception to ask where the meeting is being held. In that instant they catch up with me and I stammer out a good morning. His reply is perfunctory and he makes no effort to introduce me to his companion. As I move towards the room where my meeting is to take place, I bump into a lawyer friend who appears surprised to see me- are you testifying in the investigation, he asks. I know it was your office but I didn't see you mentioned in the documentation. It is then that the truth sinks in, rumours have swirled about how my colleague has threatened to take our employers to an employment tribunal. Evidently some sort of pre- meeting is going on- as I make my way to my meeting, I reflect on the coincidence that has roped us all together this July morning....
I have just finished reading the autobiography of Clarence Thomas, the African-American judge on the US Supreme Court, whose confirmation hearings nearly two decades ago descended into a fightfest as he was accused of sexually harassing Anita Hill, a former subordinate who was also AfricanAmerican. Reading it, I am filled with sympathy for him, coming from a very poor family from Georgia and struggling up the ladder in a country where his dark skin made him the target of much derision not just from whites, but also from his black schoolmates who dubbed him America's Blackest Child. What that sort of trauma can do to a man's psyche can only be guessed at, but in reading the book I am filled with pity for him....I am also struck by how many people do not remember who he is, while for me the image of his accuser Anita Hill, pretty with her face tearstained testifying before the Senate is indelibly marked in my memory...
Speaking of memory, I've just finished Dancer, by Colum McCann, whom I have only just discovered. McCann vividly recreates or reimagines the life of the dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov that you almost believe that he is writing from memory... I'll be looking out for more books by McCann, whose lyrical voice sings with the stereotypically Irish rhythms of his heritage
Theatre loving Londoners are in for a treat with the programme of plays by Tiata Fahodzi, the Black British Theatre Company opening at the Almeida from the 28th of July to the 1st of August featuring actors from Nigeria and Ghana among other places, including Cyril Nri , Superintednt Adam Okaro from the television series The Bill
In Kenya, the Kwani Literary Festival is set to kick off in Nairobi featuring a slate of African writers including Ishmael Beah, Monica Arac de Nyeko (who recently outed herself as a fan of this blog), Chimamanda Adichie, Dayo Forster, whose Reading the Ceiling I enjoyed and of course, the host Binyavanga Wainaina. It sounds like good fun for those lucky enough to be in Nairobi...
Sefi Atta's new book, Swallow is out on Amazon now and here she talks about it with Ike Anya
So much to blog about, and so little time....I'll try to be more disciplined....
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
My post on 14th and serenity
Over the last few weeks, I have been privileged to be part of an innovative, unique project involving a variety of Nigerian bloggers. Today I posted my own contribution, the final one, to the blog 14th and Serenity
When I agreed to take part, I had no idea what to expect, but it's been fun- challenging, especially in my currently severely time-constrained state, but fun. I hope I get a chance to work with these talented bloggers again
Hopefully, I'll be back soon....
When I agreed to take part, I had no idea what to expect, but it's been fun- challenging, especially in my currently severely time-constrained state, but fun. I hope I get a chance to work with these talented bloggers again
Hopefully, I'll be back soon....
Friday, May 30, 2008
Chimamanda, Binyavanga, Dave Eggers and Marie Elena John to run workshop in Lagos
Chimamanda Adichie will be organizing a creative writing workshop in Lagos from August 19 to August 29 2008. The workshop is sponsored by Fidelity Bank. Guest writers who will co-teach the workshop alongside Adichie are the Caine Prize Winning Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina (author of DISCOVERING HOME), the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award nominated Caribbean writer Marie-Elena John (author of UNBURNABLE) and the Pulitzer Prize nominated American writer Dave Eggers (author of A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF STAGGERING GENIUS). Workshop participants will be expected to read and discuss a wide range of fiction and non-fiction, as well as complete short writing exercises. The aim of the workshop is to encourage published and unpublished Nigerian writers by bringing different perspectives to the art of storytelling.
Participation is limited to those who apply and are accepted. A symposium open to the public will be held at the end of the workshop.
To apply, send an e-mail to Udonandu2008@gmail.com
Your e-mail subject should read ‘Workshop Application.’
The body of the e-mail should contain the following:
1. Your Name
2. Your address
3. A few sentences about yourself
4. A writing sample of between 200 and 800 words. Please indicate whether your sample is fiction or nonfiction. Acceptances will be based on the quality of the writing sample.
All writing material must be pasted or written in the body of the e-mail. Do NOT send any attachments. Applications with attachments will be automatically disqualified. Deadline for submissions is July 12 2008. If accepted, you will be notified by August 5, 2008.
Participation is limited to those who apply and are accepted. A symposium open to the public will be held at the end of the workshop.
To apply, send an e-mail to Udonandu2008@gmail.com
Your e-mail subject should read ‘Workshop Application.’
The body of the e-mail should contain the following:
1. Your Name
2. Your address
3. A few sentences about yourself
4. A writing sample of between 200 and 800 words. Please indicate whether your sample is fiction or nonfiction. Acceptances will be based on the quality of the writing sample.
All writing material must be pasted or written in the body of the e-mail. Do NOT send any attachments. Applications with attachments will be automatically disqualified. Deadline for submissions is July 12 2008. If accepted, you will be notified by August 5, 2008.
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Racially profiled in the West End and other stories
It is not very late, at least by the standards of the West End- perhaps ten thirty or so. I have finished dinner in Chinatown with the friends visiting from Nigeria, and am now making my way to Tottenham Court Road tube station to catch the tube home. The weather has suddenly turned chilly in that capricious way that English weather in the spring has, and I decide that I am best off retrieving my scarf and gloves from my coat pockets and putting them on. Seeing the bustle of the busy street, I stop and make my way to a street corner, my back pressed against a lamp post, my work backpack balanced firmly between my legs and proceed to make the necessary adjustments to my attire. I am nearly done, the gloves pulled snugly on, when he walks up to me. He is wearing the fluorescent yellow waistcoat over what I soon realize is a police uniform.
“Ere” he barks “what are you up to?”
I look behind me, certain that he isn’t addressing me.
But he is. He repeats his question “So what are you up to?”
I am so surprised by the aggressive tone that I stammer out “Just on my way home”
“Well, go on then”, he retorts
I slowly, deliberately, give my gloves a final tug, reach down and lift my backpack on to my back and then head down the road.
Ten steps later, I am filled with anger- why on earth have I walked off so meekly? Since when was it a crime to stand on a busy street corner in the West End? Why has he picked on me? It is too late to turn back and so I continue home seething.
The next day recounting the story to an English friend who works nearby, he explains that I must have been mistaken for a purveyor of chemical substances- apparently the private clubs nearby where English media types and celebrities congregate also lead to a lot of traffic in materials, and PC Plod must have mistaken me for one of them.
I am incensed, and wonder why the mostly white middleclass users are not accosted in the same way. Two weeks on, I remain bemused by it all….... It's the sort of thing you expect in South London, but in the heart of the West End?
The London mayoral elections loom, and in spite of (and perhaps because of) the heavy campaign by the London newspaper, the Evening Standard against the incumbent, Ken Livingstone, I’ve firmly decided to vote for him. The thought of Boris Johnson, the faux-bumbling Tory toff, who once famously referred to black children as piccaninnies in an article, becoming Mayor, fills me with dread. He’s so obviously of a type – tousled untidy hair, Etonian drawl and all- that harks back to another, less open London. Brian Paddick, the Lib Dem candidate hasn’t a chance in hell, so why throw away my vote? Many of my English middle class friends loathe Ken, but it isn’t a loathing I share. He may not be the most likeable person but I think he’s the best candidate for Mayor and that he’s done a fairly good job. It’s bad enough that Gordon Brown and his dithering may end up handing the country on a plate to the Tories. Let’s at least try and make sure they don’t get London as well….
On the subject of nasty Tories, I’ve just finished Andrew Hosken’s Nothing Like a Dame- about the shenanigans of Tesco heiress, Dame Shirley Porter as leader of the Tory dominated Westminster Council. It makes for chilling reading, and highlighted for me why for many who lived through those years, the Tories are still seen as “the nasty party”
Another chilling read was Violation: Justice, Race and Serial Murder in the Deep South by David Rose. Through the prism of one African American man’s trial for a series of murders in Columbus, South Carolina, Rose paints a shocking picture of the long history of racism and the justice system in the Deep South. It horrified and saddened me, particularly the story of the lynching of a young black boy after his white friend was killed, probably accidentally while they were playing with a gun….
The Obama and Clinton fight continues and as it drags on, potentially putting a Democratic victory into jeopardy, I continue to marvel at the viciousness that is being unleashed….
Back home in Nigeria, our president remains in a German hospital, while the country remains without a Minister of Health. We are assured that the president is doing well, yet no-one explains why he is still recuperating abroad if this is the case. I certainly hope he makes a full recovery soon as the prospect of a President Jonathan sends shivers down my spine….
Granta magazine has launched a new website, and on my first visit, I found it while nicely designed, strangely insipid, bare, like a newly renovated house that no-one has moved into. Nevertheless, there is an interesting letter from Petina Gappah to Thabo Mbeki on the continuing crisis in her home country of Zimbabwe
“Ere” he barks “what are you up to?”
I look behind me, certain that he isn’t addressing me.
But he is. He repeats his question “So what are you up to?”
I am so surprised by the aggressive tone that I stammer out “Just on my way home”
“Well, go on then”, he retorts
I slowly, deliberately, give my gloves a final tug, reach down and lift my backpack on to my back and then head down the road.
Ten steps later, I am filled with anger- why on earth have I walked off so meekly? Since when was it a crime to stand on a busy street corner in the West End? Why has he picked on me? It is too late to turn back and so I continue home seething.
The next day recounting the story to an English friend who works nearby, he explains that I must have been mistaken for a purveyor of chemical substances- apparently the private clubs nearby where English media types and celebrities congregate also lead to a lot of traffic in materials, and PC Plod must have mistaken me for one of them.
I am incensed, and wonder why the mostly white middleclass users are not accosted in the same way. Two weeks on, I remain bemused by it all….... It's the sort of thing you expect in South London, but in the heart of the West End?
The London mayoral elections loom, and in spite of (and perhaps because of) the heavy campaign by the London newspaper, the Evening Standard against the incumbent, Ken Livingstone, I’ve firmly decided to vote for him. The thought of Boris Johnson, the faux-bumbling Tory toff, who once famously referred to black children as piccaninnies in an article, becoming Mayor, fills me with dread. He’s so obviously of a type – tousled untidy hair, Etonian drawl and all- that harks back to another, less open London. Brian Paddick, the Lib Dem candidate hasn’t a chance in hell, so why throw away my vote? Many of my English middle class friends loathe Ken, but it isn’t a loathing I share. He may not be the most likeable person but I think he’s the best candidate for Mayor and that he’s done a fairly good job. It’s bad enough that Gordon Brown and his dithering may end up handing the country on a plate to the Tories. Let’s at least try and make sure they don’t get London as well….
On the subject of nasty Tories, I’ve just finished Andrew Hosken’s Nothing Like a Dame- about the shenanigans of Tesco heiress, Dame Shirley Porter as leader of the Tory dominated Westminster Council. It makes for chilling reading, and highlighted for me why for many who lived through those years, the Tories are still seen as “the nasty party”
Another chilling read was Violation: Justice, Race and Serial Murder in the Deep South by David Rose. Through the prism of one African American man’s trial for a series of murders in Columbus, South Carolina, Rose paints a shocking picture of the long history of racism and the justice system in the Deep South. It horrified and saddened me, particularly the story of the lynching of a young black boy after his white friend was killed, probably accidentally while they were playing with a gun….
The Obama and Clinton fight continues and as it drags on, potentially putting a Democratic victory into jeopardy, I continue to marvel at the viciousness that is being unleashed….
Back home in Nigeria, our president remains in a German hospital, while the country remains without a Minister of Health. We are assured that the president is doing well, yet no-one explains why he is still recuperating abroad if this is the case. I certainly hope he makes a full recovery soon as the prospect of a President Jonathan sends shivers down my spine….
Granta magazine has launched a new website, and on my first visit, I found it while nicely designed, strangely insipid, bare, like a newly renovated house that no-one has moved into. Nevertheless, there is an interesting letter from Petina Gappah to Thabo Mbeki on the continuing crisis in her home country of Zimbabwe
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Cyril Nri in Oxford Street at Royal Court Theatre
Runs 2nd to 31st May, Mondays to Saturdays 7.45pm, Satuday Matinees 4pm
Oxford Street
Written by Levi David Addai
2 - 31 May
"I don't want to work here much longer, I got bigger plans than dis place... I gotta make it. Can't be living in my forties and still working in retail. Can¹t be living in the struggle no more."
Oxford Street: where the streets are paved with gold, if you just know where to look.
At Total Sports, security guard Kofi and his workmates are making sure everything runs smoothly, easing the daily grind with plenty of jokes and chat about the future. Young or old, they all want more from life. The only difference is how they'll go about getting it.
This boisterous and comic new play from Levi David Addai (93.2FM & House of Agnes) looks beyond the glossy facade of the high street at the stories and ambitions of the workers within.
Director Dawn Walton
Designer Soutra Gilmour
Cast: Reece Beaumont, Preeya Kalidas, Daniel Kaluuya, Kristian Kiehling, Amelia Lowdell, Nathaniel Martello-White, Cyril Nri, Ashley Walters, Shane Zaza
www.royalcourttheatre.com
Sunday, April 20, 2008
October gallery Sale, ends 26.04.08. In lieu of a "proper" post
http://www.octobergallery.co.uk/homepage.shtml
From 17th to 26th April 2008
Up to 80% off original artworks, paintings photographs and works on paper.
Come along and take a look!
October Gallery
24 Old Gloucester Street
London, WC1N 3AL
020 7242 7367
Nearest tubes are:- Holborn & Russell Square
From 17th to 26th April 2008
Up to 80% off original artworks, paintings photographs and works on paper.
Come along and take a look!
October Gallery
24 Old Gloucester Street
London, WC1N 3AL
020 7242 7367
Nearest tubes are:- Holborn & Russell Square
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Form-filling, Obama, I want to drink small stout and other miscellanies
He is concentrating hard, his tongue stuck out, his brow furrowed. He writes in answer after answer and then turns the page. I wonder what the form he is filling in is for. And I realize that I like filling in forms- have done ever since I was a child. I liked making sure that I had the correct ink- usually black and I liked forming the letters in clearly aligned blocks, listing my first name, my middle name, then the surname and then all the other personal details that the form demands. I have plenty of opportunity these days to fulfil my form-filling desires- what with visa forms and landing cards and applications for mortgages and now job applications....or rather applying for "new roles" as our HR people put it... Watching the young man struggle with his form, I realize that I am probably that rarity- a bureaucrat's dream, someone who actually likes form-filling...
The plumber tells me he's got a visa to relocate to Australia. He doesn't like this country any more, he says, it's all going downhill. He's Sarf London born and bred and I was introduced to him by a colleague some four years ago. He's done most of the plumbing work I've needed done and has introduced me to electricians and other workers that I've needed. We have had a good relationship and yet I am scared to ask him what he really means, and so refrain and wish him good luck, as he gets into his white van....
To dinner in Spitalfields, an area whose funk I like. As I approach the flat of the City couple who have invited me, I spot a group of Bangladeshi elders white-bearded, leaving the house next door, perhaps heading for evening prayers. In the distance, the Hawksmoor church gleams white in the dying light, as a dreadlock-headed brother pauses to touch fists with me. I can see why they like living here, trustafarians and arty types- it's edgy and vibrant, but I fear that the more City types move in, the more that vibe'll be lost, as happened in Notting Hill years before I'm told...
At dinner, a mouthwatering simple spaghetti in a rich meaty, tomatoey spiced with just a hint of chilli, the talk is of Obama and his race speech. When my white English host confesses that he had wondered what the fuss was about Reverend Wright's speech was, I feel like hugging him. I too had wondered at the shock and the backlash- thinking that perhaps he had advocated the extermination of all white people or some such radical talk- and was surprised to read views that did not seem radically different from what some of my leftish American classmates had expressed a few years ago...
I have just finished Anton Gill's Peggy Guggenheim: The Life of an Art Addict ahead of a planned visit to Venice later in the year. It is well-written and gave me new insights into the world of modernism and impressionism and the building of art collections, although it took me a while to get through and could perhaps have been a touch lighter in tone...
I am reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's The Caged Virgin: A Muslim woman's plea for reason and so far I am not impressed. I'm not sure whether it is the translator's fault but the writing is staccato, the ideas are not fully developed and the pieces seem cobbled together, some of them reading like a B grade essay by an undergraduate for their social science class. There are flashes of brilliance and poignant personal insights but so far I'm not impressed....
In Nigeria, some good and not so good- the resignation of the health ministers and their investigation by the EFCC is welcome, as is the investigation of Iyabo Obasanjo Bello, the chair of the senate health committee; but this article in Sahara reporters, innuendo or not, I found slightly worrying. The governorship elections in Kogi State being repeated today following the annulment of the previous elections is welcome but the fact that the two front-runners are the two immediate past governors is less heartening
Petina Gappah writes a beautiful piece for the Mail and Guardian inspired by an amazing photograph, which is truncated and rendered almost meaningless by the Guardian in the UK
Meanwhile I was much tickled by this "gospel comedy" song from Nigeria- not just the rhythm and the lyrics, but the concepts behind it....
The plumber tells me he's got a visa to relocate to Australia. He doesn't like this country any more, he says, it's all going downhill. He's Sarf London born and bred and I was introduced to him by a colleague some four years ago. He's done most of the plumbing work I've needed done and has introduced me to electricians and other workers that I've needed. We have had a good relationship and yet I am scared to ask him what he really means, and so refrain and wish him good luck, as he gets into his white van....
To dinner in Spitalfields, an area whose funk I like. As I approach the flat of the City couple who have invited me, I spot a group of Bangladeshi elders white-bearded, leaving the house next door, perhaps heading for evening prayers. In the distance, the Hawksmoor church gleams white in the dying light, as a dreadlock-headed brother pauses to touch fists with me. I can see why they like living here, trustafarians and arty types- it's edgy and vibrant, but I fear that the more City types move in, the more that vibe'll be lost, as happened in Notting Hill years before I'm told...
At dinner, a mouthwatering simple spaghetti in a rich meaty, tomatoey spiced with just a hint of chilli, the talk is of Obama and his race speech. When my white English host confesses that he had wondered what the fuss was about Reverend Wright's speech was, I feel like hugging him. I too had wondered at the shock and the backlash- thinking that perhaps he had advocated the extermination of all white people or some such radical talk- and was surprised to read views that did not seem radically different from what some of my leftish American classmates had expressed a few years ago...
I have just finished Anton Gill's Peggy Guggenheim: The Life of an Art Addict ahead of a planned visit to Venice later in the year. It is well-written and gave me new insights into the world of modernism and impressionism and the building of art collections, although it took me a while to get through and could perhaps have been a touch lighter in tone...
I am reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali's The Caged Virgin: A Muslim woman's plea for reason and so far I am not impressed. I'm not sure whether it is the translator's fault but the writing is staccato, the ideas are not fully developed and the pieces seem cobbled together, some of them reading like a B grade essay by an undergraduate for their social science class. There are flashes of brilliance and poignant personal insights but so far I'm not impressed....
In Nigeria, some good and not so good- the resignation of the health ministers and their investigation by the EFCC is welcome, as is the investigation of Iyabo Obasanjo Bello, the chair of the senate health committee; but this article in Sahara reporters, innuendo or not, I found slightly worrying. The governorship elections in Kogi State being repeated today following the annulment of the previous elections is welcome but the fact that the two front-runners are the two immediate past governors is less heartening
Petina Gappah writes a beautiful piece for the Mail and Guardian inspired by an amazing photograph, which is truncated and rendered almost meaningless by the Guardian in the UK
Meanwhile I was much tickled by this "gospel comedy" song from Nigeria- not just the rhythm and the lyrics, but the concepts behind it....
Friday, March 28, 2008
Adichie and Jackie Kay, Nii Ayi Kwei Parkes and other London events
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