"Say You’re One of Them" by Uwem Akpan

Thanks to Ayọdèlé Morocco-Clarke who gave this book as a gift.

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As I flip from page to page riding on the tidal currents of Uwem's offerings, I could feel that Uwem has more experiences to be shared than what he has written on in those five stories that make up Say You're One of Them. My premise is rooted in the manner Uwem drags on in some of the stories, which individually spans almost a hundred pages, sating the reader with every of the superfluous details he wants the reader to know. He tends to be so compassionately biased with the way he tells some issues with brevity aided with creativity and others in a narrative that nearly makes them novellas within an anthology of five short stories. What however makes Uwem lure the reader into every of his story is in how he gets the reader with the storytelling spells that can only be identified with a narrator who is not only telling his stories in vivid descriptive words alone but in the fluidity of one who knows his stories well before telling them. You might be wondering what kind of literature with five short stories really chronicle the events in Africa in picturesque sequences, you only would need to be told that each of the stories set in five different countries of the continent told in children's perspective, does not foist what should be on you but rather makes you piece meanings together for yourself from the accounts of disoriented children of nefarious abuses and violence. 

Uwem must have been aware that his piece of literature could easily be thrown off as one of the lots that appeal to the West with stereotypical African themes of child soldering, religious calamity, child trafficking, etc, hence he adopts the point of view that speaks with tones of innocence rather than narrative that relays events with adult confident accuracy.  Sympathy could always save flaws when stories are told by a child and one might not quickly overreact against pictures that are just too blackly painted to seek pity when it is a minor blathering about it. Say You're One of Them seems to make a reader confess and expiate on behalf of the villain in sheer empathy that grieves one so dearly after each story.  

Say You're One of Them is an afro geo-collection of short stories which unfolds in different settings of five African countries.

 

The Five Short Stories

An Ex-mas Feast (kenya):  Maisha is never her family's favourite when it comes to moral standards, but she does command the greatest dignity when the family needs depend on the finances she get from prostituting as a minor. She is the sacrificial lamb that holds the family together in seeming unity until the Ex-mas Feast when she explores full time in her trade to cater for the more demanding wants of her family.

Fattening for Gabon (Benin): For Yewa and Kotchikpa, the coming of a Nanfang motorbike into their uncle's, Fofo Kpee, home is the beginning of the abysmal era that will soon ravage them apart. When the source of the Nanfang is known, it has already become too late for Fofo Kpee to remedy events and save his cousins from the suffering he has sold them into. The story delves into the hypocrisy of religion while it still maintains its objectivity on the child-trafficking issue that majorly characterizes the story.

What Language Is That? (Ethiopia): Before the war that tears the narrator apart from her best friend, Salem, all what they know is the world they have mutually created in their own infantile simplicity. In severe suddenness, they become as guilty as the circumstance that creates a gorge between them. With the falseness of emotions that those caught in the middle of religious crisis exude, the two children go aboard to learn another language that could communicate their friendliness to each other even though the plumes of thick smoke that billows from the charred part of their houses robs the atmosphere of all harmony.

Luxurious Hearses (Nigeria):  The quietness of the hearse might not be luxurious to the dead. The still silence of the dead that squirt blood all over is never a pleasant sight even when ferried in luxurious buses. The situation that plagues the characters in this story is antithetical to the lives they must have lived at one time or the other. After Tijani's co-Muslim faithful betray his trust during a religious war that breaks loose in the northern part of the country, he returns to reposing his confidence in the God of the south he knows little about. A fanatic of some sort, Tijani who calmly watches the martyring of his blood brother of the Christian faith can't brave to reveal his Muslim identity in the refugee bus where he seeks protection. Amidst staccato of gunfire, jarred dismembered bodies and reprisal attacks from the two religions (Muslim and Christian) and ethnic groups (North and South), Tijiani almost does make it, but when his chopped off wrist gives him away in the South-bound luxurious bus, nothing could save him as a northern- adherent- Mohammed- worshipper.

My Parents' Bedroom (Rwanda): As succinct as this story is, it well re-enacts the inter-tribal carnage between the Hutu and the Tutsi brilliantly. A child can eavesdrop on the creaking bed of his parents, but when the matrimonial room of the home becomes an abattoir where the mother's head is slashed, the memory of the bedroom may become a hunting ghost. This story uses the setting of a simple Rwandan family to show how inhuman the war between the two tribes is and how the actors of the savage wear bestiality as fitting garbs.

 

Take this…

This anthology might turn out to be Uwem's definitive work, I don't see him writing anything as entrancing as this. That some of the stories were almost on the whole pages of the book shows that he was under pressure as to what genre to writer under; a collection of short stories or a full novel. Writing about religion is one fragile issue writers seldom dwell on. Being a Jesuit priest I thought Uwem Akpan was going to let prejudice guide him towards giving an imbalanced narration while stifling the views of the opposite religion in Luxurious Hearses. The diplomacy he employed in equally giving voices to the two religious groups takes Luxurious Hearses out of the packs that use literature as their controlled mock courts where cases are adjudged on emotions and microscopic reasoning.

Promoting Books the JALAA Way

I'm curably sick and put out with the cliché of poor reading culture that is constantly mouthed by everyone who has the slightest opportunity to air some ingenuous basis to a confused audience. I swallow short breathed disgusted air when people start going superficially lyrical about what the causes of subsisting Nigerian reading tradition are and what solutions really go to tackle it. Same with how a professor of Technology in one uncertain Nigerian institution will go bragging on some frustrated newspaper column what e-learning is without bringing the simplicity of the word out in a practicable, seeable and (if I may add) touchable manner. Like a friend of mine would say; platitudes – ideas and theories full of plastics! When such professor could easily have put it clearly; e-learning is electronic education by means of multimedia and add as an addendum; despite the point that this is an Institution of Technology we don't have the resource to enhance that. SIMPLE! That saves prosaicsm.

It is a more ubiquitous fact that anything that comes from the mouths of some highly classy conceited few becomes the fussy-point of discussion for many. Okay, cut me some slack, (I would prefer if you could add me some guguru instead) Nigeria is one nation on a slanting verge of deteriorating reading culture, agreed. However, who can say he has taken the pain too in establishing a verified graph on how this improves or plummets over time other than joining the mass on hypocritically playing the messiah in numerous debates of rhetoric? I doubt that! We are only good at coming into our own on presumed stats set by mushy and imbalanced theories.

If census were to be made, I do. I mean, I read! You are surprised?! Why wouldn't you be? I wouldn't even blame you if you do anyway when the preconception that stems from your perspective is what informed by some sizeable networkers attending a literary reading at some highbrow venue in Lagos or Portharcourt. I know a lot of those who get their eyes busy with words, at least on avalanche of pings on BBs and updates on facebook. Unhealthy reading, you may care to say. Ok, it is. But that answer could still be contextual anyway. There are quality notes to read on facebook if you want to go academic on the social media.

Simply put, reading is an art, the art is in words. If the definition is anything to go by in defining what reading is, then a pass should Nigerians score. We really want to read when the materials are mainstreamed into what carries our affections and instantly made obtainable. Check newsstands and the numbers of Sport Tabloid that vie for space and attention with conventional newspapers and correct me if I am mistaken about the fact that we are reading. Seriously we do, at least with those that are without having to go on an expensive journey to some exotic bookshops just to get a good fiction. Can't we be less myopic?!!! The literary enthusiasts in cities that attract readings shouldn't be used as general proposition of book lovers.

Humor and irony apart, the situation isn't whether Nigerian youths read or not, the focal point now should be what they read; if healthy or not and how healthy reading can be encouraged. You want to ponder on why my friends here in Osogbo would rather go for anthologies of Sport's soft sells than put out a morsel on current contemporary African fictions; poor distribution! I have reservation if there are bookshops that really shelve good fictions in remote towns like Terra Kulture and Silverbird's LifeStyle do. The gorge is always there to add strain to one whom so desire to venture into good reading. It might be true reading-culture is dying, but also, are there in place proper chains of book accessibility?

My journeys to Lagos are countless; so are the fares that pay my ferry in getting good fictions daunting. Can't good books be made reachable before plotting graphs on reading culture? Take Farafina books to Ikorodu in Lagos, Dada books to Ubiaja in Edo, Cassava pieces to Ota-Efun in Osun, and let's note if Adichie, Eghosa, Arigbabu, Verissimo and Habila wouldn't be having additional readers and literary followers. It is simple economic-strategy, good distribution increases consumers. And so does it too for books.

When I stumbled on the post made by an online friend (Temitayo Olofinlua) about the sale's network Jalaa Writers' Collective has put up to get readers in the country acquainted with their books, I knew there was a rare magical marketing skill at display. Seeing how their physical transaction centres span almost 22 states of the country, I felt a bit livened up. Not getting any of them in favorable proximity to my hovel, I mischievously typed in on the wall post on facebook; None of these… is close to Osun. Really never cared much thought would be given to that. The reply that I was to later get shattered my belief. Jalaa's move in getting their books closer to a conterminous city to my abode was remarkable! It definitely made workable my idea of peer-exchange an achievable one. Up till that encounter, I've always sank deep in thought on the feasibility of building a network of familiar body contacts where books can be transferable and bought like the movie CDs I borrow next door and the one I purchase at the end of my street. Familiar-body-transfer of books, it's clear, getting books in a familiar circumstance that you usually exchange other things with friends in.

Getting Roses & Bullets and Pride of the Spider Clan by just making  some calls coupled with a 30 minutes trip to Ife for the pickup was alleviating; a good incentive towards reading. The distribution-system the books took to me; fantastic! It was through a simple system of simply dropping the book off with a student at OAU that could effortlessly be contacted for the book. There is now no more arduous step to take in shelving new books, in so far as it is on Jalaa's stable. All what behooves on one are some few calls of inquiry and getting them at the very best convenient location. Jalaa could just be anywhere near you.

I went Jalaa few days ago at Ife, OAU, with the foregoing titles and the cost of really getting them like I was always wont to do at Lagos reduced.

This is what I'm propounding; let leading publishers get volunteering distributors across and through cities and hamlets in the country and let see if reading culture won't leap. Let's be realistic here. Knowing that the African fictions that are only the preserved features in high cities' glass-walled bookshops could also be gotten through a volunteering representative next door or street is one simple potent magic of mass distribution. Let's break the conservative chain and put some creative network in place; my books will definitely swell than I myself would imagine. Same goes for unknown and unrepresented avid readers too.  

Next time some ajebos and attention-seeking coterie are outwitting themselves in dissecting what solutions can be made to the dying Nigerian reading-culture, ask if plans are already under way to make books available at the same current with those things that struggle with it, even if a neighbor knocks on their doors for one to honorably buy and read.

Let book-distribution go guerilla or Jalaala. For now, JALAA; way to go!  

Bordering Stereotype from African Fiction: Honesty

On this subject alone, the board of views is so crammed with analyses that make it some disgust to reasoning. What is Stereotype? Why Stereotype? What platitudes come with Stereotype? These questions have always torn horns when minds are to give bases. There have been rants, gabbles, babbles, swipes and spites; all trailing what should be and not to be in this same 'stereotype'. Sometimes, I bitterly wondered if what we make as assertions in judging 'stereotype' wouldn't after all be as stereotypic as what they tend to analyze.

A friend has written his own side on this, merging rich references with apt allusions. Your views may run quite opposite to his, but what you wouldn't dismiss hurriedly is his proper presentation of points so vivid. Enjoy this guest post by Oyebanji Ayo.

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People have spoken a lot – consciously and most times, unconsciously about this subject. That is why many literary enthusiasts, when the slightest opportunity avails itself, ask why fictional works of African origin have refused to renounce their 'age-long' friendship with 'already dry and pen-sucked' subjects in this age of facebook™ and twitter™.

Since critics have come out to 'attack' reputable writers like Ngozi Chimamanda Adichie, Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo and the like on the recurrence of thematic pre-occupation in their works. These critics have resorted to Conan Doyle's quote – "mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself…" and therefore term the works of these authors as the manifestation of mediocrity or 'literary rigmaroling'. This is why the honesty of works which have the elements of "stereotype" is always questioned.

On the other hand, some other critics have come to appreciate the so-called stereotypes because of the factual and historical content they have. It is important to point it out at this point that factions or work of fiction that have elements of history are guilty of bringing this subject up for discussion or argument most times.

Let's get things straight here. If some unquestionable force has not come up with another meaning for the word "stereotype", something is wrong. Stereotype used to mean something which is fixed in form; used and repeated without thought or change. If it still does, the words "form" and "change" should be noted.

Below are some of the cogent points with which this subject can be examined:

·         Literature and History

·         Something New; Not Literary Puritanism

·         Emphasis

·         The Society: Literature's Brooding Mother

 

Literature and History

One feature that stands out among the many Literature has is Verisimilitude. Literature irrespective of the genre draws from everything that happens in the real world. Akeem Lasisi despite that the fact he discusses the route to matrimony and the feminine mind as his subject (in his anthology of poetry, 'Night of my Flight'), he still imbibes elements of history in poems like "Gani Fawehinmi", "Kudi Abiola", "Ajibola Ige!" and the like.

Odia Ofeimun in "Go Tell the Generals" explores from the perspective of history the rule of the military Junta in Nigeria. Play texts like "Trials of Zedan Kimathi", "Fate of a Cockroach" and "Ovoramwen Nogbaisi" all of African origin made history their reference points. Thus, what should make prose (fiction in particular) not to draw from history which is a fertile land for literary resources?

The hunch that has suddenly appeared on the back of the act of concocting elements of fiction with history is Criticism.

Factions or historical fictions suffer a lot of criticism on being stereotypic. The notion that all historical works are works with the subjects that have been explored completely and therefore should be dumped for some other subjects is wrong.

What matters or counts here is not the subject! What then is it? STYLE.

Adichie has told her story about the 1967 Nigeria Civil War, likewise Akachi Ezeigbo in "Roses and Bullets". Let's give room for some comparison. Did they explore to the same depth or in the same way this thematic preoccupation? These authors have come out with the same outputs. Readers of the recently mentioned are subjected to experiencing works of different styles and modes of narration. Creativity is highly exalted in Literature and neither of these works fall short of it.

Moreover, there is no world as full and free as that of Literature. It is for this reason that a writer may decide to make all his or her works revolve round the same subject or decide to pick from different or diverse spheres of existence.

To cap it on "Literature and History", let's note that with no "Weep not Child", "Things Fall Apart", "Purple Hibiscus" and the rest, how does the African youthful mind see the route that has led to the present or read the map that reveals the future? Remember, Literature can build as well as murder. When it becomes silent on history or fails to appreciate what is now called "Stereotype", it clinches the latter attribute.

 

Something New; Not Literary Puritanism

Literature is fast becoming the Plymouth and Boston of this contemporary world and the protestant are…

Critics! One thing they should stand for is not what most of them stand for. Using the words of Brutus, a Shakespearean character, they are meant to be "purgers" and not "murderers".

In the course of "purging" or criticizing, critics tend to be extra-ordinarily fastidious. They therefore fail to look at the profundity of some of their arguments.

Really, new things need to spring up from African fiction but should we make ourselves blind to what needs to be emphasized the more in our Literature? In an Africa where corruption thrives like evil in the darkness, shouldn't the writers of this generation explore the theme in their works?

 

Emphasis

In poetry, when a word or line keeps recurring, an effect is being created – EMPHASIS. That Lola Shoneyin makes "The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives" a feminist novel just as Buchi Emecheta's "Joys of Motherhood" is for one reason. The Africa that existed decades ago has not changed in any way…

 

… The Society: Literature's Brooding Mother

Literature experiences transformation only if the society embraces transformation. Then why should "stereotype" be a thing of the past when it is as appreciated as it is appalling in Africa? When America Literature is taken as a case study, it becomes overt how the society can influence its Literature. The gods of metamorphosis which the American society appeased brought or resulted in the Literature of colonial America, Literature of Reason and Revolution, Literature of Romanticism, Realism and that of the 21^st century which are the different ages in American Literature.

 

Whenever this subject crops up, one's tent is better pitched on a wall higher than Jericho's.

 

© Oyebanji Ayo.

He could be reached via ayoyebanji@gmail.com

My Mind on New Year Resolution

Two things herald every New Year in colourful and appreciable circumstances; festivity and people's renewed determination to make things better. People's optimism that always assume gay transformation with the arrival of a New Year has become one tradition so globally celebrated aside the joyous new beginning of another year itself. The interesting factor is in how people have made culture out of New Year Resolutions that are always wrapped up in numerous species of aspirations; new attitudes, new strength, better working conditions, more working relationships and the lines go on different individuals' lists.

I had a feeling of being a fraud when everything I was planning for the New Year was in sharp contrast with the manner numerous  people were doing theirs. Everybody seemed to have something to write down and followed strictly like a manual. How I hate manual! However, the reflection of admiration for the frenzy most people were jumping into was in how enthusiasm was being hooked up with the unseen labour that was to go into making the strings of personally aspired ambition a living action.

After my tour of the cyberspace through several blogs, I was blackmailed into putting down a typed paragraphed list of targets for the New Year too. One to call my own at least. A simple initiation into the culture syndrome you can call that. I was made to understand that one will have to do it with a kind of spirit. The spirit that believes that things noted down on the New Year Resolution list are accomplishable no matter the odds that may await them and the effort needed.

In no time my MS word was up and running as I effortless and religiously, taking details into every needs, typed my bespoken Resolutions. It was quite an easy task I thought to myself when I was through in less than 20 minutes. The list was long and its execution carefully tagged with every day of the new calendar year.

Half way down the year in June, everything only felt lukewarm and drab. Every day I have my list defiantly accusing me of the passion I had given into putting it down, which incredibly pales with the one I'm putting into the actualization-plan. My resolution has now turn the other side of my personality; a disgusting streak of unattainable dreams. The only life my Resolution list now possesses is in the printed ink on it. I try to ignore it and hide behind study materials that are strewn over my desk but when it is rifled by the faded wind from my window, the sound of cries for strength thuds down to my heart. If my list were to be so far rated, some I have been meticulously following, others; irritations that make my soul itch. And I do question myself; can't I have some pats for those things that are working out? The truth is that I never indeed saw beyond the fever that goes into joining the charade.

Not to discredit the resoluteness some people harbor in the tradition of capping every dream with New Year Resolution, making New Year Resolution is more of hypocrisy than the step-to-step guide it is primarily meant to be. Eight months down the New Year, the noise on it has tuned low and will only become high again at the end of the Year when there will be mourning of dashed hopes and joy for another rehash that is to become the guide of another year.

I may have been blabbing because as I type this; my notion of this subject matter is still muddled with unfulfilled hopes of things called dreams. If you want to counter my belief of the hypocrisy that goes so much with everybody into making New Year Resolutions, you may as well tell me if you have come across one whose list carries a whole lot of practicalities than feverish impetuousness. As for me, I'm still waiting to read a list that will state how Resolutions can be meant in a pragmatic way.

You may also need to be informed; my New Year Resolution polices me still, though I'm unfaithful to it.

Have you made some things on that special list too? Do you think yours might be bearing fruits? Then, talk about it. It will be good to know…

Patience is in these Shades…

...in these shades

After installing my licensed McAfee antivirus software on Friday in a task I wouldn't pray re-undertaking anytime soon, I was very sure of the certainty of my action, even as some counseled me against impatience. Not only did it cost me some pocket-ripping bucks to go for a licensed 1 year antivirus protection over the commonly free ones I could easily get at my neigbourhood's stores for just #250, it also did get me snide reactions from friends too. Some of my friends wouldn't just see reasons why I should be over-reaching my financial limit in getting a full protection for my system, especially when the trial protection still allowed a more than one month use. Impatience!!! They chimed was fueling my steps. But I knew what I was doing. Didn't I? Of course I did know! I thought the woe I would have to endure was only going to stop in my access to a certified disc with some product key. I nearly passed out when I later read from the software-guide a high-speed internet was also to be required during the installation. I never realized that I would in a while pray to God to change PHCN's schedule in favouring my street with electricity and invoking mercy to see me through my internet service. Oh my life!

I swear, if I had my tricks that Friday, I would simply have re-tapped the pack and returned it for a new choice. I said to myself, "Isn't this the fruit of impatience in the offing…?"

I braved it on. After almost 6hrs of tensely salivating dried spittle in my parched throat and cooling my system with a standing fan that wheezed all through, McAfee was finally installed from a broadband connection that crawled thro and fro my system and McAfee's server with a broad shell. Praise God!!! I shouted.

Why all the stress you may ask. I would answer. When innumerable viruses hungrily ate all my files up on my former new laptop after its trial-protection expired, friends and acquaintances only shook heads in pity. And that was all. Nobody offered at typing projects that were nearing completion. I mourned alone as my fingers were constantly numbed from long hours of keys-stroking. Not that getting a licensed protection never occurred to me then, but I was only swayed by philosophy that only dug early graves for my files and applications. Patience they said I should have.

They advised then, "Don't you think it's rather too early to go for a licensed anti-virus now? Be patient, your system can still carry on well with a free version. Don't rush, my guy, think well…"

And the lines would go on and on, finally hinting at the need to maintain patience with things.

How patient could you be?

I have often wondered, when would people start identifying the thin boundary between patience and cowardice? One of the things I mostly quiver for is Patience because you never just couldn't tell when it starts drifting into cowardice that hides behind its veil. It is one thing to be patient when strategizing on plans and it is equally necessary when one identifies cowardice in patience that only buys room for inactivity. You want to accept counsel on patience, you could do. But never forget patience is such a long rope that stretches so well that no one could really point to its end. You would never have enough of it. Only the result that comes from it shows how fruitful it has been in having it. There are two types of patience, I would say. One is to endure when working out a plan like I did during the installation process, the other is to slouch around telling everybody why patience pays when it is evident you are only using it as a cover-up.

My McAfee journey was with one type of patience as I had to put up with long hours of installation. The other kind my friends avowed is one I would always advice against.

So, when next you are being implored to exercise one as a virtue, always be on the lookout for the one they are driving at. Patience is truly in these two shades; Strategic Patience and Cowardly Perseverance.

Have a wonderful and glorious week!

From 'HP mini 110' to 'Acer Aspire-One D257'

My new Lappy

A BRIEF SPEC:

Manufactured date: 25^th of May 2011

Model: Aspire One D257

Hard disk space: 500G

RAM: 2G DDR3 Memory

Processor: Dual-Core Intel® Atom™ N570

Battery: 6 cell Li-on Battery

Operating System: Windows® 7 and Google Android

What a Patience! What a Pain! What a Wait! What a thing to have happened! I can't say that is destiny! I can't say that was horrible! All I know now is that I was given a 'power-surge' and now I've moved from HP mini 110 to Acer Aspire-One D257.... 

For the answer to where I've been all this 'tortuous' while, this is a brief but precise response to that in Mr Rasheed Adebiyi's very own recount of the journey. Savour…

My former lover

*****

Your system. You. PHCN. You wanted to work but electricity was not going to give way. Then, a power surge and the system was gone….. Just like THAT. The agony; the pain and the process of reclaiming the system began. You wondered how the thing will look when it comes back from the factory where it has gone for warranty repair. An idea occurred to you. Why not sell it for a new one? Someone showed up to pick the mess PHCN has turned your former one into. Phew!!! It went away with the cash the buyer offered!!!! Though morsel. And then the process of haggling over a new one started. Eventually, you got a new PC but a different brand. Same size, different colour.   The former was an HP mini 110, the latter, Acer 'Aspire One' D257. The HP was sleek, this new Acer is slim and ultra thin. The former looked fragile and delicate, the new, rugged and down to earth.

The bottom line is that the era of HP is gone to rest for you and the reality of Acer has dawned on you. To Tayo and his new system…  
  

• Rasheed Adebiyi is a friend and uncle

A Child of both Worlds: It’s my Birthday!

Last year when I just fully started luxuriating in the comfort the internet gives, a friend replied to what I said was unusual to my previous birthdays; as the instantaneity  and responsiveness of the other world. When I asked him to explain better, he quipped the other world to be the one we live in with constant keystrokes and fondles of touch-pads that translate our expressions, emotions and sighs on screens that give us the halogen glare, the only world that exists in the interconnectivity of webs.  

What was really strange about the birthday I had last year wasn't in the pomp and wines or in the gifts and greetings from families and loved ones around. It was, to my consternation, how the internet related with me in the fashion I never submitted my imagination to. The way fellow cyber-citizens gave minuscule of their time in making my birthday memorable with wall messages, season's comments on Blogger™ and mentions in blog posts.  I could count about four to five experiences that got me eternally hooked to the internet.

First, it was sometimes in my JSS days when a friend of mine started missing library sections after school hours for what he called a shop with monstrosity of miserable wire connections snaking through and out from indistinguishable interfaces. My friend would come the next day to the class bearing tales of worlds that we couldn't staples senses from. He would strut to every desk in the class thumping his feet hard on the floor and drawing invisible lines on our lockers to illustrate his many stories that were only passed to us in senseless definitions. We knew the shop he constantly patronized was with computers, exactly like the desktops we had in our comp-lab in school. But what we couldn't fathom was how the world could constantly turn at every click of the mouse and punch on the keyboard. My friend shared stories of numerous cartoon pictures he had seen, free greeting cards he had sent from 2000GreetingCards and a virtual address box he now has which allowed people all over the globe to contact him without charges. That started my initiation. The second to the fourth experiences were just gnarled metamorphoses of a long indulged activity.  Often, activities that never added anything to morality, other than torrid vagaries that made our jaws dropped at things we would never be allowed to see under supervision.

 

The last in the panoply of events that I most recall vividly and recount graphically was the day Google™ outsmarted my teacher in his wits. It was until that first triumph of Google™ in my class that I started seeing farther beyond my textbooks with patches of drools from my long nights of reading and cramming.

Mr Olawale thought he was the subject he was taking us himself. He swam in it in the class, talked to us in its jargons and even reprimanded us in the argots that left us befuddled and more sorrowful than what wrong we had committed. He taught us Literature in SS1. He would tell anyone who went astray, 'The metonymy of your traits is a paradox to the irony of the metaphor of your villainy'. Imagine the inane! What sense is there to make from that!? Rubbish! But the day Opeyemi told him there were more than 12 figures of speech in Literature and that Erotema could also mean Rhetorical Question, the condescension he always wore in his display of erudite abilities was squalled by the inferiority that made him twinkle and furrow his temple as he mouthed the world again to see if it was some jumble or Greek. Later that day, after we had contributed five naira each, Opeyemi showed us how Google™ does provide answers to everything, even to the names of our villages.

If you are still contemplating on the importance of this cyber-world to me, it means you have not read the previous paragraphs meticulously. I'm so attached to this world that I wish I were born into it. In the era that I was born some decades ago, cellular was novel and fax was an exclusive advancement. I usually thought; if the internet wasn't here in this present age, what would I have directed my restlessness into? Perhaps, my boredom would have been thicker that it would take only a sword to slice apart. With my modem tucked into the port they call USB interface, I didn't rumble with unknown gripes whenever no one seemed to be singing my tunes at home. I didn't murmur, I simply engaged friends that only I could talk to with flurry moves of my finger points. No one called this hallucination at home because though my friends were only virtual elements on my screen, they were real in their own world behind their own screens. I chuckled when it was mischief going on, I jeered when Punch and SaharaReporters uncovered political grafts.

Amidst these moments that made me febrile, different thoughts that coalesced in my mind have always claimed my effervescence. The ifs of my nightmares I tagged them. What if a deadly virus powerful than any anti malware were released in the cyberspace and the server of every site shut down to its power? What if rapture happened and the only thing it took from the earth are not humans but computers and data-cards? What if Microsoft and Mac stopped software production and HP and the others were left to the gadget making alone, what computer would we be having then? What if my parents thought of a better way of punishing me other than the usual empty disownment and my small HP notebook was smashed on the wall, would I ever be whole anymore?  

As I blow candles off my birthday cake, I would make these wishes alone: that computer users soon balloon to the statistic of the numbers of phone subscribers we have around today; that internet becomes like the 'PHCN' poles on our streets that we could plug into with little pay (Talk of accessibility then); that the internet evolves into a radio we can tune into with frequencies as the websites and voices in place of written words; that the only amount my internet  provider charges me for monthly subscription is a little above #500 for unlimited data allowance.

This world has been good. I do not want to leave it so soon. It's been some years now, but see how better my life has become. Has your life been better too?

I'm a child of both worlds… Which world do you love most?

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My DOB: 17^th of June.

My CelebrityRead Africa: Edition 8

A friend was at the CelebrityRead Africa, edition 8. His experience at the literary reading is what he has desired to share with us on this blog. Read and savour the highlight of Isaac Anyaogu.

 

Venue: Terra Kulture, Tiamiyu Salvage, Opp. Bar-Beach, Victoria Island, Lagos.

Date and Time held: 30/04/11; 3:00pm.

 

 

©Isaac Anyaogu

 

Television, video games and recently Facebook long thought to be reasons why students do not read were absolved of blame at the 8th edition of CelebrityRead Africa which held on Saturday, April 30 at Terra Kulture, Lagos. Rather, blame was directed at parents' penchant for forcing reading on their children.

 

The monthly not-for-profit reading event hosted by Bede Okoro, had as guests: Bisila Bokoko, Executive Director of The Spain‐United States Chamber of Commerce located in New York City, R&B artiste Olanrewaju Fasasi (Sound Sultan), Onyi Sunday, broadcaster at Silverbird Television, novelist Michael Afenfia and Teresa Ameh author of five published books for children.

 

Readings

Celebrities thrilled the audience of over sixty with readings of sections of their chosen works. Sound Sultan, read from Wole Soyinka's You Must Set Forth at Dawn pausing for effect and emphasizing the author's preference for arcane words. Teresa Ameh and Michael Afenfia read from their published works. Onyi Sunday read from Chimamanda Adichie's Purple Hibiscus.

After reading each passage, the celebrities discussed the section of the work and what they find remarkable.

 

Onyi Sunday recounted an experience Chimamanda narrated to her in an interview, as what motivated her to explore African themes in her writing. She visited her nanny's village and realized that contrary to her view, she was not dirt poor and had a remarkable story.

 

Michael Afenfia said that the title of his work, When the Moon Caught Fire was borne out of the need to provoke attention.

 

Benefits Of Reading

Most people dread reading the way Superman fear Kryptonite, said Sound Sultan in an address to students of Liham Schools who formed a quarter of the audience. While denouncing the view, he said reading opens one's worldview, sharpens the intellect and gives him ideas for his song.

 

All the celebrities agreed that reading can help to improve one's ability in any chosen trade or profession. Onyi Sunday said her job entails extensive reading hence good reading skills are vital.

 

Obstacles To Reading

A heated debate arose over why students do not read. It began during the questions and answer session when a member of the audience accused parents who force reading on their children as the major reason why they grow an aversion for books.

 

Some in the audience wanted to hold video games, the internet and television responsible but a sample opinion poll conducted by Chinenye Offor, the event moderator on the students of Liham Schools indicated that the key factor that discourages reading is when it is required under duress.

 

Both the students and adults narrated experiences of how such an approach kills a desire for books. 

 

Other obstacles identified included the non-availability of high quality illustrated books for children, parent's poor example when it comes to reading, government's apathy towards education, uncontrolled television viewing, video games and inaccessibility of books and other reading materials.

 

Parents were advised to inculcate a reading culture in their children by making books available in their homes. All levels of governments were enjoined to equip local libraries and create programmes that promote a reading culture.

 

 

All These On Books!!!???

*****Let me fill you in on my recent adventure to Lagos:

I'm informing you about this not because that was the first time I would be traversing beyond my state, I've had the chances of attending literary readings, weddings, and going on family visits in Lagos. What made the recent journey I took to Lagos unusual is the purpose of which the journey was embarked upon.

Should I say I was too intransigent to my parents' opinion? I don't think so. So many times have I always had it slugged out with people who believe my state's local booksellers' stocks should have all my shelf's needs. Except I want to get my bishops' authored pieces, academic textbooks and commercialized motivational books, any other thing called current contemporary African literature will always have me save up every penny on me if I'm to get minimum of four books from Silverbird Lifestlye store, a bookshop that houses books of all genres like a haven of some sort. Sometimes, I wondered if the writers also had the bookshop in mind when working on their books. The heavenly feeling of Lifestlye Store is in the way books of diverse contents are shelved in appropriate spaces to please the scrutinising eye of the collector or in my own case, the reader. A carefree person might spend the last shi-shi on him, forgetting to keep some fares behind. The exquisite arrangement of their blue shelves will always make one's heart clink with reading pleasure.

Today makes it exactly two weeks that I went on an undisclosed journey to Lagos to shop for books. It was a personal planned mission – travelling to Lagos to get books. This I dared not inform anybody I was going to do, I wouldn't like putting up with the swipes that may come afterwards. To some of my friends who knew I was 'jetting' out, sorry it was a bus, 'bussing' out of the state, I palmed them off with the reason of adding some latest shoe designs to my packs of shoes. Only that I couldn't produce the shoes I had bought when they came knocking to check them out the following day. They were disappointed, they only saw my shelf heaped up more with latest books instead.

Telling you now that I could spend my last kobo on African fictions shouldn't be news any more, wasn't that the main reason of my journey to Lagos? When my mom asked if my travelling all the way from Osogbo to VI in Lagos was only to update my shelf, I knew she questioned in innuendoes as I watched marks of irritation creased from her temple to the upper groove of her plump lips. "Tayo, you mean you are going to Lagos to buy only books, what's gone wrong with the ones on your shelf, are they too dusty you can't read from them anymore?  Standing up to defend myself that very moment won't worth a pinch of sugar. If putting a defense were necessary, I would have taken the pain to go through analyses she may not understand about how I have to make blogposts of current African literature in reviews and how I have to keep my knowledge of which book read well, especially now that The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Shoneyi has just made an Orange book shortlist, Adunni's Under the Brown Rusted Roofs is going in for a reprint and Myne's A Love Rekindled is coming to Naija very soon. That I was too bored to do as I hurriedly creamed my body in shivering process of the curiosity my long journey to Lagos demanded. I was too removed from my immediate environment to taking logical calculations on the numbers of hours it would take my vehicle to Lagos, Fashola's BRT to CMS and the white and green bus from CMS bus stop to VI.

By the time I made it back to my crib in Osogbo, I was fulfilled holding books I had read about online and saw glossy cover pages of in the print media. I carefully unpacked them as I stack them into my shelf. In the quietude and loneliness my room offered, I hiked up my shirt and screamed delightedly at how successfully I had just bravely war in getting books that are unusual to the clime I lived in – Osogbo.

Moments later, I became bored looking at the books where they were properly shelved on other books and the tiredness from the journey got me thinking on what adventure I had taken in just having some few books that were just four in all. I repulsed the situation I inured myself to in purchasing the books. My heart stirred with fury at the cost of the fare I had expended. I solved some arithmetic and I was stupefied at the numbers of books I would have bought were my state's bookstores shelved with the least stock of books Lifestyle Store and Terra Kulture in VI showcased.

You may think I have only just been rabbiting on, what you can't however dispute is the fact that I was indeed a victim of poor distribution of Nigerian/African Literatures, a syndrome which is really garroting reading culture. I only wonder how many of my mates who stay outside Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt will be able to brave it through boarding a bus out of their states in spending money on African fictions while their Blackberries™ whimper for monthly subscriptions. I'm fed up and I may come down with fit of coughs at how I have always had to refer my blog readers to Lagos whenever they wanted to know where to get a book they've just read about from my review….

I suffer teh e e e….! I tire jo o…

All these palaver on books!!!

^^^^^^

Anyways, I still take succour in the glossy covers and witty creative stew of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, Wizard of the Crow, To Saint Patrick and Imagine This; books that are already making me to bask in the euphoria of the thoughtful reviews I would be posting on this space very soon…

'Through the Gates of Thought' by Nana Awere Damoah

Staring excitedly at Nana Awere Damoah's title in my hand, I am filled with feeling of utmost fulfilment and mutual connection to a friend (Nana) of strong letters and powerful reasoning.  I can't say more than that I now have, firstly, on my hand and on my bookshelf, a hard copy of Through the Gates of Thought. What follows below is my review of the book after I've read the author-sent-soft-copy on my computer last year. The review was also published HERE and HERE. Out of the tender generosity of the author has he thought it good that I have the hard copy which I'm now a proud owner of. To Nana Awere Damoah, I'm grateful! Though Nigerian Postal Delivery never got it to me since it was sent more than six months ago, Nana's insistence that I must have a copy, no matter what it would cost, delivers it to my doorstep yesterday at last. Now I can show off my copy of Through the Gates of Thought on my shelf and proudly flip through its pages once again as I guzzle its contents once more. If you haven't got this title, your library is incomplete. Read this review and you will surely see reason why your previous must-read list was imbalanced.

 

Here is the REVIEW:

^^^^^^^^^^^^

 

Our Thoughts Are Gates Too

After reading Nana Awere Damoah's short story in African Roar, a collection of short stories by different authors, I was certain about having a worthwhile reading of Through the Gates of Thought. What I however never envisaged was the fact that the book will be an author's reflection of his past and encounters in a pedagogic manner. A quick leafing through the book to the Contents page shows how our thoughts could be classified in gates that are opened when a need arises and shut when the desire had been satisfied. Though Through the Gates of Thought is a test-book of one's deeds and characters, it is also a book that any reader could quickly associate with as thoughts are shared in written words. This book is Nana Awere's attempt at archiving histories, experiences, lessons and encounters in a more secured medium of communication – writing. This piece has indeed shown that aside the bible, it could still fit in as a book which could instruct, correct and bless. Just like a daily reading manual, Through the Gates of Thought's reading is never exhaustible even when one gets to the last page. It is didactic in how it makes the reader sinks into his personal introspection. The step that Nana has taken through the writing of this thought-provoking book restates the fact that; if we were able to access the story of how our forebears rise, fall and get to the thrones that are willed to us, we wouldn't have taken a strut induced by the euphoria of the little comfort that was of the striving and labouring of our ancestors. Little wonder successive generations become poorer. Had it been the ways by which our forefathers make their well armoured enemies to flee the battlefield are shown to us; men with only jackboots as implements of war wouldn't have scared us from our homes. With Through the Gates of Thought, the times when one's problems proliferates because history is not available to help out is put a stop to. Nana Awere readily feeds the readers with past happenings as he leads us through the Gates in the way one would never rue passing through a previous Gate unsatisfactorily.  A cursory summary of what are obtainable in the book that is paginated into '24 Gates' in all will make you see the thin line that exists between this book and the one you have always dreamed of.

 Read...

A Quick Read:

You might not know why it is necessary to be jumping around and singing for that little that you have got in your hands until Nana Awere unlocks 'Gates 12: Bed Twelve – the Really Important Things', a piece contributed by his friend, Dr Moses Ademola, and takes you through it. The write-up lucidly shows how important things we often trivialise can be one's strong yearning when some circumstances deprive us of them. As the character in this 'Gate' relays his story on a sick bed labelled 'Bed Twelve', the reader start acknowledging that every opportunity, no matter how small it could be, is a blessing to be adored.

Though extending your hand to help others in need can be at times hurtful at this age when evil manifest through all manner of guises, but spitting at the rags of others can also be an inhuman thing to do too. Nana Awere opens 'Gate 16: The Challenges of a Twenty-first-century Good Samaritan' with the analogy of the biblical Samaritan who displays neighbourliness, and juxtaposing it with how people now turn blind ears to the shrieks of pains of the needy out of fear of being haunted down. It is like not wanting to rescue a palm-oil seller because you are clad in white robe. In 'Gate 16', Nana Awere confirms the fear everyone has towards offering hospitality to a stranger.

It is true that children are the blessings from the Lord, they could also become the bane of any family and society when they go wayward. 'Gate 2: Why we Have Kids' Parties' posits that while it is good to be dissatisfied with kids' misdemeanour, one shouldn't pound the head with a pestle just because it aches. The adroitness used in tacitly driving the piece's message home is awesome. It started as a letter written by a strayed child to her mum and ends with a short note that informs you that the child only writes the letter to her mum that there are other worst things than the failure- riddled report card that had kept her from coming home.

When anger is given a chance to feed on one's emotion and guide one's action, unimaginable loss can be its prospect. 'Gate 9: The Written Letter' flings open and you learn from the costly mistake of Nana Awere Damoah when he is in Ghana National College in Cape Coast, Ghana. Nana perceives injustice at the way which the uniforms given to his set in school are not different from what are given to junior pupils. Nana vents his grief and anger in written words to the principal of the school. What causes trouble for him is how he allows his very strong anger to smudge the tone of his letter to the principal. This almost gets him an expulsion from the school. Nana Awere Damoah uses this experience of his to inform the reader that when anger drives a person in proffering solution to a problem, he would only succeed in adding more stones to the already-heavy-load.

Nana bewails the rate at which the combustion of oil laden tankers kills Africans whenever their contents are overturned on our roads in 'Gate 23: Oil Tankers and Us'. But for the abject poverty that plagues Africans, the losses would have however been avoidable.

A Reader's Seal:                                                                                         

The creative peculiarity of Through the Gates of Thought is seen at the artistic method the author adopts to give corrections through the recalling of his vivid past and present thoughts as 'Action Exercise' accompanies each story that is classified into 'Gate'. The Action Exercise that comes at the tail-end of each Gate advises the reader to reflect on how his personality fares in comparison with the story told or thought shared. The stories featured in the book become more in-depth with citations from proverbs, words of past leaders and reasoning of great philosophers. One cannot help the literary awe this book commands than to keep nudging one's head at the end of each story (which are in Gates). The messages in the book fulfil its aims; to instruct, correct and encourage. The book is multi-dimensional as each lesson is carefully unfolded. In the few books that I have read, Through the Gates of Thought will etch more on my memory because some 'Gates' leave my lower jaw lower, few make me tut-tut at what I have been doing, while the rest inspire my courage to keep forging ahead.