Saraba #14 – the Art Issue

·         Download Saraba #14 the Art Issue Here

Art is the rhapsody of many things, vitriol of struggles even. As complex as life can be, it is art’s burden to find articulation for these many differences. Art is plagued with the subtleties of living, of dying and how lives are made different by them. Really, art is burdened. And it is in the subtleties that art must explore, in the articulation it must find, and in its many burdens that this Saraba Art Issue is engaging and assertive. 

There is also politics in the elusiveness of art, in the knowledge that it cannot be restricted. Art may also be the prostitution of humanity; its vanities and downplays. Art struggles because we struggle. As I stared dull at my computer screen, opening, closing and reopening MS Word blank pages, I struggled to review this. I fought with the standard to maintain as a relatively known book blogger. I knew this post will gather 500 hits at least. And for that, I sought for coherence, for simplicity and moving rhetoric, because only those will achieve my desire with this review. This was my own struggle: I wanted to make art for art. I wanted to create. I wanted to make you desire and get my drift. Maybe these are what art is: to communicate, to struggle and to entertain (perhaps at the same pace). I struggled to make art. To me, in this, about reviewing this edition of Saraba, art is a struggle; art is a communication; art is an entertainment. In this issue, Saraba is art.

In this issue of Saraba, art is not a theme but rather a tool. The last issue, themed Africa, does not stand close to this one. Not at all. Maybe that is the problem with themes, they tether us around what to think on. Themes are not just diverse in their entireties. They can only raise questions about particular matters, they are not broad enough. This art issue does not follow that trend. Or it does follow the trend as a theme and also exhibits itself as a tool to projecting all that art can achieve. Art is a very big word indeed. This Saraba Art Issue is all involving. Can art really be a theme? Doing so will be making art for art.

There is a centrality of theme that runs through the fictions in this edition. One may think the short story writers agreed on how to write on the different things they set out on. I must say, the short stories in this issue are a fine pack. The writers knew what they are writing. You get that feeling from their masterly use of words and descriptions. Nothing is wasted; not of words, not of expressions. What draws you is in how they engage with the nuances of their characters. And doing that really is always a reader’s delight. Humans are so emotionally complex. When a writer explores this complexity interestingly, you can’t just be bored. I wasn’t bored with the short stories. In Chiagozie’s Deletion, Olisakwe’s Spiritual Attack, Okwiri’s Christopher, Ifesinachi’s Red Lace, Yomi’s Some Deaths are Words Apart (an excerpt), there is a creative interactivity between the stories’ themes and the characters. The wonder isn’t in knowing how they individually raise and resolve their conflicts, it is much about the internal probe of their characters. Mazi’s Deletion and Okwiri’s Christopher are really an exemplary such in how that is made happen. 

I shouldn’t fill you in on the brilliant visual art collection in this issue, you will only have to read it to know the details. With this issue 14, it seems Saraba has upped its game in that genre. When ideas mixed with excellent illustrations and snapshots, your attention is hooked. I was hooked. And still is.

See Art in These?

“Christopher” by Okwiri Oduor

The story’s theme is not hurriedly given away, rather, you are engaged with the different shades of the main character’s feelings. It is all about Christopher. Every other person becomes conflicted in his travails. His relationship with Ana suffers and Julie almost babysits him. In the battle of self, the conflict of solitude, and of dying and living, Christopher is a spellbinding read.

“Under the Influence: Photographs of Africa” by Moses Serubiri

This achieves intellectuality without boredom. This is the kind of essays that make reading a mag worthwhile. Moses gives us much to think about: about the power of cameras; about the identity influence of photographs; about how stereotypes could be created and altered with pictures; about the interlaying responsibilities of a photographer.

“I am concerned with what fills the mind of a photographer before he goes out to capture or interprets his subject’s reality for us. The pivotal question is what if this subject is as contentious as Africa. …the power that cameras possess draws us to the awareness that we can make up an identity.”

“Spiritual Attack” by Ukamaka Olisakwe

If it is a spiritual attack that has plunged Nneka’s life so deep in misery, what about the problems she faces at work, are they also spiritual? Maybe this spiritual attack is a continuum and does not only end with her Mum’s and Dad’s despair. It really isn’t spiritual as it can get. But also of man’s greed and helplessness as you reason further.  Nneka’s evil momentarily shuttle between job security and her self-realisation in Edward Olaloye.  Olisakwe writes beautiful prose, she once featured on this blog here, I really will like to read her novel, Eyes of the Goddess

“Liquor” by Serge Gay Jr.

Just how many faces could you see through a bottle? Putting it simply, how many lives have sought (and still seeking) escapism in alcohol? You really must go through Serge’s “Liquor” before you could get a closure on that. His and many other visuals are reasons why I said Saraba may just have upped the game in publishing brilliant visual art in magazines.

“Some Deaths are Worlds Apart” by Yomi Ogunsanya

I really need to know this author. I want to read Yomi’s book, Aiyedun, from where this story is excerpted, when it finally hits the shelves. Yomi really knows how to trace the intricacies of an embattled mind and make telling it beautiful and moving. This is so different from the biased stories of Northern carnages flying about.

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If you haven’t been reading Saraba, this edition should make you start doing so. Take that from me. Take that from a critical reader. You should download it now. Nuffsaid.

Read previous reviews of Issue 9, 11, 12 & 13 

I also blog about books on Critical Literature Review

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Saraba #13 – Africa Issue

Saraba Issue 13 Africa does not downplay the Africa theme by over-romanticizing Africa’s rusticity over her glossed rots. Africa is what she is. Simple. People live in Africa and she is a continent. And just like any other, her people are suffering, celebrating, dying, living, falling in love and shagging.  Admittedly however, Africans are still different; our collective negative stereotype makes us dissimilar from the rest. This issue does so much to stamp out such fixed picture of Africa. You really should read to know how this Saraba issue pulls that off. 

For me, this isn’t the best of what Saraba has offered, it really isn’t. I am only enamored to it for its totality of genre classification. This issue touches all genres and that is some worthy effort for a tasteful reading. In this issue, there is a drama entry, a genre that has been absent in past publications. Moreover, one will readily understand its past absence and ascribe it to the fact that the genre is the less appreciated and written of the literary genres. Having a drama feature in this issue beautifies it and – I should also add – tells this Africa issue apart from previous issues. This is called Africa. And nothing could be like it, with or without the drama genre. Even Africa is a drama in many offerings: in photographs, poetry, fictions, essays and You.

My fear is fast becoming real and I do hope the long break between Saraba’s last publication and this one is not a vesper ring gradually calling Saraba in. Before this issue came out, numerous publication schedules have been broken and remade. I initially wondered if Saraba was also going the way of numerous others that are presently dying and unworthily subsisting. In recent moments, online mags as this have swiftly been losing it, going under in quality and means. With Sentinel Nigeria’s introduction of paltry inducement to accepted entries came its sharp fall. Go through that mag now, compare it with his past self and you would mourn it. Klorofyl was also so promising in her debut, second and third issue. That mag may also have suffered mishap. For months now, Klorofyl is yet to produce another issue. These literary magazines need help. It’s time they started calling out for voluntary funds. They need it. Their efforts are beyond what vast readership can only compensate. I stand to be corrected, vast readership that does not attract worthwhile advert placements.

Contrary to what the numbers of pages might have you believe, there is a dearth of submissions in this issue. This is the only sense I can make of the republished guest posts and the book excerpts that uninspiringly took up space. I cannot but wonder why essays by Adesanmi and Harrow, the two longest essays in the mag, are only reposts from some blog. While these essays work well with the Africa theme and an engaging read, it would have been better if they were genuinely written for the mag. I wouldn’t take it honestly if I am told essays by seemingly unknown writers were not rejected for placement of those ‘favoured’ ones. That’s bad. Saraba hawks around the motto ‘Creating Unending Voices’. With that single action, it would now seem they are for ‘Creating Established Voices’. We have read Adesanmi’s “Face Me, I Book You” and Harrow’s “Do We Still Have Postcolonialism?” elsewhere and we appreciated them there. Having them here again only clutters pages. They serve no purpose here, at least to me and many other committed readers who have read them at some other place before now.

If the idea around the few book excerpts in this Africa issue were a creative means of advertisement, then, the creativity in such would be adored. After reading the “Guilt Trip”, an excerpt from Nze Sylva’s recent book, “The Funeral Did Not End” and “A Safe Indiscretion”, an excerpt from Seffi Atta’s novel, A Bit of Difference, I came off with the strong thirst to get those books. But publishing their excerpts in the mag is just so insufficient in itself. Moreover, Richard’s book, “City of Memories” is also excerpted, making three excerpts in all. Again, these writers should have been asked to produce original stories for the mag and alternatively have the Amazon links to their new books in their profiles. If the stories interest readers, they would in turn hanker after their books and buy them anyway. Publishing such excerpts gives off the rationale behind them as fake and misleading. Leaving a reader hanging after brief sweetened excerpts, only informing him afterwards to go for the fuller books arouses mixed feelings. And mixed feelings are riotous emotions. Riotous emotions spoil growing readership.

In this Saraba 13, the foregoing leaves me with little pieces to comment on. I will only talk on some and hope the reader finds the issue enjoyable.

Africa in these Shades

“All in the Night Together” by Brendan Bannon and Mike Pflanz

The various photographs in this issue are my main attraction. They visibly tell African in her honest light. Photo collection such as “All in the Night Together” by Brendan Bannon and Mike Pflanz comes to mind. Those photos show the transience of human daily struggle through our individual resoluteness to survive odds. These are not fiction, they are real and that makes them sound so well home. You will see yourself in the faces of the determined people shown in the picture collection by Bannon and Pflanz. If you don’t, at least, you will see those minor scavengers trolling your street in Johnny Be Good and Ocha Ocha, the father driver trying to make ends meet in Walter Ngau and your car washer boy in John Mbogo. These are men telling what some part of Africa really is, without the lazy stereotype.

“Nyamiri” by Okwuje Israel Chukwuemeka

This story is so much tribally steeped. However, the theme is truthful. The tribal hate is left unbidden and that only makes you doubt the writer’s writing objectivity. This writer does not pretend to be objective and that is the main strength of the piece. In the unbridled emotion of the piece, the truth is not coloured: frankly, there is always a Northern monster-Danladi amongst us, venting out decades long tribal hate on an innocent “Nyamiri” of the East.

“Thirteen” by Tosin Akingbulu

This story languidly picks up but with time, it grows on the reader and everything soon comes into an instant flourish. I admire writers who can transform the stereotypical into an engaging read. Tosin does so with this story. “Thirteen” is the everyday story of child abuse and female-child neglect, but the very telling is not usual. I like this story.

“A Beautiful Mind” by Lara Daniels

Lara Daniel’s piece is brief. There is wisdom in the shortness of the piece; it is straight forward and effective to its message. A girl character goes through a funny but painful psychological battle. But while in it, she believes she is sane or she really is sane. Her parents take her to be otherwise; that she is mad. Consequently, when she meets the Yellow Man, she is assured her mind is only different and beautiful.

“The Real Tragedy in Being African” by Miriam Jerotich

Perhaps, this excerpt from Miriam’s essay wholly captures what this Saraba issue drives at:

“…the tragedy isn‘t in the burdened identity that makes many think of us only as African or Kenyan or Nigerian or (insert ethnic group). Neither does it lie in the failed attempts we make when we challenge the status quo, nor when we question why we are monolithic figurines of the Western world. The real tragedy lies in failing to find a way to live with the label, in failing to reconcile our passions and our anger. More importantly, it lies in failing to know that we can be more than our assigned labels…” (pg. 93)

First of all, Miriam bemoans her preconfigured African identity, whimsically clutch to her pre-immigrant memories, then goes on to accept the power her differentness wields; for she is African.

In Conversation: Dami Ajayi & Seffi Atta

Arguably, this is the best interview I have seen Seffi Atta granted. Dami Ajayi does a good job as the interviewer. In the interview, discourses smoothly move around Seffi’s new book, her writing, her views and the media controversy that has been plaguing her for long. Amongst other things, Seffi extensively talks on the Lagos middle class of the pre- and post-colonial era. This interview stands out. Dami really engages Seffi.

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It is the 13^th issue and Saraba has indeed come a long way from their first outing. Saraba might have slightly failed me in this present one, but their sense of literary quality and determination to keep at promoting the arts marvel me. Go download the mag now. It may be the best free mag you have ever come across. Tell me when you’ve downloaded and read it.