CRITICAL LITERATURE REVIEW

"Voice of America" by E.C. Osondu

2012-01-21T11:45:00.002Z

©Joseph Omotayo

In Voice of America, almost everybody has an international passport, while those without it only nurture escapes from different miseries. Give some of them visas and they are bound to become Americans or at least illegal immigrants. When their African affinity and culture pressurize their new American lives, they instantly are people battling with the same immigrant pains. As a bunch of the stories fail in similitude of themes and characterizations, others excitingly add refreshing twits to common telling. In this packing contrast, there is perhaps one thing Osondu is artistically deft at; he beamingly shows the unusualness of strange realities and the hypocrisy of individual frailties in the face of societal and household evils.

I won't give a stock opinion on this collection and be quick to pass it off as one stack that is raspingly filled with Immigrant issues. My view will be broad enough and I will first say this collection is a sterling art of storytelling before any other opinion is formed. There are glaring examples of Osondu's writing confidence in the book. The simplicity of diction and plots' flexibility in Voice of America are the authentication of Osondu's storytelling prowess. However, Osondu leaves many trails in the collection which point to only one angle – Western gentrification. Only a few of the stories survive on their own without tilting to a Western outlook and ingratiating themselves with the easy comprehension of an outsider. I will forgive an author that explains in reams what Agege Bread is, but when a place as historic and cyberly found as Badagry is relatively over-tutored, I will call that lazy writing for unexcited audiences. In 'Welcome to America' for instance, the addendum on Badagry only adds more drabness to the enormous burdens the collection struggles with. Osondu is helpless in his attempt to upsell the familiar to the foreign. The proofs are in the repetition of structures that cuts across most pieces in this collection; lacing potentially creative renderings with inexcusable lethargy that stretches on. In the unreasonable lengthiness the collection is muddled in, it can still be remedied if pruned from a collection of eighteen to seven short stories. What nauseates one most isn't in the futile attempt of high numbers that unfittingly characterize this collection, but that the stories that will have been better merged or alternatively left out are exercised in the same exhausted themes explored by other pieces in the collection. The spoiling issues that confront this collection are indeed avoidable.

You will have questions after the reading. Some might likely be; after "Waiting", is there any refreshing nectar offered in "Janjaweed Wife"? "Nigerians in America", "I Will Lend You My Wife", "Stars In My Mother's Eyes Stripes On My Back" and "Miracle Baby"; aren't they all substitutive and in need of reduction to get around unthinking repetition? Until questions as these are noted and solutions provided in subsequent republications, Voice of America might remain in the lower rack of readers' choices struggling to stand out.

Some Undesirable Parallelisms

'Waiting' <> 'Janjaweed Wife': In Waiting, only the word Tsofo tells you where the geographical setting of the book may likely be. In the refugee camp where this story plays out, nothing maintains its real name. Everybody is labeled and classified according to the type of solace s/he has been given. Orlando is called by the name written on the T-Shirt given to her. Paris is only known as Paris for her T-shirt reads See Paris and Die. Chars of some war they all are at the refugee camp, only the help extended to them through Western adoption will put them back into a sane society. But how long shall they all wait for?

Concerning Janjaweed Wife, when Nur and Fur are taken out from the imagined reality of what a Janjaweed solider is really capable of, they will become refugees seeking safety in protected camps. They will suffer and scramble for supplies, kill domestic dogs for meat when Red Cross delays provisions and be subjected to barbaric abuse from the one who later comes offering shelter. In the volatile situation that surrounds Nur, Fur and their mother, escaping the molestation that lies within their ultimate rescue will be a demanding choice to make.

When reading these two pieces, note the subject matter they both hungrily share and the story they both tell without so much difference. Everything in these stories is too closely similar.

'Nigerians In America' <> 'Stars In My Mother's Eyes, Stripes On My Back': Through the perspective of Adesua, the collective sufferings of Nigerians in America are bared in her family's house. Adesua's home provides the communal platform Nigerians alike come on to discuss their woes. Uncle John complains bitterly of the problem that awaits him from the report his contracted American wife's lays against him. Uncle Siloko, her father's childhood friend, is also mired in sticky immigrant trouble. In the night Uncle Siloko begins his temporary stay with Adesua's family; Adesua is invited for the wisdom she will gather from their small talk.

'Stars In My Mother's Eyes, Stripes On My Back' is a tiff gone bitter between the narrator's parents. It must have been more than stars the narrator's mother sees when his father physically assaults his mother. They must settle their marital differences before religion is given attention to – and who cares if it is Sunday? Uncle Boateng's visit has more to do than settling a trivial squabble, the narrator must sit with Uncle Boateng and his father after the family's reunion to gain sageness from their elderly chatter.

Harvesting Some Good Ones Out

My choice of these selections is not so much based on the stereotypical setting the stories sit in as it is on their freehandedness in turning fictional mendacities into relatable instances. They are exact to the situations in the society without being forced. The power that boils from their literary functionality moves you so close to deep appreciation of their messages.

'Voice of America': There is a good trick to this title and Osondu pulls it off to the success of the story. It is the anchor title of the collection. By the title, it is the least story you will expect anything spellbinding from. You are taken by surprise. It is the last piece in the book. The aftertaste this piece leaves you with easily makes up for the near daftness others reek of. A summary on it will upset the cart of the story. I wouldn't do that. The story is worthy to be left to the personal savor of the reader. It is that worth it.

'The Men They Married': This is a good example of how stories of the same theme can be dealt in a single combined narrative. It is the story of Ego, Uzo, Ebone and Malobi; women anguished and pained by marital un-blissfulness. Their emotions are unhinged and their stories pour out into the same trough to the reader.

'An Incident At Pat's Bar': There is this unusual excellence in every story that differently touches a matter so beaten to banality. When you read one, you wouldn't need to be told; you just know it. This is what separate essay writing from creative writing.

In Port Harcourt, Pat's Bar is more than where expatriate oil workers while away their time with sex, meat, alcohol and weeds. Charities that support different organization are constantly raised in dollars; even hypocritical preachers lick Pat's feet for dollars' support offerings for their churches. There is a show of class and Pat's Bar outshines others. But all these are before the changing time which sweeps through Pat's Bar.

'Teeth': A baby is born and nothing more is precious like the teeth he grows from the womb.

***

Keep trawling through; Voice of America is not totally blundered. I like collection of short stories, Voice of America has just increased my volume of them.

‘Open City’ is…Julius

2011-12-31T18:16:00.001Z

©Joseph Omotayo

· Reviewing Teju Cole's Open City

Open City is more than a book of one purpose streamlined plot and a contrived theme setting; it is further broader than that. With its loosed plot, there is really no story in the mainstream sense. The book is deep with intelligences meeting at different mental ports of the main character's emotional reflexes, intellectual recounts, aimless personal wanderings and physical social interactions. There are allusions of great intellectual stimulations flying off at each page. An important note to prospective readers of this book would be; Open City does not patronize details to you with end to end interruptive annotations of where you may have been confused; it really doesn't. That is one thing I admire about the way the book is written. You are to follow it through rapt study. That is never to submit the sentences are complex. The words are relaxed that you pick them at your own pace. You wouldn't find Open City in a boxed space of what it wants itself to be. In fact, the book never panders to the reader's mindset for a particular interpretation and appreciation; it takes you in, makes you wander amidst your own speculations and direct belief and hopefully takes you to where you say; Oh! This is what Open City is. It is as psychological and mentally stimulating as that. You have the personal responsibility to go on an adventure of discovery with Julius, the main character, as he roves through cities {New York and Brussels}, giving breath to places and things that speak of many historical memories.

***

Julius is the book. Open City is Julius. A sapient character of an observing kind, Julius lights up New York and makes the nerve of the city come alive. He knows everything about it; the paintings in the gallery, the movies in the cinemas, the monuments and statutes that are mundane features of the city, the historical topography and the invisible melancholic voices throbbing from various reconstructed sites. If I had accepted reading Open City without studying Julius; that would simply have meant going through inchoate sentences. Julius is the core of the book. He is the God, for all other things take a minor category in his scholarly world. Nothing eludes Julius' close observations. From music to paintings, cinemas, books and historical facts, he dissects things down to the trivial of details. In his voice, the past is relived. Unlike the normal conversations in novels that carry the distinctness of individual character with sound-bites and quotes, dialogues in Open City are made in Julius internal monologues. This gives him an infallible pristineness. Nobody is as faultless as Julius. When you meet him you would remember I said so.

Farouk almost put Julius' erudite soundness to task. He initially awes Julius as he generously arranges knowledgeable analogies and names into small talks; engaging Julius in academic thinking. He stretches Julius's brilliance to tautness. But when he slipped, Julius nails him and quickly concludes his fatal faultiness in arriving at serious decisions. Farouk has at the first meeting in the café coined a word to describe Mohamed Choukri as an autodidact, but changes the appropriation of the same adjective to his self at their subsequent meeting, claiming he had used it so in their previous talk. Julius is a man of memories – triffling and significant; little slips off his memory. Farouk instantly becomes the victim of his own words.

Farouk speaking with Julius at an earlier interaction;

"To be a writer in exile is a great thing. But what is exile now, when everyone goes and comes freely? Choukri stayed in Morocco, he lived with his people. What I like best about him is that he was an autodidact…. He was raised on the street and he taught himself to write classical Arabic but he never left the street. " {p104}

This is where Farouk falls;

"But my deeper project is about what I said last time, the difference thing. I strongly believe this, that people can live together, and I want to understand how that can happen… But as I told you, I am an autodidact, so I don't know what form this other project will take." {pg. 113}

Open City's characters lavishly command meaningful significances in ordinary pleasantries. No attention is given to explanations and apologetic refrains. There is a way allusions are embedded into conversations that you just want to know why they are so important to have been mentioned. An exploratory instance is where Farouk, Khalil and Julius engage themselves in discussion at the bar in Brussels. Historical peoples and places become the very instruments of dialogues which are unfurled in Julius' internal monologues. There is the Holocaust, the 1940s Auschwitz concentration camp, the ethnic rivalry of Delaware and Iroquois, Finkelstein's and Noam Chomsky's dissimilarity. Henri Cantier's Decisive Moment, Nabokov's Pinn, Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello and various relevant theories of; Zionism, anti-Semitic, Piety, Ummah, etc. Google is your partner in this reading. You wouldn't only be reading Open City as you browse through piles of valuable references. At least, without the Internet, Encarta program will do some assists.

I was more than astonished when I venerated Julius in a side notepad. I asked myself questions and conversed with my thoughts; how did Julius get to know of the various buildings formerly occupying the site World Trade Centre was built on? How was he so informed of the streets that passed through this place; some of which dated back to late 1800s? About music, paintings, books and places; doesn't he seem to know so much? This character must be a genius or his creator, Teju Cole, is.

If I had the chance to converse with Julius, I would vehemently question his anecdotal narrative of Obatala and his creation. There are numerous shades being added to the story of Obatala, Eledumare and iseda omo eniyan daily. I have gathered some, check here, here and here. With the popularity of Internet, these shades are constantly overshadowing the truth of this Yoruba creation story. A day will come, when historians will be left with only doubts and the frustration of tracing the real story. In classifying the cripple and the vehemence they bear against their creator, Obatala, Julius' slide to it amuses me;

"…Obatala did well at the task (creation) until he started drinking… he became inebriated, and began to fashion damaged human beings… he made dwarfs, cripples people missing limbs, and those burdened with debilitating illness… They worship Obatala in accusation; it is he who made them as they are. They wear white, which is the color of the palm wine he got drunk on" {p25}

I love Julius for his ingenuity and dislike him for his egocentricity. He determines what becomes fleeting and what stays on with meaningfulness. Julius' personality is in a messy split. How could he have trodden on Terry's poeticity in that manner? Terry can't have known the burdening blow he suffers from Professor Saito's…? Julius can just be that inhuman at times. Sex is a beautiful thing – a stint of it can't cause permanent forgetfulness as is with Julius. Moji; how I so pity her in the web called Julius. This Julius is so puzzlingly enigmatic.

***

A friend called me during my reading of this book and asked how I was doing with the book. I only had this clipped response for him; Open City is a piece of numerous lateral natures spiraling into the main meaning the reader takes away from it. Everything the book has to get across is at the proportion of the various readers' deep knowledge of the issues as sweepingly alluded to in the book. Yes, my opinion of the book was true then, even when I had just barely gotten farther the middle of its pages' length.

This is Open City. I, Julius, welcome you. Correction; I am Joseph Omotayo. I will never be him. I can't be that complex. Welcome to the review of Teju Cole's Open City.

---------

Bookerbay, a wall-less library is making gallant history in literature. They got this book to me. All I did was to nominate the book with a few friends who supported the nomination. This is a right step in a good direction. Now that I am through with the book, I really need to pass it on to another reader as the rules direct. Thank you Bookerbay, I appreciate the effort, Adebiyi Epistrophy Olusolape.

At CLR, we wish You a Happy, Happy 2012!

Disdaining the Literary Pyre: Biyi Bandele's Burma Boy

2011-12-20T18:44:00.001Z

Above all, a good review should be informative and deeply reflective of the issues in the book it focuses on. You, the reader, are to conclude on what side this review should be commended for. But most importantly, pertinent questions are asked. Questions not only the readers should provide answers to. The book's writer and editor are questioned too. CLR leaves you here with Oyebanji Ayodele's take on Biyi's Burma Boy. Read and comment.

^^^^

As my eyes meandered with passion through the lane of texts that an author's pen has cleared before them, I was made to put into consideration the level of a pen's potency in bridging the titanic gulf between man and history. The mere understanding of the storyline lands with a thud in my mind the Yoruba proverbial saying that:

If the mountain doesn't deem it fit to move close to Mohammed,

On Mohammed lies the onus to move close to the mountain

Here is a sliver of man's history which has been creeping out of his reach into oblivion being chased back to its dwelling by a writer's pen. Truly, a pen is mightier than a rapier. The novel is a manifestation of Biyi Bandele's refusal to allow issues relating to the Second World War lie on a literary pyre. His culinary adroitness in concocting Tommy Sparkle's, his father's, Burma tales with other historical ingredients which his voracious reading taste produced is also evident. We are all invited to take a sip from the urn of ages – Literature.

The griot in Biyi Bamidele through this novel seeks to inform the mind that cares to know that there was once a realistic battleground on which the Schwarzenegger simulations of blood, courage and death were better acted out (without rehearsals). The Second World War drama is presented based on the experiences of a fantastic Ali Banana, a young and inexperienced black soldier whose desire to fight for kingi Joji of Ingila (king George of England) results in a situation no reader could have prognosticated. Want to know more about this baby soldier? Hear him speak:

"I'm the son of Dawa the king of well digggers whose blessed nose could sniff out water in Sokoto while he's standing in Samanika. I'm the son of Hauwa whose mother was Talatu whose mother was Fatimatu queen of the moist kulikuli cake, the memory of whose kulikuli still makes old men water at the mouth till this day." (Page 37)

As a strong reminiscent of war, one sees nothing but war and more war…

When two mammoths engage in a free for all, grasses suffer all for free. The reader is made to see the involvement of the blacks in a war which has its causes subsumed in the white clouds of their black understanding. One striking thing about the war as recorded in the novel is that nobody is coerced into the army. Here is the message:

"Kingi Joji, monarch of Ingila is fighting a war in a land called Boma and he wants our help. He wants all able – bodied men to go to Kaduna and join his band of warriors." (Page 43)

What then pushes the like of Pash, Ali Banana, Danja and other Burma boys into joining the army? Love for their fellow humans you say? Never! Fellow humans who before the war and even after subjected them to imperialism. Ignorance is the word! I want to believe these characters are not in any way like the Biblical Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who weren't only impudent at the sight of the furnace but who also strove into it with confidence. The war front is never a kulikuli market as Aminu Yerwa sees it.

"When the OC asked Aminu why he brought so much with him, he said he'd been hoping to keep some for himself and to sell the rest in small portions to the boys when we got to India." (Page 53)

Whereas, the only ware for sale at the warfront is death!

If the attainment of manhood means death or some inane thing, I'd rather be a boy all my life. Samanja Damisa posits that "a boy is a man when he feels he's a man." Imagine Pash becoming a man with one leg; Samanja Damisa himself becoming a man with just one ear and Ali Banana… Why not read that up?

What if I say once a thespian is forever a thespian? The mode of narration of the story is an attempt by Biyi to hide behind a visor – Thespis' palm – which in this situation is transparent enough for the reader to discover that the work is better described as a novel written in four acts with its own prologue and epilogue. The ingenious diction which the author employs can be likened to that of an oral artist. The book is fraught with proverbs, songs and other literary embellishments with which the conflict is doused. Listen to this:

"A man does not run on thorns for nothing: either he's chasing something or there's a snake chasing him" (Page 96)

And indeed, they are running on thorns for something:

"… He is there to kill you or die trying…His commanders tell him that if he's taken prisoner when unconscious, he should stuff his tongue and choke himself to death…Our mission is to insert ourselves inside his gut" (Page 27)

Moreover, as detailed as the narration is, the narrator (or maybe the editor) leaves the reader to puzzle out an instance of contradiction.

Consider this:

"… my tale is long but I'll make it short. That very night, Yusufu, Iddrisi, and I set out on foot and headed as the crow flies, in the direction of Kaduna" (Page 43)

In relation to:

"They didn't ask me to come with them that night. In fact, they laughed in my face when I asked if I could come with them. I had to wait a month before I made my own way to Kaduna" (Page 49)

Which do we believe?

The misuse of the word "anorexia" on page 179 also calls for notice:

"Quite soon the men began to fall sick, exhibiting symptoms ranging from flatulence to anorexia…"

Anorexia at the war front where there is little or nothing to eat!?

The sincerity of the story is apparent in its characterization. That it is complex is enough to be taken as an attestation to the fact that the stage on which war is acted out is large enough to take a large number of soldier-actors (as far as they can kill and may be killed). The story is one that can be likened to a scalpel slicing through a pregnant woman in labour. A monster is born rather than a baby. Via the convincing voice of the griot, the repulsive story of those who killed and died in the service of a history which is not theirs refuses to be laid on a pyre.

"Blackbird" by Jude Dibia

2011-11-24T05:08:00.002Z

©Joseph Omotayo

John Steinbeck would have to be opposed on this one. I am a firm follower of his analyses, but certainly not where Blackbird is concerned. When Steinbeck opined that only a big book fulfils its mental and emotional obligations to its readers; he surely didn't realise there could ever be a Jude Dibia's Blackbird. In a little more than 300 pages, Blackbird lucidly rolls out an almost forgotten historical setting that could be grouped in the same class with genocidal slaughter. Really, past Nigerian leaders need to be undressed and whipped on their buttocks. Those who especially contributed to the community disintegration the Maroko exercise of 1990 caused should be manacled and pelted with putrid tomatoes before the noose throttles life out of them. That the case has remained unattended to till now, wallowing in the murkiness of crawling judicial processes, clearly portrays our complacency with mucous ills. Few decades from now, I wonder if our society would still be in a good communal grip. There are things to be forgiven; the 1990 Maroko incident which rendered approximately 300,000 citizens of the country homeless shouldn't just be passed under the rug and waltzed on. Blackbird's daring attempt at revisiting that archived scab of ours successfully pulls in our shared political hypocrisy.

Blackbird is an artistic bisque; it goes off the tongue juicing it with a tang that would colonize the aftertastes of subsequent meals. What etches the book on the memory is its near trueness to the details of the subject it dominantly touches. With the 1990 Maroko eviction as the central theme, Blackbird is a colourful pixel of assorted stories heading to an all-clasping resolution. Every chapter is bursting at the seams with demanding issues. Historical novels as this often lack the certitude of conclusion; meandering between opinions and objectivities at mushily prepared intermissions; hiding under the hypocrisy that fiction only plays out the imagination of the writer and as a result should not be held accountable when it doesn't align well with aptly detailed instances. To this, Blackbird is partially not. Blackbird does not suffuse itself with the messianic inclination of a literature that tends towards total healing. It only souses history in fiction to relive one of the country's neglected pasts.

Descriptive languages are wonderful seasonings of enjoyable narratives. Connecting mere strings of words with a lively portraiture of reality could be quite a labourous task. Without breathing imageries of strong senses, the writer would always have the concealed meaning of his piece to himself alone with only mangled appreciations from readers. Blackbird is fast-paced, the plot-construction is never leaden and padded. It is like Jude Dibia makes the very art of penmanship an effortless venture. The mental images are easily connectable with living realness. Adroitness at the creation of mental picturesque sceneries is a quality feature of the fluid descriptive excellence of a word-merchant; Jude Dibia is no less an astonishingly evolving wordsmith.

The imageries are clear and well classified. Some are olfactory:

"Her mother stood at the centre of the kitchen, flipping fish from one side to the other on the spitting hot palm oil. The fumes of the bleached oil hung over their heads like clouds cushioning the ceiling"(p35-36)

Others are visual and tactile:

"Now when her nipples stood erect and cried to be kissed and touched, there was no one to attend to them. When the mouth of her cervix clenched and unclenched with desire, she had to content herself with her fingers..."(p29-30)

"Underground City. A conglomeration of roguishly built shanty homes, it flanked the Sambo creek, a torrid expanse of water twisting like loins to the sea… It had its own lost soul and palpable body; its own vibe, expressed by a pandemonium of car horns, mixed with the cacophony of tired bus engines, overlaid by a multitude of voices that talked, whispered, shouted, traded curses, laughed, cried, sang and sighed… "(p105)

The book is about Nduesoh, the ugly and high heeled wife of Edward Wood. She is comfortable and at the same pace threatened. Blackbird also subplots the wavy path love takes in homes under pressures; Omoniyi and Chimaya tries rescuing marital tranquility in the dire face of economic downturn and stricture. In all, with the 1990 Maroko event being the themes' driver, Blackbird narrates the plights of Nigerians when a privileged minority controls all.

Measuring Punctured Personalities

Nduesoh (Identity Hemorrhage and Emotional Displacement): Even Jude Dibia is at a loss describing the total unfortunateness of Nduesoh. Hers cannot be properly placed using routine adjectives; she suffers from psychological torture than the ugliness a superficial observation would have one believe. It seems her internal scar always outgrows the elite status her matrimony with Edward Wood grants her. More than the troubles and rejections she bears from family and friends, she thrashes about futilely to ascertain who she really is and why she is who people define her to be. She seeks her answers everywhere: in the comfortable loneliness of her wealth; in her decryption of a husband that has changed her social class; in the abuse she suffers at the fingers of the policeman caressing her labia; and in the sexual stint she forces Omoniyi into. Nduesoh's personality and emotion is singed in different crimson traumatic fires. Her unsightliness is just the taproot of the numerous evils she contends with.

Scorpion & Ominiyi (Picturing the real Maroko): Maroko before the eviction was a community to those whose survival technique scares the very harshness they were confronted with. Maroko was a class to motley of livings and aspirations just like as obtainable in any community. Scorpion and Ominiyi are two allegorical sides of that society that must cohabit in great contrast and complement. Maroko's only sin in 1990 was in her adjacency to the high social caste that would only breathe well in the gentrification of Maroko's shanty town. What was understood as a slum was just the simple opposite of the towers and flowers-lined mansions in Victoria Island.

Ominiyi is educated and full of hope of the opportunities immanent in education. In Shiloh, he constitutes a group that thrives to maintain some standard in a community purportedly populated by hazy citizens. Scorpion (Deji) is a foil to whom Ominiyi is. For Ominiyi to subsist in a time labour market is being bloated; when industries are winding up and workers being downsized, Scorpion must act the deux machine to his mystery. Scorpion is a rogue, a hirer of blow-jobbers and a one-man suzerain of decadence. When Underground City is similarly cleansed and unbarnised; Ominiyi must now pay Scorpion in the same favour Scorpion has always shown him (Ominiyi) since childhood. With the destruction of Shiloh comes another definitive terror, exactly like the aftermath the displacement of Maroko's inhabitants to neigbouring communities of Ilasan, Ikota, Maroko-Beach, Aja and Okokomaiko did set off.

Edward (Neo-Colonialism): Edward Wood is different from what his colleagues are. He is pure of heart and humble even though his skin gives him unfair advantages from the groveling blacks. Edward is not thoroughly the kind of character Jude tries to depict. In his shallow differentness, he appears too smarmy. He combines the trait of neo-colonialism with unmatchable rectitude. In the way the colonial masters would today ensure their role of the Big Uncle is constantly played, his every step and attitude passes quick judgment on what are wrong with the country. Edward is too impatient to comment on the things that are not being done in the upright norm. His unchecked leaning to the allure the female black skin gives him does not end with his marriage to Ndeusoh. He soon becomes tired of her and always wanting to extend his trident to fish for other black roundedness. Females' blacks' beauty becomes the artifacts he must acquire, feel and possess.

Plucking the feathers off the Bird

The insolvability of the issue in the prologue sours the book for me. An issue as complicated and historically relevant as the Maroko eviction exercise can't just be given to the random indecisiveness of writing to ruin its tangibility. The uncertainty of the rationale behind the assassination of Katherine sides against the very excuse that brought about the Maroko incident initially. Katherine's massacre is projected to be one of the characterizing frequencies plaguing the slum. Katherine's case can't just be fobbed off in that manner; Scorpion carries out a contract killing, that isn't a blitz attack that the absence of its resolution in the book shows. Blackbird might not have been written as a thriller, the indetermination of its prologue doesn't seat well with the brass tacks of an historical novel.

Maroko's event cannot be properly recorded without the Oniru's royal family role clearly stated. Maroko is an important history revolving around numerous unresolved conflicts. Any subtraction of core details thins down the essence of the retelling. In the Oniru's instance, the dynamic characterization of the Arebi's family would have been a perfect depiction of the Oniru's contribution to the whole scenario in 1990. The passivity of the Arebis is a big wasted material in the book.

With the editing flop in the book, I should be hiding my head in shame, having once praised Jalaa Writers' Collective here. Now, only the silent spirit would know what the cassava tubers and its paraffin fellow would be saying in whispers, chortling in the glory Jalaa's professional sloppiness has given them.

Used sources:

www.theparisreview.org/interviews/4156/the-art-of-fiction-no-45-continued-john-steinbeck

www.eau.sagepub.com/content/9/2/271.full.pdf

www.newmediaadvocacy.org/PDFs/SERAC_v_Nigeria.PDF

www.josephomotayo.blogspot.com/2011/08/promoting-books-jalaa-way.html

www.josephomotayo.blogspot.com/2011/11/on-maroko-writing-and-blackbird-talk.html

Between Lola Shoneyin’s and Abimbola Adelakun’s Stories

2011-11-07T20:50:00.001Z

In this essay, Adebiyi Rasheed is never in a rush, he takes good time in outlining the parallels and differences that exist between the two books of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives and Under the Brown Rusted Roofs at close comparison. CLR hopes you find this review on these books informative. Read as CLR features Adebiyi Rasheed's offering.

Relish!

****

Two stories. Two women writers. Two slightly different settings. Similar issues addressed. These are the similitude between Lola Shoneyin's The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives and Abimbola Adelakun's Under the Brown Rusted Roofs. While the similarities do not end there, the differences are many too. The only way to cast a comparative appraisal look on the two books is to examine them through their Storylines, Character Development, Mode of Narration and Cultural Portrayal.

Storylines

Shoneyin's book centres on Baba Segi, his four wives and the dark secret that envelopes his household. To partake of the 'family feast', Baba Segi's wives ford the shoreline of the despicable to marital grimness at swift will. To keep the family whole under Baba Segi's roof, vows are betrayed and sacredness defiled. However, the coming of the fourth wife, Bolanle, bells the cat. Being well-educated, Bolanle's coming is never well-received by the other three wives. They see in her a threat to their hold on their husband. This marks their undoing as the wives' long concealed secret begins unfurling its rinds at the medical trial of Bolanle's reproductive ability.

Adelakun's story documents the travails, pains and intense relationship that exist in a traditional polygamous family in Ibadan. It focuses on the marital, social and political journey of Alhaji Arigbabuwo and his family. It narrates the attempt of the man to manage a home made up by Iyale Agba (the hurt first wife), Afusat (the sociable second wife), Sikirat (the troublesome third wife) and their children. The narrative captures the ups and downs of rearing a big family in the midst of other extended relatives. Under the Brown Rusted Roofs is not a story of an individual but a narration of a city and its attempt at the survival of its inhabitants.

From the summary of the two stories, a discerning reader can easily see a trend in the narrations of the books. The two writers tell their readers a single story of family life. They both focus on polygamy and the revelations that emanate from polygamous families. While Shoneyin uses the big dark secret to drive her story, Adelakun dwells on the family interaction and culture to take her work to a meaningful end. Shoneyin picks her characters individually and bares them open to the readers; Adelakun uses the collective thread to weave the story in her book. However, kudos should be given to the writers for stories well told. A conscious reader should be able to locate the likeness in the stories and at the same time pick out their differences.

Mode of Narration

The writers, despite the parallel of their stories, use different Narrative Modes. Shoneyin opens up her book with an omniscient voice but reverts to a self-confessional style where each character tells their stories. That is why she titles each chapter after a character and gives the concerned character the room to narrate personal ordeal. This aligns well with the secret she uses to drive her plot.

Adelakun leaves nobody in doubt that she will play the Supreme Being in the lives of her characters. She opens the story with a reference to the early life of Alhaji Arigbabuwo and his own dad before coming to reveal his adult life as well as his family. She knows her characters thoroughly. She understands what drives them and the fear that gnaws their heart away. She sees it all and does not hesitate to expose them as well. Observant readers will know Baban'sale and his habit of being at every fight no matter how ridiculous within the compounds. They will discover that Afusat has a hold on her husband and that most of Alhaji's decisions have Afusat's inputs. They will understand without much difficulty that each woman in Alhaji's household operates from behind a facade and how individual woman longs for the companionship they are in deprivation of by the presence of other women in the family. Adelakun truly plays the god.

Despite the difference in the narrative modes of the books, the authors understand their styles well and make use of them almost to faultlessness. The total omniscient narrative technique Adelakun utilizes fits the plot she develops while the self-confessional method adopted by Shoneyin gives interesting appeal to her plot development.

Character Development

Closely related to their narrative approach is their Character Development. The two writers develop their characters to a point. Shoneyin caters for her characters on individual basis. Adelakun fleshes out her characters from the community of other characters. Through the self-confessional method Shoneyin exercises with, one is able to appreciate the individuality of the characters and the story that each has to tell of their lives. In Shoneyin's piece, we are introduced to each character singularly. This makes enough information available to the readers and we are able to interact and empathise with the characters. A good instance of this is the revelation of each wife on how she finds herself in Baba Segi's house. With her glowing searchlight on each individual, readers are able to see through the characters and why they act the way they do. Readers are also privy to their thoughts and the reasons behind their actions.

Adelakun's god-like narrative mode contributes to the development of her characters too. She picks on the characters and divulges a lot about them. She knows the reasons behind their actions also but reveals them in the third person. This maintains a kind of distance between the readers and the characters. We look into the world of the characters from the eyes of the author. But the style suits the story. It makes her authoritative. For example, she reveals Afusat's hypnosis on Alhaji Arigbabuwo through her authoritativeness into the intimate time of the two characters. She is also able to justify why Afusat will be the most successful of Alhaji's women: Afusat has the first son with a university education in the house hold; she deserves it as she works hard for it; shielding her sons from unhealthy influence in the compound. The use of the omniscient way of revealing her character shows she has a good grasp of the people involved in her narration.

The two authors carefully choose to build up their characters in a manner that goes down well with their different stories.

Setting

The Setting of the two narratives is seemingly alike but slightly different. Shoneyin sites her story in the urban educated area of Ibadan. Adelakun locates her own story in the rural part of the ancient city. There is a boundary between these two parts at KS side and Total Garden in Ibadan. This is reflected in the kind of characters they portray in their narratives. In Adelakun's story, the characters reside in agbooles which can literally be interpreted as rural compounds. Shoneyin's characters stay in a superficially enlightened environment. In Under the brown Rusted Roofs, decisions are influenced by a horde of relatives and inquisitive neighbours. Shoneyin's characters are secluded from the inquisitive eyes of neighbours.

Portrayal of Culture

Adelakun scores a first when it comes to Portrayal of Culture. Granted that the two books are set in Ibadan and that Adelakun's work is more on the rural side, yet, Shoneyin's book cannot stand its side when it comes to how culture is used in the two books. Adelakun employs proverbs, folktales and songs. It does not stop there. She uses legends and myths as well. In short, she deploys local culture to a fault. This is what Shoneyin's lacks. It should then be mentioned that even though the deployment of culture gives shinier colour to Adelakun's work, the absence of it in Shoneyin's book does not take anything away from its aesthetics.

The two writers are deft at story telling. They tell their different stories in distinct styles. They look at an issue with two unlike eyes and each could be said to be right in their own ways. They use simple language to tell the world of the experiences of women who find themselves in a polygamous family without giving judgement of any kind. They leave the rest to the readers to decide. Being women, they talk about one of the plights of women without being seriously sentimental. It is a rare feature of mature writers.

· Adebiyi Rasheed could be reached through biyicrown@yahoo.com

African Roar 2011 (An anthology of 14 short stories)

2011-10-15T09:14:00.001+01:00

© Joseph Omotayo

In a protean undulation of writing mastery, African Roar 2011 guides you through the labyrinth of issues its collective fourteen African writers are laden with. Africa is a complex geographic mass of confusing and diverse matters that cannot be relayed by the artistry of a single pen and African Roar 2011 draws on the unequaled strength of literature in varied contributions to orderly piece together the mosaic of African realities. African Roar 2011 is not a demagogic rabble-rousing endeavour gearing towards hypocritical promises of political equality. It isn't also the misdirected restlessness of some literati's drool. This collection of fourteen short stories is a race-card of matters; rotting and stinking, and problems; beguiling and catastrophic.

Real stories are told. The views are bloody and grim. None is suffused with nothingness of opinion. The writers assuredly balance their canvasses on the tottery situations the continent is perennially plunged into. Their words are the paints. The colours are blacks. Africa may not be as dark as in the myopic journals of misinformed research buffoons, but truth be simplified, her leaders still delight in the evil their accused heads revile the governed with. In this collection, the reader navigates from commonplace seriousness to routine issues written in a refreshing perspective. En route the horrific instances that lie behind each author's nation's shroud, you are riveted to the pages by the succinctness of words that clearly express human struggles with life, societies and untamed forces.

It is a literary constant; anthologies of this nature are invariably known for flecks of imperfections that can only be accorded to the shades of individual writing techniques. African Roar 2011 can't be said to be perfect in its array of masterpieces. There are flaws that are only caused by the artistic degree some submissions sequence their stories to. Nevertheless, what engrosses you most is the aptness that goes into each work. A composite of catholic sort, the collection may arguably be the best compilation I have read so far this year.

In the African tradition and sacredness of figures; 'one' connotes a promising attempt, 'two' paves the path for certainty. African Roar 2010 was well manicured. This 2011 edition comes with the impress of certitude and unmatched exhibitions. The annual African Roar anthologies are not just a flash of a welcome development to African writing, it has mainstreamed itself to be a voice that melds the howls, echoes and cackles African writers use to bare their complaints about human disorder.

The African Roar 2011 anthology is a wreath placed at the tomb of Ruzvidzo Stanley Mupfudza, a Zimbabwean writer who died in 2010. In this collection, an epitaph is raised for his departed soul in Memory Chirere's tribute of him and in 'Witch's Brew', a piece written by him before his departure. Rest in Peace Ruzvidzo Stanley Mupfudza. You will still be remembered even as we read this anthology.

Snapshots:

"Longing for Home" – Hajira Amla

Grace is from an extended family in Zimbabwe. Hers is a kind of family structure that shows African communality within families. She is bright and sound. Her A-level result is astoundingly excellent. Grace Chirma begins studying in England. The frostiness of race-segregation she witnesses in England is the initial problem she combats with. As her country back home is ridden into Armageddon, her responsibilities pile up. In the first instance, her family's wish is to see her bring pride home to the family from England. But as Sekuru's – her sole sponsor and grandfather – health starts failing; she becomes the breadwinner of the family as she also struggles for her personal needs.

"Main" – NoViolet Bulawayo

This author's eye for details is uncanny and gruelling. She draws with words the austerity that once befalls the Zimbabweans. Main is the account of a country's citizens under the harshness of their leaders and the economy. The reader easily relates with the gory pictures this story portrays. It is simply the battles the common people are left to fight while their leaders face other selfish ventures aside governing. Meaningful brevity is good for a short story. Main is brief but moving.

"Silent Night, Bloody Night" – Ayodele Morocco-Clarke

Morocco-Clarke's piece's title is suggestive of what is to be expected in the story. You know it will be gloomy and that the storyline will be doom filled. In this piece, no word is wasted. Osadolor is a liege over his family and kinfolks. The whole Benin town (his hometown) always awaits his homecoming. Every festive season is filled with grandeur by his visit. He cuts a typical image of an African privileged class. The last visit Osadolor pays home becomes the story Ameze Obaze, his daughter tells. In his last visit, he faces karma. He is compelled to live with the consequences of a despicable act the robbers force him to perform.

"Water Wahala" – Isaac Ncequaye

Necessities are not the trivialities of human affairs. There are our breath and life. This work enhances the indispensability of water. The scarcity of it is the conflict Kweku Kyere and Agyapomaa confront at Adentan estate. The Kweku's household and neighborhood ration water. In Kweku's family, roles are performed as to who monitors water usage. When it is Agyapomaa, Kweku wife's turn, things could get messy. In the weekend that leaves Kweku's family dependant on two buckets of water, the survival of his family will be dictated by the caprices of Danso, the water tanker driver and water deliverer.

Writing; as it should be

I wouldn't want to read creative works that preach the way religion mundanely does. Some authors in this collection fall fault to this. Morocco-Clarke's piece reels lessons at a rushed pace. It doesn't work. It only bores. Whatever lesson needs to be impressed shouldn't be foisted on the reader. The revelation the robbers made at Osadolor's house is laboured and too instant. The lessons should have been in an implied lining. This will still reel in the reader's attention.

The art of imaginative writing is messianic. It is to pass whatever bugs the writer to an imagined audience/reader. It couches message(s) in the creative embroidery of expressions. Creative writing is a didactic trident that dips into the cauldron of human living. It is always a medium to advance, to redress and to sustain societal structures and human evanescent cycle. African Roar 2011 mixes fourteen short stories of high substances in the height of the concerns they are written on. How they solve their individual conundrum will be left to the readers to judge. African Roar 2011 is a collection to read if one would really want to feel the pulsating power of various budding and moulting African writers.

"The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives" by Lola Shoneyin

2011-10-07T15:17:00.004+01:00

CLR showcases Oyebanji Ayodele's analytical review of The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives, a novel written by Lola Shoneyin. Savor!

*****

Set in the ancient and 'complex' city of Ibadan alongside Ayilara (where both wisdom and promiscuity are on sale). Just like the city in which the story is set, there is a link to something as ancient as the city – Polygamy; the complexity of the story (unlike the city) which is as conspicuous as a soup stain on a bridal gown is also toned down by the simple language the author employs.

The Alao household is the crux of the whole story. Baba Segi, a rich and illiterate polygamist who is also confident of his libidinal ability decides to make his harem larger by adding Bolanle, a learned lady to his list of wives. This makes the universal commodity of the wives – Baba Segi – very 'scarce.' Thus, envy crawls into the hearts of two of the older wives – Iya segi and Iya Femi – and they resort to showing Bolanle the exit route. Baba Segi who doesn't see beyond his insensitive nose does not know this. All he needs is a child from Bolanle. He 'screws' as hard as he can but the lady's stomach would not heed his sexual incantations. Then, Teacher, Baba Segi's friend gives his piece of advice – that Bolanle be taken to a hospital.

The quest for the cure for Bolanle's barrenness results in a revelation that rocks the Alao household.

The conflict is resolved by Baba Segi's wisdom but perdition doesn't fail to pinch Iya Segi for indulging in so many horrible acts:

The story is that which bothers on betrayal, innocence, promiscuity, triumph, hypocrisy, lust mingled with love and joy concocted with sadness.

What sense does a story make without apt characters? Or what sense does a character make without the story? Lola's novel brings into limelight what suitable characters can make of a story and vice versa.

For a character like Baba Segi, illiteracy pervades all he does (even in bed). Despite all he goes through, he causes the reader to laugh and smell the stench his life produces. His wives present to the reader how plausible it is for the feminine folk to swim against the most violent storm their immediate niche triggers. Each of the wives has a reason for venturing into Baba Segi's household. The only reason that evokes in the reader a sort of pity is Bolanle's. Hear her speak:

'I chose this family to regain my life, to heal in anonymity…'

Really, she needs to regain her life after a traumatic experience.

The situation of the first three wives of Baba Segi gives an insight into what a story can make of its characters. Their husband's heart's desire causes them to be deceptive. Taju, Tunde and the meat seller are mere provisions of providence and Teacher, Baba Segi's friend, confidant and partner is a very important character. His case is better summarized with this proverbial saying:

'That an Islamic cleric's head is not fertile enough to support hair growth is nothing, the chin is always there to serve as a better location'

What he lacks in some areas, he possesses intellectually. Obliquely, Teacher's advice settles the conflict in the novel. Unlike Baba Segi, he deciphers the best way to solve problems as they crop up. His trait is in contrast to Baba Segi's who is both illiterate and insensitive.

What LAYMEN will call obscene and lewd in Lola Shoneyin's diction, I'll say makes her work factual and detailed ('open'). The diction keeps the reader glued to the ebb and flow of the storyline. Shoneyin tries to make use of her concise language: a product of the amalgamation of the White man's language and the narrator's creative Ibadan patois to 'torch' the thatch that has rested for centuries on the rigidly planted poles of African culture. This is the age of enlightenment and thus, Lola has afforded the youths the opportunity to allude to the Yoruba proverb:

Afefe ti fe; a ti ri idi adiye.

The breeze has blown;

The hen's feather-concealed anus is revealed.

The question the author puts forward to any analytical reader is: 'Why do we need to be hypocritical when it comes to bedroom issues?' and I believe she is justified. If at all Shoneyin is to be criticized, criticize her not for her diction, but for having such a strange taste that she almost exhausted the sex register.

Shoneyin at a reading in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife some months back said confidently:

'I'm a feminist…'

To that, I say:

'Undisputable!'

Feminism has always shared the same meaning with egalitarianism but with a different facelift – the voices and fists may not be vigour-nourished but they bear on them the scars that breed in their owners indefatigability. Imagine African women, who don't see anything wrong in peeling off the textile skins on their breasts just to make sure that their grievances are eviscerated.

Feminism in Shoneyin is balanced. Balanced? The work doesn't fail to sight the need for emancipation, not for the feminine folk alone but also for their masculine counterparts.

The issue of emancipation arises in the novel as the feminine folk are seen as mere sex machines. None of the male characters in the novel shows their female counterparts the regard they deserve but the real lesson Shoneyin wants to teach becomes overt in Baba Segi's advice to Akin:

'When the time comes for you to marry, take one wife and one wife alone… listen to your wife's words…'

And that is what emancipation means to the womenfolk: freedom of expression and attention without intrusion.

The balance comes when Shoneyin shows that females can also hold their masculine counterparts captives through their deceptive, obstinate, hypocritical and impudent nature. The result is totally unfair to the masculine folk. Discrimination aside! This is still obtainable in the non-fictional world.

The narration is another aspect one cannot but touch. It serves as the backbone of suspense, which pervades the piece. The narrative technique is as eclectic as the diction. Thus, the narrator is not the altruistic type that helps the characters to open their mouths as well as live their lives. He leaves them at the centre of the proscenium to struggle with their strengths and weaknesses. None of them is denied the freedom of expression, not even Taju, Baba Segi's driver.

This type of narration helps the story to develop and unfold at its own pace making the exposition as detailed as possible. You can imagine each of the major characters narrating their pasts as well as their roles and perceptions as regards the conflict.

'The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives' is such a mature and stinking opulent work. It is told in a dramatic way by the funniest and most sincere story-teller. From the day the book is picked and till the read is completed, the reader cannot but 'murder darlings' for this new-found darling to be fully savoured.

Oyebanji Ayodele could be contacted via ayoyebanji@gmail.com

'Roses and Bullets' by Akachi Adimora Ezeigbo

2011-10-03T13:57:00.001+01:00

Amidst the strafes and flaks contending for national unity and advancing of the new Biafra nation is the swayable love of Ganika and Eloka. The love Ganika is deprived of in a strict father, Ubaka, is salvaged in the arms of Eloka and the attentive nature of her brother, Nwakire. Ganika’s dream of nuptial bliss with Eloka is riddled with the invincible force that characterizes the war. Ganika will hope of returning to school when the civil contention stops. She will also nurture the faith of reuniting with her lover- turned-soldier when Biafra finally gains independence. As the characters of Ganika and Eloka are bedeviled with these marshy hopes and murky circumstances, only the flailing consequences of war will define who they eventually become.

Though the book is wrapped around the hackneyed story of the Biafra war, it does not aim towards achieving reckoning of the horrible civil struggle as many have been wont to. Roses and Bullet successfully attains closure of the grim realities of the Biafra time; which, I think is far applaudable to the unbiased views that skew the objective narratives of some. As an academic material of information, which is one of the snags in the piece, it irritatingly drip-feeds an unaware reader with the nuances and intricacies of the Nigerian civil war. That alone makes it slow-paced that it tries the patience of an uncommitted reading so dearly.

Hard as it may be to agree, Biafra issue has been overbeaten to mundaneness in the country’s literary genres. There are deluges of books on the subject. Each time, these books only realize different actualizations in various opinions without offering new perspectives. At times you wonder if what you are reading is not a copy-paste of another familiar book written on the same subject. The similarity of events and thematic organizations in Biafra-majored pieces are easily noticed and quite predictable. The fallout of this is the subtle boredom that creeps on the reader. Roses and Bullets is infected with this malaise as it overmuch comes across with similitude of events with other Biafran novel. For a book of this thematic predictability to at least hold its own and be worth reading, the narrative has got to leave the precipice of telling the war to showing the dawning burdens the victims are left with. In that regard, Roses and Bullets creatively fits in. In reflecting the civil struggle that once threatens the country’s unity, Roses and Bullets packs much writing ardour in recreating fresh pains from decades-old cadavers of the civil mayhem. It encloses the worn-out with the imaginative creativeness that unburdens the reader from the ordinariness that is likely to seep out from the main theme. In the imagery thought impossible, memories long forgotten are juggled.

Advancing the Biafra; Battling the Vandals

Conscription of Fate: Ganika can walk the length and breadth of the Biafra boundary without fearing sudden conscription to fight for the land’s defense. It is true she does not have to surmount the attacks of the vandals (the Federal soldiers) at the war front. But the helplessness created by the loved ones taken abruptly from her will redirect the course of her life. After Nwakire, her brother, joins the Biafra troops to further the noble cause of Biafra, Ganika struggles to live under her uncaring father (Ubaka) and her nagging stepmother, Lizzy, who is a semblance of a caring mother. Ganika later finds comfort in the loving arms of Odunze Eloka. That is not to last too. The cocoon Eloka’s love ensconces her with is torn when Eloka proudly enlists himself into the Biafran force. This triggers the origin of Ganika’s definitive sorrow as she battles with tearing challenges from her mother in-law. In her resilience to overcome her multiple pains, she is defeated by the unbridled semen of a Biafran lieutenant at Nkwerre. {p371-376}

Eloka and Nkwere (Ganika’s brother) might have indeed outplayed forced call-up into the army. As the only choice of honour, Nkwere and Eloka answer the patriotic beck of the new nation. What their contemporaries do in conscription they undertake in voluntariness. The horridness war does to humanity change their destinies with irredeemable taints. {p502-504}

Hypocrisy of War: During the civil feud, Nigerian government’s campaign of unity is carried out through mass pogrom and distortion of its citizens’ psychology in the new Biafra nation. I wonder how the flicker from Ejike Okoro’s lantern becomes the spotlight of an armed camp of Biafran soldiers. Ejike Okoro does not deserve what he encounters. He is innocent just like those being internally displaced by the war. He is no rebel. He hasn’t ever been to the war front. {p263-265}

What Ama-Oyi habitants only seek for is a safer and secluded region to continue the practice that makes life sustainable to them. They defile sacredness, moving their Orie market into the forest to avoid the attention they might call from an armed jet. It turns out their course of action isn’t well thought out. They fail to remember that anything Biafran in the glimpse of a Federal Government’s jet plane is a rebel that must be droned for unity to live. {p207-212}

It is just the end of war. Ganika’s only desire is to redeem her marital honour when her husband, Eloka comes home. She hopes for forgiveness when Eloka listens to her woes. She doesn’t need the love of Sule Ibrahim to be whole. All she hopes for is the unfastening of the burden that weighs her soul. That Sule Ibrahim circumcises himself before she gives him attention is just a scarecrow she puts up to remain Eloka’s own {p473-475}. Why should she be violated by the FG armed men who have come to request the blood of Sule Ibrahim from her {p491-496}? She has no hand in his death. Sule Ibrahim is a subject of his foolery. Why should he have been driven by infatuation to circumcise his genitals at his age?

Definition of History: The civil war established a new facet of history for the country. Ethnic incompatibility came to be more threatening than before the war. The act of the Federal government during the war became the blame of the tribe that dominated the armed forces of the country. The repatriation of malnourished Biafran kids from neighbouring countries of the continent immediately after the war gave birth to a new set of embittered generation. The inundation with horrors the war forced on the innocence of people brought new evils. The war may have been subdued and the shadow of peace achieved for the whole country. The new breed of atrocities the end of the civil conflict exhibited is the battle that would take a long time to win. Eons after, these evils still perpetuate themselves as the norms of our society.

Udo and Ganika are the perfect allegory of the psychological torture children were subjected to in the war. Udo’s experience at the battle front robs him of his puerile innocence. After the war is declared done, the hunger and horror Udo witnesses will make a new being of him.

The discomfort of Amina Yaro, a northerner in Ganika’s class, signals the cut of the taunting rope of the seemingly unity between the North and the East. Amina Yaro can’t bear the conversation the portended civil war is generating. Out of self-volition, Amina stops coming to school. She perceives herself as a threat to the East. She returns to her homeland. {p169}

As A Reflective Piece

Literature is good for one thing: it gives equal honour to people to tell their stories. In narrating a story, they are different sides each sub-story of the main story presents various individuals. Roses and Bullets shouldn’t be condemned for being reflective of the stitches of wounds that scarred the bodies of many in its own way. My contention however is on the stickiness of a region’s literature to one side of a war that has been so written to wear and tear. There are other issues in the war people are not writing about. One should know that out of the large heart of any war principal are some selfish interests hypocritically nurtured. There were scores of fragile lots who would never be the same again after the war. There were many too who sacrificed everything for the war they least know about. It is not enough to write about how they went through physical and psychological damages, more helps will be done if other sides of the war are explored to offer fresh discussions.

To do this in some way, concerned writers could take up the responsibility to uncover the weakness of the man who declared the war and later jetted out with his immediate folks few days to the end of it. That would stir up new diverse analyses on the war. Let’s write something refreshingly different about the war. It’s when that is done, that the writing terrain can be relieved from the usualness of one sided narration of the civil war.

Conflicts and Wars in Africa

2010-08-15T21:21:00.000+01:00

This week, Critical Literature Review presents Ikhide Ikheloa's review of "Writers, Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa". Enjoy!

Forgetting is the final instrument of genocide. To witness genocide is to feel not only the chill of your own mortality, but the degradation of all humanity… even the most brilliant photography cannot capture the landscape of genocide.
- Simon Norfolk

The writers Okey Ndibe and Chenjerai Hove are two of Africa’s finest thinker-writers. They are awesome wordsmiths, word cannon balls boom fiercely out of their fecund minds pulverizing their targets with uncanny accuracy. They write with an uncommon sensitivity to the issues that Africa faces. This they do with respect and compassion and one is taken by the honesty and industry that they bring to their craft. They have just co-edited a slim volume of essays, Writers, Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa, published by Adonis & Abbey Publishers Ltd. It is a largely academic but highly accessible treasure trove of reflections on war by an army of mostly African writers who have been affected by Africa’s myriad wars and genocides. In about 200 pages and sixteen chapters (including the introduction), the reader comes face to face with the anxieties, nightmares and dreams of sixteen diverse and eclectic artists. These are issues covering past and present wars all over Africa; Biafra, Zimbabwe, the hell delta of Nigeria, Darfur, the Congo, South Africa, etc. Kudos to Ndibe and Hove for ensuring that these writers are a judicious mix of the known and unknown. The resulting essays are refreshing and filled with uncommon candor. The references alone are invaluable. I wrote down passages in the book that spoke to me and then I walked among the words, talking to them. I was shaken to my soul’s roots. Even the cover is evocative in what it does not say. It is an image of beautiful children born into wars they did not ask for. There are all these children mugging for the camera with Africa and decay as a surreal backdrop.

As an aside, this compilation of essays came out of a workshop attended by the just-departed poet-warrior Dennis Brutus. In the book, Ndibe and Hove recall his spirit with eerie nostalgia: “Dennis Brutus, the South African poet whose back bears the scar of an apartheid bullet, lent a measure of revolutionary gravitas and hard-earned moral capital to the workshop. When Brutus spoke or read his poems, his voice, though slightly enfeebled by age, still rang out with stunning range and power.” (p11)

This book is several conversations burning at once. The writer Yvonne A. Owuor starts the conversations rolling in a piece she admits is a rant. It is a rant pregnant with profound gems. She questions why the West glorifies its own wars with stories of valor and views Africa’s wars as savage and barbaric, pointing out that there have been equally gory examples to draw from in the West. Again, Chinua Achebe, in his seminal volume of essays Home and Exile, reminds us of the proverb: “Until the lions produce their own historian, the story of the hunt will glorify only the hunter." I agree. Africans must tell their own stories or risk the total annihilation of their humanity by the other. We should write about our own humanity, for war is about the sorting of individuals into bins of identity and differences and the hunting down of those anxieties that lurk behind ancestral masks.

This book is a defiant ode to the power of the word and Hove captures it neatly: “Those years of war… gave me scars and smiles. Scars because real bullets pierced and tore apart the bodies of real women, children and men. Smiles, for, in the midst of death and pain, I saw children, women and men who proudly showed human resilience even in the face of death as they fought for the restoration of their dignity.” (p38)

The last chapter, Reflections on Inyenzi is an evocative essay bearing a conversation between the writers Karin Samuel and Andrew Brown. Brown wrote the book Inyenzi: A Story of Love and Genocide based on the Rwandan genocide. That chapter alone is worth the price of the book. It brings to great closure several issues engaged by the other writers in the book. In simple, almost clinical prose that flogs the reader’s conscience wide awake, the writers weave fascinating images of war and one is reminded of the starkness of images of apartheid’s war housed in

South Africa

’s Hector Pieterson museum.

This is a slim book bearing weighty reflections on conventional wars in Africa. Wars still rage on in Africa, most of them wreaking havoc below the radar of our uncritical eyes. Every day alien religions wake Africa up and rape her with impunity and send her to bed sobbing inconsolably. Capitalism marches through Africa unchallenged reducing her millions of victims to needy supplicants to the God of more and more. We should reflect on why Africa is in this condition. The book does not. It is not a criticism; a book can only do so much. Africa is enduring many wars and while this book focuses on conventional wars, I propose that today’s most devastating wars are the unconventional. If we don’t focus on those we may be writing our way to irrelevance. Why is the world indifferent to the travails of Africa?

In the book, Lauryn Arnott’s drawings are harrowing in their detail and they nicely complement the writing. But it is not enough. In the age of the Internet, the book is dying a long slow death and it is no longer a robust medium for expressing the horrors of war or the joys of triumph over adversity. I dream of creating a virtual museum dedicated to Africa’s suffering – a total convergence of all media and all voices singing with one earth-shaking voice of the horrors that we have seen and heard. And the griots Ndibe and Hove would be the leaders of that mother of all projects.

Let’s accept some responsibility. Owuor makes this profound observation: “This war, this violence is ours. Ours is the hateful thing – a roaming stain that prowls through the society and sows seeds of chaos – that thing that appalls our within-ness. And horrifies us with the blood it wastes.” (p21) However the book is virtually silent on the crucial question: Why are things the way they are in Africa? There are many questions folded into that question. What is it with Africa and conflict? Why are we constantly forced to question and justify our humanity? What is the role of the writer in shaping events in today’s Africa? Why do some of our writers turn Goebbels on the people? What is the best medium for forcing the people to focus brightly on the fires that burn so fiercely all around Africa? Is this generation of African writers self-absorbed and narcissistic and why? Has the African writer deserted the role of the writer as the land’s conscience, priest and town-crier? We must seek answers to the why even though it might frighten us.

The Internet, that new world that holds the promise of liberation from hell on earth, is right now busily retrieving Africa’s brightest and best minds from Africa and dumping them in Europe and America. Virtually all of Africa’s best thinkers are writing about Africa from the outside looking in. Thanks to technology, sadly, this exodus includes those writers who physically live in Africa.

Hope Eghagha in his essay evokes the spirit of the poet-seer Christopher Okigbo using lines from Okigbo’s Hurrah for Thunder:

The smell of blood already floats in the lavender-mist of the afternoon
The death sentence lies in ambush along the corridors of power;
And a great fearful thing already tugs at the cables of the open air,
A nebula immense and immeasurable, a night of deep waters –
An iron dream unnamed and unprintable, a path of stone

This poem was written four decades ago; one could argue that it seems prophetic today only because the situation in Nigeria is heading South fast and the future is certainly frightening. But then the question is why this constancy of turmoil. Okigbo would not know; he was murdered by Nigerian troops on Biafran soil in a war he did not ask for. This book is one more compelling proof that the sacrifices of Okigbo and other African thinkers hunted down and slaughtered for owning words have not been in vain. I salute Okey Ndibe and Chenjerai Hove.

[Ikhide R. Ikheloa is an arts critic, writer and journalist. He can be reached at xokigbo@yahoo.com]

The Literary World Quakes With African Roar[s]!!!!!!

2010-06-27T19:22:00.010+01:00

This week, Critical Literature Review Presents Joseph Omotayo’s review of African Roar. African Roar is an anthology of short stories featuring 11 stories by 11 African writers. It is edited by Emmanuel Sigauke and Ivor W. Hartmann. Enjoy!

It is true that the meekness of a dock is greatly feared because it does not connote weakness; no one knows when it is brewing a plan to take revenge. But also, when a lion roars to declare its alertness in the forest, tell-tale trees bow at the rushing wind that comes with its roar. The roar of a lion is not only to restate its commanding nature, it is to send shocking waves to any being that might have lost its track that it is very close to the territory of the ONE who controls all.

When partnered writers across Africa roar with a common pen that is filled with ink from the cauldron of struggle and nature, it is to herald the dawn that will put an end to the era when Diaspora writers sew strings of fictitious words together based on what they have heard from an uncle, relative or a friend; making it clear to them that the story of a man is more true and intact, without being refined with hearsay, when it is told by him. The book, “African Roar” is a literary collaboration of 11 writers from different countries of the continent, who speak with the common synergy to tell the past, present and continuing-present of African stories.

Some things are rather left unbroken, but when they break, just like the shattered shells of an egg, piecing them together might spell more gloom than necessary. Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s ‘Big Pieces, Little Pieces’ adopts the voice of a suggestible minor to paint the irresponsible and domineering nature of the male chauvinism of our patriarchal society in the most demeaning manner. The story is a written-capture of Mama (Grace), who is always suppressed from making her feelings known to her husband, Baba, due to the latter’s tantrum. She is bowed, cowed and tortured by her husband, who will never stop at anything to dish lashes to her. Baba, Grace’s husband, is made to throw the most destructive and anger-consuming of his tantrums when the carelessness and recklessness of Jabu’s sister, one of their children, turns Baba’s beer mug into an ‘artistic’ debris of ‘Big pieces, Little pieces’. The second person narrative style is used in the characterization of this story. This technique absorbs the reader throughout the story without distancing the story from the reader; making the reader a ready participant and witness to the story being told, rather than being a removed observer.

Even when Kola Tubosun is relaying an over-told story of HIV/AIDS that should not have whetted any special reading appetite in ‘Behind the Door’, his mastery of creating suspense as a writing-skill pays off greatly in gluing the reader’s attention to it. In ‘Behind the Door’, one’s mind is moored to what the climax will be for the character, whose courage in the journey through a HIV/AIDS test can be best described as a ‘suicidal step’ to ascertaining wholeness. The character’s heart string almost snaps when a few minutes of waiting for his test result becomes an eternity. Tubosun’s way of narrating the story without muddling it up with unnecessary flash-backs eliminates the banality that is normally associated with such a story .

In ‘Yesterday’s Dog’, Masimba Musodza connects the brutality in the colonial era with the fierce ‘democratic’ oppression that exists in the post-colonial dispensation of Zimbabwe. When an oppressed subject assumes the position of a commander, then, there are a lot to be feared. With the brutality that is meted to Stanley Chipatiso when he is maliciously reported by Mhunga to the authorities as a magandanga (national guerilla) because Stanley refuses to marry his daughter, it is vivid that the white colonialists wreaked great havoc before leaving Africa. In this story, after the independence of Zimbabwe, the game becomes the hunter when Stanley wields great power as a secret interrogator. He comes to the position of avenging the bites that yesterday’s dog (the colonial masters) leaves on him. Through the bestial activities that are carried out in the Central intelligence Organization, the place where Stanley Chipatiso works, the reader learns that the independence of Zimbabwe is still submerged in self-imposed colonization and quasi-slavery by the indigenous government.

Over the decades, it has been proved that religion commands more clout than any legal institution. The battle is set for the taking down of the Jericho wall of the Nestbury Tree that won’t allow the faithful to get to their Promise land in Ayodele Morocco Clarke’s ‘The Nestbury Tree’. The Nestbury Tree in the narrator’s mother’s house is the cause for the tug of war between the Shepherd who wants to take down the tree that he perceives to be a coven for witches because all matter of night birds take shelter in it at night, and the woman (the narrator’s mother) whose relic of love and power of her late husband is the Nestbury Tree. The narrator’s mother is resolute on stopping the elders and the shepherd of the church in destroying the only piece of life that reminds her of her loved one, the narrator’s father. The clout to resist the shepherd’s misguided moves is borne out of the fact that the facility that serves as the church is her husband’s property. The rift in this story is settled in an earth-quaking manner. The story autobiographically sketches the mixed-raced background of Morocco-Clarke as words like Kingston in Jamaica, ‘Ekaale’ a Yoruba word and Lagos in Nigeria are used. The way the writer experiments with the Yoruba proverb shows that she has lost touch with proper use of the language. The proverb that would have read as ‘Afefe ti fe, a si ti ri furo adie’ (the wind has blown and we can now see the fowl’s bottom) now reads as ‘Afefe ti fe, furo adie ti wanita’. The story almost becomes languid towards the end when the well sustained suspense is too stretched, even after the end has been known.

No matter how heavy and weighty truth might seem, it will always float when it is thrown into the ocean of lies. Kwetu M. Ananse answers true to his name as the spider (Kwetu) when he spins a cob of webs around his prey in ‘Truth Float’ written by Nana Awere Damoah. He never allows the over-matured coconut (Ama Adoma) to fall on its own accord, as he desperately and deceitfully wins the love of Ama Adoma, the fiancée of Akoto, his bosom friend. Isn’t it true that when you leave your meat in custody of a cat; it as well as giving the meat as meal to the cat? Akoto is naïve to have entrusted his fiancéeto Kwetu when he travels tothe United Kingdom to slave away after their (Ama Adoma, Akoto and Kwetu’s) graduation from the University College of Amenfi, in a bid to seek greener pastures and come back to marry Adoma with the ‘peanuts’ he is able to gather. Akoto stays a year longer than the two years he had promised. He returns home with the hope of conjugal bliss with Adoma, but he’s shocked to see Adoma turns Kwetu’s wife. The knowledge of the law he garners in the UK becomes his potent weapon against Kwetu. Nana Awere Damoah skillfully shows how interesting the act of African story telling could be when it is not with gratuitous use of hifalutin phrases. The story is never labored as the reader’s interest sticks with the story to the end. The piece is a compendium of African proverbs and turn-of-words.

After 10 years of education and survival in America, Ranga returns with a wife (Nomathamsanga) that cost him a $5000 dowry in the story ‘A Return to the Moonlight’. Ranga is disappointed when returned to a house in a serious state of disrepair despite the copious amounts of money he has remitted back home to have it prepared. Ranga’s home-coming is a mix of sorrow and celebration; the gap which education has put between Ranga and his family further widened. Mai, Ranga’s sister, can’t understand the sudden change civilization has brought on her brother. Ranga’s distaste for the deplorable state of the house his family sleeps in and the rottenness of his country, Zimbabwe, becomes known when he tells his mother that he and Nomathamsanga can’t sleep in the plastic-roofed uncompleted building because they need to charge their phones, his laptop and his ‘eye’ pod (iPod).

The ‘Cost of Courage’ can be so demanding when its ultimate price may claim one’s life. Beaven Tapureta narrates the retrogressive effect caused by the dictatorial leader of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe, and the inglorious touch the unsettled Power-Sharing between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangaria has on the economic situation of the country and its citizenry. The struggle for life in a desolate and economically stripped Zimbabwe is precisely and succinctly shown through the dream Kenny has in the beginning of the story. The uneven and negative stratification of classes in hunger and inflation riddled Zimbabwe is also made clear through the reverie of Brother, Kenny’s friend. ‘Cost of Courage’ projects the unsightly condition of a ghetto life in Zimbabwe in a more horrible manner when the story reads -

“The ghetto was nothing but a community of empty clothes, littered dust streets, slapdash houses overstuffed with misery, and toilets which get more visit from cholera victims…. From somewhere, one or two houses away, I heard screams likely to have been from a girl muffled under the heavy weight of a father-businessman-politician-church-leader-AIDS-sucking-fucker!”

The price to pay that weighs more than one’s shield and sword in a battlefield is sometimes to sprint for escape when one still breathes.

What readily comes to the reader’s mind in Chuma Nwokolo Jr.’s ‘Quaterback & Co.’ is the inhumane treatment of staff by highly corporate organizations, who strive to remain the best in the cutthroat competition of executive profiteering. In the story, a quarter part of George Franz’s brain is imaginarily sucked out by an insect, and he is declared redundant and later shorn off his job.

Ivor W. Hartmann’s ‘Lost Love’ is a man’s recollection of his past in a muddled present. The story is the day-dreaming infatuation of two lovers. The transition from the past to the present shows great creativity at work. It is closer to reality yet far from it as the man at the centre of the story hovers between ‘here’ and ‘beyond’.

The ambiguity of ‘A Cicada in the Shimmer’ makes it impossible to form a one-sided inference from the story. Through the view of a child in the story, Jemusi, the writer is able to uphold one’s conscience as the most efficient police of a person’s actions. The trill and the ear-piercing tone of the cicada and the mosquito that frequently disturbs Jemusi is more of the ambush of his conscience and mind than it is real. The allusion of murambatsvina (which means Operation Drive Out Trash or Operation Drive Rubbish) in the story, makes one recall the divisive Zimbabwean government campaign in 2005. The campaign which is adopted by Mugabe, is a crack down on illegal housing and commercial activities, as a way of reducing the risk of an infectious epidemic. The hacking of a suppressed groan which later turns to the shrieking of a battered man under the clamp of a woman heard by maDube, Jemusi’s mother, explicitly explains how freedom can be attained in the most inconceivable manner.

Ayesha Harruna Attah deftly melds themes of social inequality, identity-loss, resignation to fate, and sexual ecstasy in one precise briefly written story in ‘Tamale Blues’. The deep crack of social inequality between the stricken poor and the rich is seen when Nana, the AIS city girl, who has never stepped out of Accra, visits her paternal grandma in Tamale, the northern part of Ghana for the first time. There is no more apt way of explaining her encounter than this:

“Two set of steps led to two doors, both green at the bottom. Nana hung her towel and sponge on the nails… and headed for the other room. A heavy stench hit her as she entered, accompanied with low intermittent buzzing. In the middle was a concrete ledge with a hole. There were brown stains around the hole. Nana couldn’t believe such a place existed. She dashed out, trying not to throw up…she wondered what she had done for her parents to punish her”

There is no gainsaying the fact that ‘African Roar’ is a huge success in pooling together various writers across the continent, whose writings conscientiously reflect the true African story. The book, African Roar, which is indeed a debut in a series of an annual anthology from StoryTime, has opened a vista of 'windowless' opportunities for African writers to tell their own stories irrespective of their status and social profile, since the stories will always be drawn online from submissions made to ezine StoryTime. What should be worked on by the editors of African Roar in subsequent publishing should be on how the book will be available for wider readership aside from the internet. This will avail readers who do not have internet access (like those in advanced countries) to lay hands on it. There is indeed an African connection in the themes of the stories that are featured. For all those who have only read a true African story from a writer once at a time, this book gives you the commixture of stories written by variously skilled Africans. Just go get yours now!

(The writers of the book are; Novuyo Rosa Tshuma: Big pieces, Little pieces, Kola Tubosun: Behind the Door, Masimba Musodza: Yesterday’s Dog, Ayodele Morocco-Clarke: The Nestbury Tree, Beaven Tapureta: Cost of Courage, Ivor W. Hartmann: Lost Love, Christopher Mlalazi: A Cicada in the Shimmer, Chuma Nwokolo, Jr.: Quarterback & Co., Emmanuel Siguake: A Return to the Moonlight, Nana Awere Damoah: Truth Floats and Ayesha Harruna Attah: Tamale Blues.)

African Roar is available to buy at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.co.uk

[Joseph Omotayo is an analytical reviewer of the written works of art. He has reviewed some African contemporary works, out of which are Adunni Abimbola's Under The Brown Rusted Roofs, Buchi Emecheata's Second Class Citizen and Igoni Barret's From Caves Of Rotten Teeth.
Some of his writings have been published on his blog {www.josephomotayo.blogspot.com} and in the ‘The Punch’ one of his country's national newspaper. Omotayo currently stays in Osun State, Nigeria; from where he views the world and lives his dreams. He is the Head of Department for short-story in ATE OGBON LITERARY CLUB, Osogbo. A club that promotes creative and performing art.]

Meandering On Black Sisters’ Street

2010-06-06T13:41:00.000+01:00

This week, Critical Literature Review present's Ikhide Ikheloa's review of Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street. We hope you enjoy reading it.

Chika Unigwe’s book, On Black Sisters’ Street chronicles the sad odyssey of an army of young women prostitutes drawn from various parts of Nigeria (and the Sudan!) who invade Europe desperate to do for themselves and their clans what waves of prostitute African governments have neglected to do for them. The ladies, Efe, Ama, Sisi, and Joyce are the main characters in a set of stories that collectively narrate epic struggles in the face of fear and despair. In this well-researched book, Sisi leads this pack of warrior-sisters on the streets of Europe determined to force down the doors of poverty and hopelessness that forced them away from home. They go out daily in search of lonely men - and wealth, the new measure of respect back home in

Nigeria

.

There is plenty to like in the book. It is rich with environment, populated by colorful, pleasant details that do not overwhelm the senses. It is a book that will take you a few days to read – the prose is languid, seemingly in no hurry to get to a climax. I like the way Unigwe introduces side issues into conversations and they stick with you – issues like sexism and the treatment of women as chattel in Africa. It is a neat trick, how she tucks weighty issues into throw-away sentences.

Every character in this book is driven by a deep hunger. Perhaps the monotony of yearning is the story of a

Nigeria

gradually turning soulless from material lust. In the process, we have learnt to hate ourselves. Energy seems reserved for mimicking the otherness that resides in the West. Unigwe’s book showcases

Nigeria

as a nation of people deeply invested in acquiring the trappings of an otherness that emanates from the West.
God must be exhausted and Nigerians are to blame. The book captures the ceaseless supplications for more and more and the pious request for God to annihilate our enemies that stand in the way of our more and more. God must regret the day the devil tricked her into creating the Nigerian; we are such a needy group. We see the new Christianity as the new plague sweeping across a nation of uncritical thinkers.

The absurdities of life in

Nigeria

are expertly captured. Lagos is filth and dust at dusk advertising the meanness of neglect: The chapter named Ama was the best. It hearkens to the beauty of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, of what happens when language is not in the way of the story. Here, Unigwe writes with confidence and her literary muscle barrels her voice into a full-throated roar. The expert way she weaves local Igbo and onomatopoeic idioms into the English is sexy, kpom kwem.

The book offers plenty to frustrate the reader. The prose is uneven overall; as a result the book sometimes has the consistency of pulp fiction. The use of Pidgin English in this book added nothing to the book. Unigwe’s knowledge of Pidgin English seemed tentative or perhaps watered down to make it more palatable to a broader market. Pidgin English has an image problem. In the hands of Nigerian writers it undergoes an extreme makeover and acquires an inferiority complex.

The book’s chapters are not numbered; they are repeatedly named after each “sister” or the streetZwartezusterstraat. There are about thirteen chapters named Sisi. Confusing. The chapters see-saw between multiple consciousnesses; the reader is force-fed the future up front and in the next chapter, the past walks up to the day. The reader learns of the future death of one of the characters – on the first few pages of the book.

The book is not quite convincing in its analysis of how the girls chose prostitution. It is not for lack of trying. Indeed, Unigwe is guilty of an over-analysis of the characters’ motives. She obviously interviewed a lot of prostitutes. One wonders if they held back from this sister who went to too much school.

The plight of Nigerian girls in Europe is the most visible symbol of the wanton rape of generations of youths by badly behaving Nigerian rulers. Unigwe appears however to have no stomach for conflict. Europe harbors a huge contingent of ladies from Edo State in

Nigeria

. There seems to have been a deliberate attempt to avoid this reality. The chapter named Alek (Joyce) is my least favorite. It reads like an exhausted affirmative action afterthought. The character was developed as coming from

Sudan

, escaping the war, ending up in

Nigeria

and then Europe after her soldier-lover got bored with her. Darfur does not belong in this book. The chapter sits like a patronizing ode to the notion that prostitution is universal.

On Black Sisters’ Street is a good story fiercely resisting flight because it is airborne on timid wings. This is a shame because Unigwe has the muscle to communicate proprietary feelings using Standard English. My humble advice is that Unigwe should relax and take maximum advantage of her mastery of loose limber prose and let the words fly recklessly with her imagination. That would be quite a book.

[Ikhide R. Ikheloa is an arts critic, writer and journalist. He can be reached at xokigbo@yahoo.com]

A Taste of Italy With Anna Del Conte

2010-05-03T20:08:00.000+01:00

This week, Critical Literature Review presents a review of the Random House published food memoir of Anna Del Conte. We hope that this whets your appetite for more. Enjoy!

I must admit, for a foodie like myself, I still find a little enjoyment out of eating tinned, hoop spaghetti that I have warmed in the microwave. Call it harkening back to my childhood. Anna Del Conte, the world renowned food writer and author of the autobiography Risotto with Nettles would be ashamed of me. However, I can appreciate even more the merits that a fine bowl of handmade pasta with a rich tomato sauce can have. And, thanks to Del Conte, I am allowed to choose between my tinned shame and Italian magnificence. Because of Del Conte’s Italian food writing which emerged in the 70’s in Britain, Italian food—real Italian food, found its place in restaurants and home dinner tables alike. Gone were the days of canned, spongy ravioli. Del Conte’s first publication Portrait of Pasta (1976) opened up the doors, or indeed the kitchens, of the British public and made olive oil a household item.

I had read snippets of Del Conte’s books, on recommendations of other food writers. Her recipes were generally easy to follow and she would reveal an interesting history of her dishes that further intrigued me to cook them. I knew that she was extremely influential in Italian cooking, and indeed helped make Italian food in Britain as we know it today. But her memoir Risotto with Nettles, reveals what I did not know; the sheer strength, resolve, and stunning life of a woman who grew up in Milan during World War II, travelled to England as a young woman in a time when the suitable thing was to marry and settle down, and who experienced love, loss, and being torn between two worlds—all of which informed her recipes and her writing.

Anna Del Conte was born in Milan in 1925 to a prosperous family in an idyllic, pre-war time. It was here that she began her love affair with her native food, and developed the interest she would need to be such an immensely talented food writer. Each chapter has at least one (and sometimes two or three) recipes which seem to define a period or anecdote that has particularly influenced Del Conte’s life. You won’t find any of the clichéd Italian recipes here. With examples such as Spaghetti with Marmite, Elephants Turd, Boiled Meats Piedmontese Style, or an excellent recipe for Risotto with Lemon (one which I tried myself), Del Conte always has you captivated.

The instructions in the recipes themselves are sometimes a bit vague and she does not get specific enough for my precise cooking mind to handle. What temperature exactly should I put this on? Does it go in the oven? She doesn’t specify! However, do not let that deter you. If you want precise, buy a Jamie Oliver cookbook. But if you love learning about food, dream about sultry Italian holidays and are interested in the social history behind the dishes then this is the book for you. Even if you don’t, you will after reading this book.

What I found riveting about Del Conte’s memoir was the almost nonchalant way she writes about extraordinary events and circumstances. From getting shot at from overhead war planes, being chased and imprisoned by Nazi soldiers, losing all her worldly possessions and fleeing her home, repeated flagrant affairs outside of her marriage, and the death of her beloved husband after a marriage of more than fifty years, Del Conte writes it all with an understated elegance, absent of any sensationalized ‘tell all’ memoir.

As Del Conte grows older she travels to England as an Au Pair and finally meets the love of her life. It is in Britain where she decides to start a family and settle down, and so forever embark on the divided life on an expatriate. This also begins to cultivate her desire to bring true Italian food to the British gastronomy. She also so succinctly describes the life of an ex-pat that I think I fell completely in love with her when I read this section, “being neither English nor any longer Italian, always missing something when I am here or something else when I am there. Even now that I am old, I have the dilemma of where I should be buried: here in the lovely churchyard of this picturesque village in Dorset, where I now live, or in my family tomb in the grand Monumentale cemetery in Milan. Even dead I will not settle.” Being an ex-pat myself, I have never read something which so captured the feeling of the fractured existence of choosing to live in a place which is not your own.

Del Conte ends the memoir with a touching and moving dedication—and gives an honest portrayal of what it is like to lose one’s partner—there will not be dry eyes after reading this chapter.

Risotto with Nettles surprised me. It is a book I will go back to, and bring up over dinner conversations. You will love her character, her anecdotes, charm, and most of all her dedicated discussion of Italian food.

[Emily Varga is an English Literature graduate who has worked in book publishing in North America. She has previously reviewed works in her university newspaper literary and arts supplements. She currently lives in Scotland where she works in the public sector. Emily is an active member of her city book club and still enjoys writing the occasional book review.]

Tyranny in Big Pieces, Little Pieces

2010-04-26T19:48:00.000+01:00

This week CLR presents Ayodele Morocco-Clarke's review of Big Pieces, Little Pieces, the StoryTime short story by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma. Enjoy!

Big Pieces, Little Pieces is a short story by Novuyo Rosa Tshuma. In this story, the writer explores the burning issue of domestic abuse. The story is told in the second person narrative style which has the resultant effect of transporting the reader right into the middle of the sequence of unfolding events.

Big Pieces, Little Pieces opens by showing the reader the autocratic nature of the patriarchal figure in the household, rapidly unfurling into a catalogue of abuse of horrific magnitude. Whilst reading, one wonders why the wife does not take the children and run, run, run. Surely anything would be better than subjecting oneself and one’s offspring to erratic, irrational behaviour and regular physical abuse.

The story is even more heartbreaking as it is told from the point of view of one of the children who has lived with and through this constant abuse. The story reveals that though the father rules the roost with an iron fist, the abused wife attracts no support or sympathy from her sister-in-law despite her seeing clear evidence of the abuse. She actually lays the blame of all the violence on the victim trying to exonerate her brother, justifying his actions on the ground that “he was the head of the family and knew what was best for everyone.” To add salt to the wound, she then goes on to accuse the wife of bringing forth the wrath of her brother and refuses to intervene despite heartfelt pleas to do so. In her words –

“I have never seen such a woman, honestly! Is it my fault that you do not know how to appease your husband, that you anger him all the time? I will say it again, lo yiwo umendo.”

And so, the abuse continues unabated, culminating in a series of events which though do not shock, but nevertheless saddens the reader while following the story as it hurtles rapidly to its end.

The downside I found in the story was where it appeared the writer confused a bit of narration with what should really have been dialogue and sometimes what really is dialogue is not properly denoted as such (But that may just be me being pedantic as the writer might have chosen to adopt in parts the Nadine Gordimer-esque style used in “The Pickup”, although this would be inconsistent with other parts of the dialogue employed). These minute niggling points however do not take away from the beauty of a well narrated story.

With this story, one can see that Tshuma is an emerging writer with immense promise. Big Pieces, Little Pieces is one of the StoryTime stories which were selected for publication in the short story anthology “African Roar” out in late April 2010. Watch out for African Roar and Tshuma. Both should surely be worth reading.

[Ayodele Morocco-Clarke is a Nigerian lawyer and writer of mixed heritage who has a passion for literature. She is the editor of Critical Literature Review and her written works have appeared in Author Africa 2009, Hackwriters (a University of Portsmouth magazine), Sphere Literary Magazine, Storytime, Author-Me and on The Clarity of Night blog. She also has work forthcoming in Mimi Magazine, The Anthology of Immigrant Writing(2010) and African Roar [2010 short story anthology, co-published by Lion Press and StoryTime]. Ayodele hopes to publish an anthology of short fiction soon and is currently working on her first novel.]

TOO MUCH HAPPINESS

2010-04-18T23:31:00.000+01:00

This week, CLR is happy to present another review of one of Random House's books. Too Much Happiness is the latest anthology of short stories by Alice Munro and it is reviewed here by award winning writer Sarah Hilary. Enjoy!

My first experience of reading Alice Munro was her story, Wild Swans, a story with a taut, irresistible rhythm that made the shocking event at its heart feel entirely natural. This, to me, is the marvel of Munro’s writing. She knows a good story must contain a grain of surprise, an occurrence we do not expect but which nevertheless feels part of the living pulse of the story. At her best, she puts her considerable skill into structuring the story around the surprise, drawing us towards it in ways we cannot always anticipate but which, ultimately, satisfy our curiosity and our appetite as readers.

There are stories in this latest collection that show Munro at her skillful best.

Child’s Play is one, a masterfully plotted tale of childhood terror and guilt in which our sympathies are divided, sub-divided and then put through the equivalent of a moral meat-grinder in a way that perfectly reflects the confused emotions of the heroines, and victims, at its heart. The character of Verna is vividly described, put at arm’s length from us and then brought nearer until we start to experience some of the heroine’s irrational terror. We know it is irrational; we guess Verna has more to fear from the heroine than she from Verna, but we’re compelled to feel the heroine’s emotions. The story’s ambiguous moral, and its suspended ending, is the better for that.

She was skinny, indeed so narrowly built and with such a small head that she made me think of a snake. Fine black hair lay flat on this head, and fell over her forehead. The skin of her face seemed dull to me as the flap of our old canvas tent, and her cheeks puffed out the way the flap of that tent puffed in a wind. Her eyes were always squinting.

The collection begins with a frightening story, Dimensions, about a woman’s gradual and painful recovery from appalling loss. Munro doesn’t deal in the commonplace, least of all when it comes to emotional responses from her characters and readers. In Dimensions, Doree’s response to the shocking loss of her children is not what we might expect, or it is not only that. There is no familiar ground for the reader to tread here; instead we are confronted by an alien scrubland of grief and survival, hope and despair. It may not be familiar, but it feels real. Honest. Discomfiting. No easy place for us to rest, or pass judgement of our own. I thought this was a terrific story.

I felt less strongly about Fiction (as an aside: I’m often disappointed by Munro’s story titles, which rarely do justice to the content). A truncated novel rather than a short story, to my taste Fiction was out-of-whack almost from the outset. Adultery separates a woman from her husband. It seems painful, the point of the story. But then we pick up years later and everyone in the novel is remarried for the third or fourth time; adultery is the norm. A witness to the original adultery has written a novel about it, but she fails to recognise the heroine of her own story when they are brought face to face after years apart. The story fell flat at the first fast-forward to the future, and didn’t pick up pace again. As another aside: I don’t care for stories about writers, and was turned off by the long passages recited from the author’s novel which read as a plot conceit, putting me at arm’s length from the heart of the story and keeping me there.

Wenlock Edge (great title, but not Munro’s own) confused me, I admit it. It contains the creepiest encounter I’ve read in any story in a long time, somewhat echoing the shock at the heart of Wild Swans, but I didn’t understand the ending, an exchange of addresses that implied a betrayal or a reconciliation but of whom or what I was left unsure.

Relationships between parents and children, husbands and wives, childhood friends, are explored in Face, Some Women, and Deep-Holes. The latter left me cold, petering out after a promising start into an awkward standoff between mother and son (again, this story relied on the device of fast-forwarding, losing me along the way). Face was suitably shocking, and sad, very sad. Some Women flirted with the idea of domestic prostitution, uneasy adult bartering as witnessed by a child. Both stories are effective variations on Munro’s theme of the depths and shallows of human isolation.

Free Radicals reverted to the terrifying territory of Dimensions and Child’s Play. An middle-aged woman, newly widowed and dying of cancer, confronts a killer in her home. The action is centred with unflagging focus on this confrontation. Munro catches us in the moment and doesn’t let go. The structure is drum-taut, told in real time. No fast-forwarding, no chance for our attention to waver. And then the treat of a second shock, skillfully hidden in the unfolding top-story, written almost as an aside but with the power to stun us a second time.

‘Pretty plate,’ he said, holding it up as if to see his face in it. Just as she turned her attention to the eggs she heard it smash on the floor.

‘Oh mercy me,’ he said in a new voice, a squeaky and definitely nasty voice. ‘Look what I’ve gone and done now.’

‘That’s all right,’ she said, knowing now that nothing was.

The story I liked least – in fact I struggled to finish it – was the story from which the collection took its title. Too Much Happiness, as Munro explains in a footnote, is inspired by the real life of Sophie Kovalevsky, a novelist and mathematician from the nineteenth century whose life story, full of surprises, clearly captured Munro’s heart and her imagination. The problem, for me, is that the discipline of telling a true story stifled Munro’s real imagination, preventing her from following her own rhythm and introducing her own surprises. It didn’t engage or satisfy me because I was too aware that I was missing out on Munro’s gift for telling stories of her own invention.

Wood is exactly such a story. Seemingly simple, deeply complex, with a heart that beats right off the page. A man made lonely by his wife’s breakdown drifts further and further into his isolated life as a woodcutter. His love of trees is palpable, as is his newfound happiness and the guilt he experiences as a result. His withdrawal from his wife and the rest of the world nearly costs him his life, yet when he is saved and sees his wife restored (a thing he has longed for) he acknowledges a sense of loss:

Because he knows he isn’t feeling quite the way he thought he would if her vitality came back to her. And the noise he makes could be to cover that lack, or excuse it…

Some loss fogging up this gain. Some loss he’d be ashamed to admit to, if he had the energy.

This character’s voice is pitch-perfect, his inner monologue a Munro-patented confusion of conflicting emotions that draw their credibility and their power from exactly that confusion. Nothing is black and white here; Munro paints in shades of grey, with skill and tenderness and unflinching compassion. Long may she continue to do so.

[Sarah Hilary (http://sarah-crawl-space.blogspot.com/) is an award-winning writer whose fiction appears in The Fish Anthology, Smokelong Quarterly, The Best of Every Day Fiction I and II, and in the Crime Writers’ Association anthology, MO: Crimes of Practice. Sarah won the Sense Creative Award in 2010, and the Fish Historical Crime Prize in 2008. Most recently, her work was Highly Commended by Aesthetica and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. A column about her mother, who was a child internee of the Japanese, was published in Foto8 Magazine and later in the Bristol Review of Books.]

A Fool and His Money Are Soon Parted

2010-04-04T00:20:00.002+01:00

Critical literature Review begins the second quarter of the year with Ikhide Ikheloa's Review of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani's début novel I Do Not Come to You by Chance which won the Commonwealth Writers' Best First Book Prize for the African Region and is in the running for the overall Commonwealth Writers' Best First Book Prize. Enjoy!

Exile is a fitting metaphor for alienation. It is akin to the biblical purgatory. Nothing is quite

right; one feels neither here nor there, trapped in a dispensation that is not quite alien, not quite home. And all your senses rebel to the death against the changes that you need to embrace in order to enjoy, well, purgatory. I guess it makes sense, this disconcerting feeling of constantly being out-of-sorts, like a gentle but persistent hangover. It wouldn’t be purgatory otherwise. It is the assault or the rebellion of your senses that hurts the most.

Nothing tastes, smells, looks the same and everywhere you go you hear voices of impish vendors selling fake reminders of home because there is money in selling the weary traveler a mirage. And it is not for lack of trying; exiles go through a million hoops to replicate the bread of their childhood.

There is a multibillion dollar industry out here in

America

devoted to soothing our collective angst. If you no longer know how to tie your gele head-tie, there are shops that will do the honors for you – for a modest fee of course. There are “African markets” that sell stale desiccated and preserved replicas of what one misses the most about home. It is not the same, but it is better than nothing.

Every now and then, the exile gets a reprieve from the purgatory of dislocation – in the form of an authentic treat – straight from home. Visiting relatives and friends from Nigeria know now not to knock on my door without the requisite offerings - Open Sesame to my hearth and my heart – bottles of groundnuts, fresh ground ogbono, egusi, snails the size of an elephant’s ears, etc. And if they really want to open the iroko doors to my rugged heart, they come bearing books written by Nigerians inNigeria and published in

Nigeria

Prolonged exile burdens the memory to the point of vital literary loss and no amount of poetic license can stem this loss. Most books aboutNigeria written by Nigerians abroad tend to suffer the indignity of loss. This deficit is from prolonged absence by the writer’s muse from the scene of the crime (

Nigeria

). I look to Nigerian writers actually stationed in

Nigeria

to sate my hunger for a real literary taste of home. And writers like Kaine Agary and Ike Oguine have delivered big on that expectation.

I am glad to say that despite (perhaps because of) the challenges of living in

Nigeria

(some of these challenges appear fictitious judging from the ruddy cheeks of my Nigerian-based relatives on Facebook!) these writers have been up to the task. In this respect, I ask you to run, don’t walk, just run to the nearest wherever-people-buy-books-these-days and grab you a copy of Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s peppy book I Do Not Come to You By Chance.

I have racked my brains, thought about it, and come to the possibly audacious conclusion that this writer may have just written one of the most comprehensive documentation in prose-song of the ravages of the locust of materialism on our people’s way of life. Using the scourge of 419 as evidence number one, Nwaubani’s

Nigeria

gently explodes into a sea of caricatures and spills out onto the pages of our consciousness. I am literally in awe of the audacity of this writer’s muse.

How do I describe this little book that could? O yes, imagine, O gentle reader, imagine a frying pan, rich with all sorts of orisi risi, sizzling, all these delicacies jumping about for joy waiting to clamber into your waiting mouth. The book is funny in unexpected places: “He brought out an it-was-white handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped the sweat from his brows.” (p 59) And it is caustic in all the right places: “Although his position on the family tree could not be described in anything less than seven sentences, Odinkemmelu was introduced to us as our cousin.” (p 24).

Using enthusiastic and lively prose, Nwaubani offers a chilling documentation of greed and rampant materialism replicated from city to city, village to village and generation to generation. This is a cancer that is eating at the nation called

Nigeria

. This sounds crazy, but I would love to see this book in a high quality movie. It definitely reads like an exquisite movie expertly set to print. Nwaubani writes with the confidence of one with an insider’s knowledge if 419 activities. The book actually takes its title from the beginning of a “419” letter to an unsuspecting wealthy foreigner or “mugu.”:

“Dear Friend, I do not come to you by chance. Upon my quest for a trusted and reliable foreign business man or company I was given your contact by the Nigerian chamber of Commerce and Industry, I hope that you can be trusted to handle a transaction of this magnitude.” (p 178)

So now, you know what the book is all about. The main character Kingsley loses his idealism and joins his uncle Boniface aka Cash Daddy in a lucrative crime syndicate that shakes down gullible foreigners (mostly white) from the safety of the cyber-cafes that litter Nigeria’s urban centers. The story of “419” is now familiar to the point of it being a cliché. The foreigner is lured into paying various “fees” for the (empty) promise of reaping huge sums of money allegedly stashed somewhere in a bank vault. This scam has so affected

Nigeria

’s international reputation, the country has a penal code numbered “419” that attempts to deal with the issue.

Overwhelming and dismaying to the senses is Nwaubani’s faithful chronicle of the changing of the same seasons of anomie (apologies Soyinka). The prose grabs you like

Nigeria

and never lets go. Listen to the book’s opening sentence: “My taste buds had been hearing the smell of my mother’s cooking and my stomach had started talking.” Nice. Repeat that to yourself and watch

Nigeria

parade itself before your eyes. You don’t learn that from an MFA program. As I read this book, the laughter came in liquid fistfuls of sobs. This writer almost turned me into an immobile lunatic, sitting in my living room grinning like a domesticated idiot.

I exaggerate slightly; I did not move from my living room until I finished reading this book. I sat grinning, my heart and soul yelling for more. I would not part with this precious book; the shower came to me and gave me a bath. The book was that good. Ah, the poetry in the conversations was authentically Nigerian and that takes confidence and skill. Man, I love Nwaubani’s writing. She breaks down complex truths into simple edible morsels of well, joy. What a treat. If you are looking for an unpretentious little story that will engage you, this one will do the trick.

Nwaubani is a truly unique and authentic voice. There is so much wisdom in her voice; it is young and fresh, bearing tart, plump and delightful attitudes, pregnant with truths untold and re-told. In this book one learns quickly that poverty comes in many forms. Nwaubani’sNigeria has become really poor in ways that famous Nigerian writers have not been able to convey in several dense books about the subject.

The reader comes face to face with the ravages of materialism in the pretense of the new evangelical religion, willing faux wealth on the dispossessed (for a modest tithe of course). The book tracks the flight of purposeful existence and provides the reader a concise, succinct, deep commentary on so many social issues – the extended family system, corruption, the scourge of materialism, etc.

Nwaubani’s

Nigeria

reeks of rampant anti-intellectualism. Hear Kingsley’s uncle Cash Daddy berating him for wearing his idealism and intellect on his tattered sleeves: “Is honesty an achievement? Personality is one thing, achievement is another thing. So what has your father achieved? How much money is he leaving for you when he dies? Or is it his textbooks that you’ll collect and pass on to your own children?” (p 153)

Priceless was the Onitsha-Market-Literature style love letter (p 72). Original and scrumptious turns of phrases open your mouth wide in wonder and awe. This is unapologetic prose – you either get it or you don’t – there is no appendix or index explaining what eba means. It takes confidence to have that attitude. “At age seven, when it was confirmed that her right hand could reach across her head and touch her left ear, Augustina moved back to her father’s house and started attending primary school. Being long and skinny had worked to her advantage.”

I love Nwaubani; she wields her words expertly, sometimes like an accurate missile or sometimes like a soothing balm. “Odinkemmelu took his body odor away to the kitchen and returned with a teaspoon of salt.” (p 17). Sweet. Her prose even gives voice to inanimate objects: My tender triceps started grumbling (p 19)

And if I could, I would sing a lusty oriki to the prodigious industry of the editors; the book is edited just right and it retains the author’s signature voice. It takes great skill to edit a book of this sort and still keep it chock full of crisp rollicking prose. “My father was a walking encyclopedia, and he flipped his pages with the zeal and precision of a magician.” (p 22) The furtiveness of the sentence before your eyes holds your attention captive as it hands you over to the next sentence. Brilliant. The writing reminds me so much of Ike Oguine’s A Squatter’s Tale; maybe also, Chukwuemeka Ike’s The Potter’s Wheel.

There are all these delightful characters with colorful names like World Bank, Protocol Officer and Wizard. The book expertly showcases the caricature as real life and out of the pages of this book;

Nigeria

simply spills out into the streets of my part of

America

. For Nwaubani uses every bit of a conversation and simply drops it in the book. Nwaubani’s descriptive powers are fueled by a dark delicious imagination:

“Cash Daddy’s cheeks were puffy, his neck was chunky, his five limbs were thick and long.” (p 213) Five limbs! Lawd have mercy! And her Pidgin English is impeccable: “Make una come see o, Graveyard don begin dey use perfume” (p 29).

One nice fringe benefit: I learnt a new fable about why the tortoise’s shell is cracked in several places. I won’t tell you; you will have to read the book yourself!

As a first novel, the book does show its flaws gently, ever so gently. The book is fairly autobiographical in parts. For the most part Nwaubani pulled off the tough trick of disengaging from the characters. However, the reader keeps seeing the writer in the main character Kingsley (Interesting enough, Kingsley is also named Opara - first son, and Adaobi, Nwaubani’s name means first daughter). The research that went into writing this book must have been considerable and it shows in the quality of the book.

Finally, I offer the criticism that the book does come off as a morality tale that begins too neatly and ends too tidily, Life is a lot messier than that. But who cares? It was pure fun looking at

Nigeria

’s myriad issues through this mirror of a thousand delights.

[Ikhide R. Ikheloa is an arts critic, writer and journalist. He can be reached at xokigbo@yahoo.com]

A Chance to Win Ian McEwan's Latest Book "Solar"

2010-03-17T16:58:00.002Z

Critical Literature Review in conjunction with Random House UK is happy to give away an autographed copy of Ian McEwan's latest book "Solar".

There is a chance to grab a signed copy of Ian McEwan's new book titled "Solar" due to be released on 18 March 2010 (published by Jonathan Cape - a Random House imprint) or one of five tee-shirts. For a chance to win, answer the following questions by commenting below or on our Facebook or Twitter Pages. What is Ian McEwan's date of birth and what is the title of his first published book?

The first person to provide the correct answer in the comment box will win the signed book and the next five correct answers will win the five tee-shirts. Goodluck.

The Visa to a Better Life

2010-03-14T23:40:00.003Z

This week, Critical Literature Review presents Ayodele Morocco-Clarke's review of Thansanqa N. Ncube's StoryTime published short story titled "The Visa". Enjoy!

Almost everywhere one looks, the phrase ‘The world is a global village’ is bandied about as if all barriers and borders which separate the countries that comprise the earth’s surface have withered away, leaving people with the freedom to roam freely in a boundary-less world. While this might be true in the cyber world, I need not point out that the same does not apply in the physical world. The restrictions placed by different sovereign countries upon entry into their national territory by aliens has had the effect of often barricading most of the planet’s underprivileged and/or not so privileged from exercising the right of free movement from one place to another. Citizens of most of the countries of the world have to apply for and be granted some form of visa or entry permit in order to travel to or through the territory of a country other than their own.

The story “The Visa” by Thansanqa N. Ncube follows a man who has fled from Zimbabwe as a result of an ever increasing economic crisis evidenced by hyper-inflation and instability in the country. Leaving behind a fiancée at home, he travels to the United Kingdom on a visitor’s visa with the intention of working illegally and saving enough money to bring his fiancée Sarudzo over to

Britain

. However, their plans have to be modified when the British government tightens immigration laws which result in fewer people successfully scaling the rigorous visa screening and entry clearance processes. Thus, the protagonist’s new goal is to save enough money from his wages to eventually return home to conduct the marriage of his dreams, extend their house back home and sustain the new family he and his bride will eventually raise.

After converting the visitor’s visa (he had initially entered the UK with) into a two year student’s visa, the protagonist continues to carry out the plan agreed with his fiancée back home. He phones her regularly and often sends money back home with the intention of returning to settle down with her. Unfortunately for Sarudzo, it is well known that even the best laid plans of men sometimes go awry, and the entry of the sophisticated Skhu into our protagonist’s life exposes him to a side of life to which he had hitherto been unaware of. This leads him to a crossroads in which he has to decide on who he will choose to carry on his future with.

The Visa is the type of story anyone who is even remotely aware of the nature of immigrant living in the UK would have encountered in some form of the other or at least heard about. The subterfuge employed by many economic migrants in a bid to set their foot on British soil is one that is well documented in the media and other literary treatise.

I found that the author let the story down with his poor editing of the work. Also, the author appears overly fond of the use of ellipses, whether or not they are appropriate in the telling of the story (another instance in which a good edit would have cleaned up the work suitably).

I further observed that the description of the conversion of the protagonist’s visa from that of a visitor to that of a student does not fall within the protocol adopted by the British Home Office which requires applicants to return to their home country to make that particular type of visa change. Moreover, visitor-to-student visa conversions are not awarded within the UK to individuals whose visitor’s visas have expired. One may however excuse this on the ground of authorial, artistic or narrative license. There is also some confusion in the story regarding the expiration of the student visa. For example, in a narrative sentence immediately preceding that of Skhu, there is a contradiction of whether or not the protagonist has overstayed his welcome in the UK –

“…I cannot stay in this country and live like a fugitive. My visa is expiring, and I have to go, maybe I can try and apply for another one from home”

“Of course you know you will not get another visa, you have overstayed your student visa…”

However, the foregoing nevertheless, should you allow yourself not to be deterred by these shortcomings, this is quite an enjoyable story you are likely to appreciate as it relates to real issues relevant in today’s world.

[Ayodele Morocco-Clarke is a Nigerian lawyer and writer of mixed heritage who has a passion for literature. She is the editor of Critical Literature Review and her written works have appeared in Author Africa 2009, Hackwriters (a University of Portsmouth magazine), Sphere Literary Magazine, StoryTime, Author-Me and on The Clarity of Night blog. She also has work forthcoming in Mimi Magazine, The Anthology of Immigrant Writing (2010) and African Roar [2010 short story anthology, co-published by Lion Press and StoryTime]. Ayodele hopes to publish an anthology of short fiction soon and is currently working on her first novel.]

A Swashbuckling War Epic!!!

2010-03-07T20:30:00.000Z

Ramdom House, the UK publishing company provided Critical Literature Review with some books to review and this week, Critical Literature Review is proud to present the review of the first of the books. Produced below is Emily Varga's review of Claire Letemendia's historical epic début novel, "The Best of Men". Enjoy!!!

Claire Letemendia, the debut author of The Best of Men, drops readers into the world of English Civil war—a world filled with enough intrigue, sex, violence, love, and spies—just enough to make us forget about the state of the world’s banks for a little while.

The novel’s lead protagonist is Laurence Beaumont, a cardsharp, mercenary, and spy, who has spent 6 years on continental Europe and is now returning to

Great Britain

—with proof of a plot to assassinate the King in his possession. Beaumont is the typical tragic, bad boy hero—hopping from bed to bed while at the same time engaging in exciting action scenes which are decidedly not Byronesque.

When I first picked up this book, I thought I would need about a month to finish it, and I am not a traditionally slow reader. This is because the book is a 700 page long historical novel. However, the more I read, the more I became engrossed in the novel and impressed by the story telling tactics of Letemendia. Often, large historical novels such as this can become bogged down by history and the reader can get lost in an academic textbook of fact. This book does have its fair share of history and packs a wallop of information. But it still manages to keep a pace that makes it interesting to the reader and exciting as a story. This is particularly hard in a novel with the setting of the English Civil War, as Letemendia’s is. There are times when there are so many characters that it is difficult to keep track of who is who and which historical event is what. There are also moments when I definitely noticed that it was a 700 page book that I was reading. However, these criticisms are fleeting amidst the vivid world that Letemendia invokes and the visceral characters that she builds within this world.

I particularly liked the character of Isabelle Savage—a temptress for Beaumont and an intelligent and strong woman in her own right. It is sometimes very difficult to find female characters in historical novels like this which are not reduced to stereotype—which is why a woman who is a sexual creature but who is also very independent and who lives in the middle of the 17^th century is so very refreshing. Perhaps she is a bit out of her time, but with this view then so is the protagonist. It is what keeps the reader engaged and what allows the reader to relate to the main characters—and find humanity in history.

The beginning of the novel took a bit of work to get into, but once you got past that first initial chunk things began to form shape. Instead of trying to figure things out and remember which character is connected to what, I just gave up after a while and kept reading. After that, things got a bit easier and I was able to enjoy the novel as a novel, and not a giant historical enactment. That is not to say that history lovers will not enjoy this story, on the contrary, evidence of Letemendia’s incredible research and scholarly background seeps into every page of the novel. This is a book which took her ten years to write, and it has definitely paid off.

There is heady romance in this story, adventure, swashbuckling, and a brilliantly developed plot. What I have described here has all the chemistry for a great bodice-ripper romance novel—but it isn’t that easy, or simple. The plot is a story that has been told before, but it is rare to find such an excellent combination of storytelling, historical world-building and riveting suspense wrapped up in one book. The main conflict—that of the assassination of the king—is not resolved by the end of the novel, but that is because Claire Letemendia promises a trilogy.

I do think that this book could definitely have been sheared down a bit to become a more succinct and sleeker novel. But as it is now, I would recommend it to anyone who wants an escape into an excellently built world. If you want a fantastic historical detail of the English Civil War, more information on the role of the Scottish in the civil war (as history tends to forget that both Ireland and Scotland fought in this war too!), and also to know the machinations of life in a brothel, or read a book with action, torture, romance, and duels, then you just may like this book. It didn’t take me quite a month to read it, but it is by no means a quick read. However, if you are willing to invest the time, it is definitely worth it. Forget about the recession for a while and think about how much worse—or better—things could have been amidst the English Civil War.

[Emily Varga is an English Literature graduate who has worked in book publishing in North America. She has previously reviewed works in her university newspaper literary and arts supplements. She currently lives in Scotland where she works in the public sector. Emily is an active member of her city book club and still enjoys writing the occasional book review.]

Out of the Ashes Arises a Great Writer (Review of “The Phoenix” by Adrian Igoni Barrett)

2010-02-28T18:54:00.010Z

This week, Critical Literature Review presents Ayodele Morocco-Clarke's review of Nigerian writer Adrian Igoni Barrett's short story titled "The Phoenix" which is published on StoryTime and in 2005 won the BBC Short Story Competition. Critical Literature Review hopes you enjoy reading the review and hopes it encourages you to read this and other short stories on StoryTime.

I first stumbled on Igoni Barrett’s writings on Laura Hird's website a few years back and swiftly became enamoured with his style of writing after reading stories in the first edition of his short story anthology titled “From Caves of Rotten Teeth” – an almost bizarre title which he derived from a poem by Caribbean painter and poet, Leroy Clarke.

The Phoenix, the story under review, is one of the fourteen stories that comprise the short story collection From Caves of Rotten Teeth. It is also published online on the StoryTime website alongside another of Igoni Barrett’s hilarious short story entitled “Pot Pourri”.

The Phoenix was one of five stories which won the 2005 BBC Short Story Competition and was subsequently broadcast by the BBC in 2006. Reading this story, it is not impossible to see why the judges (Helen Simpson, Brian Chikwava and Romesh Gunesekera) chose it as one of that year’s winning entries.

The Phoenix traces the life of Tartius Abrachius who lost both his arms in a tribal ambush. Usually, such a fate in Nigeria has the effect of reducing the life of the double amputee to one of a beggarly existence, but the determination and resourcefulness of Tartius Abrachius was such that he decided to take on a trade to eke out a living rather than be left at the whims and mercy of oftentimes reluctant benefactors. Surprisingly, armless Tartius Abrachius chose to be a tailor. Not an easy task, but he mastered the art of wielding his scissors, and threading his sewing machine with his feet.

Tartius Abrachius’s profession and art sees him leaving his homeland behind to find better business and fortune in the big city. While there plying his trade, he gathers loyal customers ensuring his daily survival. It is there in the big city that he is reunited with a dream he once had when his limbs had been intact; a dream of playing football. Before his limbs had been severed, Tartius Abrachius could do a mean sprint. In fact it was his running skill that helped in saving his life in the massacre that had cost his companions theirs. These revivified dreams of his and his running prowess take Tartius Abrachius where he never envisaged.

Igoni Barrett delivers a red hot killer twist at the end of this story; a story which had me enthralled when I read it. There are many gems within The Pheonix – and generally within his “From Caves of Rotten Teeth” anthology – which showcase Igoni Barrett not just as an emerging writer to watch out for, but (dare I say) one of the best of the new crop of Nigerian (and indeed African) writers in recent times.

Igoni Barrett displays a visceral knack for bringing his subject-matter and characters to life. Each sentence in the story is well articulated, and apart from the first paragraph detailing Tartius Abrachius’s homeland (which I do not think adds much to the story), each sentence appears to have been pondered over carefully ensuring the overall harmony of the story. There are no sentences which fail to pull their weight; impostors masquerading as friends when indeed they are nothing but foes to the overall yarn.

Some people may describe Igoni Barrett’s style of writing as highfalutin or verbose. I however think that literary connoisseurs will appreciate that he is a writer who has honed his skill carefully, executing his craft with an ease and mastery that can only be admired and/or envied. There were some phrases and sentences that I particularly found poignant; one such line was the following:

“But that was the year that destiny intervened, and as no contingency plan of man can salvage a dream that the fates have repudiated, he watched his ambition shrivel and die.”

The foregoing, alongside several visually scrumptious imageries ensures that there is a lot for the reader to enjoy in the story. It is not hard to see what so captivated the BBC Short Story Competition judges about The Phoenix that they adjudged it – above a plethora of other entries – a winner in the competition.

All I can say in conclusion is that I enjoyed reading Igoni Barrett’s The Phoenix. Immensely.

[Ayodele Morocco-Clarke is a Nigerian lawyer and writer of mixed heritage who has a passion for literature. She is the editor of Critical Literature Review and her written works have appeared in Author Africa 2009, Hackwriters (a University of Portsmouth magazine), Sphere Literary Magazine, StoryTime, Author-Me and on The Clarity of Night blog. She also has work forthcoming in Saraba Magazine, Mimi Magazine, The Anthology of Immigrant Writing (2010) and African Roar [2010 short story anthology, co-published by Lion Press and StoryTime]. Ayodele hopes to publish an anthology of short fiction soon and is currently working on her first novel.]

Immigrant Blues!!!!

2010-02-21T19:54:00.000Z

Critical Literature Review proudly present's Damilola Ajayi's review of the 2005 Caine Prize winning author Segun Afolabi's début short story collection titled "A Life Elsewhere" which includes the Caine Prize winning short story "Monday Morning" which had previously been published in Wasafiri (Issue 41). Enjoy!

I find the title of this debut story collection A Life Elsewhere apt, for indeed what the author seeks to achieve with these seventeen stories or so is a literary embellishment of an anthropological concept. It is notable that there is no eponymous story which lends its title to the collection as trends demand. The title seems to be grafted from the motive behind each story: an exposition into the Immigrant Experience, a thematic concern most Nigerian writers residing abroad often flirt with.

Perhaps the sudden removal from their culture and their erstwhile homeland often metes upon them the desire to pose their experience as narratives. The bulk of Adichie’s short stories in The Thing around Your Neck dwell on this theme; Habila’s The Immigrant (See African-writing.com) also grazes this topic, although with less authorial imperialism; Chika Unigwe’s Phoenix about a Nigeria woman’s international marriage and consequences thereof…the list continues. In essence, one can make an educated guess that their accounts are partly autobiographical in their trappings (Afolabi’s short biography on the book offers a glimpse at his itinerant childhood); but more than this, they are graphic in expression and intention to attest that it is indeed not a bed of roses as people back in the home countries are often ‘misled’ to believe by the gallant display of Diaspora returnees. Hence the stories are suffused with a strong sense of setting and estrangement.

Monday Morning, the Caine-Prize winning story, chronicles the tale of a refugee family particularly of a young son; their efforts to fit into the community that their homeland wars had put them. As you grope deeper into the narrative, Mr Afolabi recruits all sort of characters. This arrangement gathers little boys, overweight adolescents, religious fanatics and delusional pensioners—the characters own interesting profiles and engaging stories to dispense. They tell their tales with varying voices and point of views, assuming voices that would best suit their predicament and temperament. So what we have is an assorted delivery of similar vignettes.

Their narratives share a lethargy and vagueness, a sort of listlessness that is either an ingenious effort of the author or his signature style that would probably balk the aesthetics of his subsequent offerings. Be that as it may, this style suits the stories and if the readers allows themselves to be absorbed, they would come away with the contagious grief that is rooted shallow in the lives of the characters. So here is a sound off warning: detach yourself from these stories else you catch on the Immigrant blues.

However, there are some stories that leave one wondering if the manuscript ever encountered a competent editor. Some hackneyed phrases and clichés, and even warped imaginations could have been cured with the slightest editorial pruning. Unimaginative descriptions like in The Husband of My wife’s Best Friend, a character’s face was described as an “uncooked doughnut “not only appals and undermines the author’s creativity, it is a matchless evidence of the gaping hole existing in the chain of Book Publishing. But one cannot put this book down on this premise. Most, if not all, the stories of this collection have appeared in several international literary journals.

The book is indeed a panoramic survey of the Diaspora experience that leaves one with a lasting impression: that fiction is at its best when close to reality.

[Damilola Ajayi co-publishes the quarterly literary e-zine, Saraba. A penultimate medical student, his works have appeared both in print and online. He is presently working an anthology of short fiction.]

Oh! What "Choices" You Will Have Upon a "Visit" to StoryTime

2010-01-31T17:22:00.005Z

This week, Critical Literature Review is happy to publish another set of reviews in collaboration with StoryTime, a web magazine which showcases the works of budding and established African writers. The first story covered is Esi W. Cleland's "Choices" and the second is a story by Jude Dibia titled "The Visit". Both reviews were written by emerging writer Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, who is definitely a writer to watch out for in the future. Hope you enjoy reading the reviews.

"CHOICES" BY ESI W. CLELAND

This beautiful piece of work tip toes across the page with a calm, subtle poetry adorned with a palpable texture. It tells the simple tale of the romantic relations between a ‘dark, tall, beautiful, witty Senegalese young woman’ whose skin ‘is the darkest of the black shades’ and a ‘Caucasian Alaskan boy of about the same age’ with very white skin that is ‘queerly mottled with moles and freckles and red blotches’. The author uses clear, simple English to weave an interesting tale with a beautifully lulling rhythm. The story is pregnant with vivid descriptions; the author lingers around skin and colour and uses these stark differences as a meaningful point of reference for both our protagonists. Amidst these animating contrasts there is also a delighted discovery of ‘shared experiences that transcend race, colour, culture, even social class.’ Their differences, which at first appear to be the adhesive that keep them together, also serve to accentuate their distance.

There is a disturbing line in the story, that sort of dangled before me long after I had tucked it back into this tapestry, which I believe has connotations towards the psyche of the black African which is perpetrated at different levels of our society- ‘Is he telling her that he likes her as she is, all her sins, borne of her blackness forgiven…’. This line leaves one wondering about the self-image of our female protagonist, but again, like many other morsels sewn in and left for the reader to half-chew, this little thread stops here. It is more like a subtle ‘food for thought’ tucked away in the meat loaf of this tale.

However, one disturbing thing which taints this story is the part where the tale, which is mostly in the present tense, makes a jarring shift to the past tense - ‘Time goes by and when she attempts to sever the bonds of their relationship, he cried.’ It further continues in the past tense and then makes another jarring shift back into the present tense - ‘One day, as she and boy Alaska sat beneath the skies……, she imagines what her life might be…..’

Romance and multi-racial relationships, like many themes, are not new, but it is the ability of different voices to view old angles with fresh eyes that gives tales their unique quality. I would say Esi W Cleveland’s voice is one of such fresh voices, able to give that taste of spring water to our parched minds as we devour down this story. She is definitely a writer to watch. A good read.

"THE VISIT" BY JUDE DIBIA

‘The Visit’ tells the story of Nduesoh, a black Nigerian woman from a poor background who is married to Edward, a white, rich English Tycoon. The story begins with a scene in which the couple are having dinner in the opulent surroundings of their hotel suite. We meet Nduesoh’s insecurities in the very first paragraph, where the floral arrangements of Tulips and golden Daffodils on the dinner table make her ‘jealous’ because she feels that their ‘splendour’ mocks her, ‘much the same way a prettier and younger wife would taunt the older wife without having to say a thing.’ Riddled with feelings of resentment and fermenting anger, this tale is bridled with black inferiority and its rejection of its culture and values in the face of what it perceives to be white supremacy. Nduesoh’s eyes view the world with an acid rancour which we learn has been with her from the days of sibling rivalry. She is the last born in her family, and resents her older siblings for ‘their good looks and the names they’d been given’. This part of the tale explores the significance of the meaning of names - What’s in a name? Particularly looking at many African cultures which believe that the meaning of a name may translate into the path taken in one’s life. In this light, it is easier to understand Nduesoh’s questioning anger about her name, which means ‘What have I done wrong?’ Everything in her world is tainted by jealousy, bitterness and resentment, from how she sees her husband, to how she sees her family, to the memory of her wedding day.

It is during this opening dinner that she learns that she has a visitor waiting for her in the lobby, in the form of Idara, her older sister. As it’s to be expected from this character, she is not happy with this visit. She hates the sight of her sister who sticks out like a worn rug in the opulent decor of the hotel lobby. We cannot help but feel sorry for Idara, whose warm and enthusiastic greeting is met by a cold and aloof response. It is rather amazing, this extent of loathing that Nduesoh has for her family - her lack of concern for them - which she perpetrates by dutifully but rather begrudgingly throwing money at them every month. Nduesoh’s situation is not unique to her alone; it is not unusual within those families among which poverty is rampant, to depend very much upon the affluent member who has achieved a form of wealth in life. A clash of culture comes into play here; usually those black Africans who attain wealth and opulence and therefore associate more with the opulent white Africans tend to want to adopt many of the white ways of living, which include a lot of privacy and exclusivity. In contrast, the black African family set up is woven in tight knots of inter-dependence where family members freely seek help from one another. Hence a wealthy member of a family, such as Nduesoh in this story case, may attempt to adopt white practices of exclusivity but face the frustrations and burdens of a family that, true to black culture, expects help whenever it is needed, which, in poverty, will be often. It is an interesting contradistinction in cultures.

I first encountered this story on ‘Zeotrope Virtual Studio’; it was a good read then and it is still a good read now. I like to draw parallels between a good story and wine; they never remain stagnant, but acquire a lasting value with time. Which is why a century later you find readers and scholars still pondering over them, drawing lessons and meaning and trying to analyse the mind from which they were born. The author uses very textural language to give us that taste of opulence surrounding Nduesoh, sort of like that feeling one would get by rubbing a piece of silk cloth between one’s thumb and forefinger. As this is an excerpt from the author’s upcoming novel, it is perhaps from the novel itself that we will get to better understand the justifications of Nduesoh’s rather disturbing and extreme resentment and bitterness towards her family, and life in general.

[Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a Zimbabwean student currently pursuing her studies at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg,

South Africa

. She has had short stories published in young people’s anthologies in Zimbabwe, and has a short story in the upcoming BEDanthology by Modjaji Books (South Africa) as well as another short story in the upcoming in the Story Time ‘African Roar’ Anthology. Novuyo was twenty when she attained third prize in the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2008. Her short story ‘You in Paradise’ won the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009 and will be published in the next issue of African Writing Online Literary Magazine. More of her musings may be found at www.novuyorosa.blogspot.com.]

Have [Nigerian] Romance Novels Come of Age?

2010-01-24T02:26:00.000Z

This week, Critical Literature Review showcases Nigerian writer Sylva Nze Ifedigbo doing a review of Myne Whitman's self published novel “A Heart to Mend”. Enjoy!

Nigerians, and indeed to a large degree Africans, are not particularly known for romance writing. The reason can be attributed to the sense of morality (real or apparent) that seeks to relegate issues of love to the secrecy of bedrooms and treats sex as something to be talked about only in hushed tones like it were some mysterious sacred ritual. We generally carry on like ‘we don’t do sex’ yet we have HIV, or ‘we don’t fall in love’ yet we have marriages.

Myne Whitman’s book, “A Heart to Mend”, makes a bold statement to the contrary. It shows that not only do we fall in love and marry for love, we also use love to conquer a wide range of situations that could have ordinarily been a bit difficult to shoulder alone.

Before “A Heart to Mend”, the closest the Nigerian Literary scene has felt of emotional writings were from a wide range of soft sale publications which were deficient in both craft and quality; both deficiencies that have contributed through a negative feedback to the dearth and ‘distaste’ for romance writings in

Nigeria

.

“A Heart to Mend” comes however as a fresh breath of air. It chronicles the journey of Gladys Eborah, a young female Nigerian graduate from Enugu in South Eastern Nigeria to the commercial city of Lagos, first to find a job and then - in the process - love and ultimately marriage. In the typical romance stories style, this journey is not rosy, but is filled with so much turbulence which combines to raise the suspense and provide the reader a deeper satisfaction for the also typical ‘happy ever after’ ending.

Gladys doesn’t hog the spotlight alone however. Employing a double barreled lead character description approach, the author also brings the reader into the life and experiences of Edward Bestman, the young unmarried head of a business empire. Edward and Gladys meet in the very first chapter of the book but it takes a lot longer for Edward to overcome his mistrust for people (a psychological burden acquired as a result of childhood experiences of betrayal) and profess his love - one which he started feeling on that very first day - to Gladys.

For readers, there is plenty to like In the book. Those accostomed with

Nigeria

will find that it is rich with very familiar words, places and things which they can easily relate with. We have for example the popular Peace Mass Transit which every Enugu resident knows. We have Zennon Oil, Terra Kulture, Tuface, Sound Soultan, Securities and Exchange Commission etc. The language utilised in this book is simple, however a reader might find the description languid in some instances. It goes on and on sluggishly, seemingly not in a hurry to get to a climax.

For people who find it difficult to read books without conversations, “A Heart to Mend” presents itself as a good New year gift but then some of the conversation is drab and does not add any extra value to the main story.

A novice in the complex workings of the Stock Exchange and the various sharp practices that we often read of in the papers might find this book a worthy and handy learning guide. Exhibiting a good knowledge of the workings of the Stock Market, the author engages the reader in those business languages and mentions terms and concepts only those well schooled in that field would understand. I admire however how Whitman introduces these concepts in conversations which help the reader appreciate what is being said rather than foisting it down the readers in some kind of tutorial essay format.

The absurdities and sharp practices that exist in our business climes in

Nigeria

are well captured in this book. One of the characters in the book, Mr. Odutose, has developed a dubious way of helping companies get richer illegally. He is persistent in selling his idea even when Edward Bestman is adamant. Like in most things, Odutose finally finds a listening ear in another character, Chief Okrika, who ironically sets out to use the idea against Edward Bestman. It is uplifting to note however that Edward Bestman’s persistent refusal to buy into Odutose’s dubious plan shows that we still have credible and respectable Nigerian Business men and women; a badly needed reminder especially in these times when

Nigeria

seems popular globally for only the wrong reasons.

There are a couple of other downs for the book. For example, the reasons why Aunt Isioma abandoned her relatives for so long a time does not sound convincing, neither does the author do very well in explaining why Chief Okrika and wife should show up suddenly after so many years and begin to witch-hunt Edward Bestman. Glady’s initial reactions to Aunt Isioma which are intended to portray her existing annoyance for Aunt Isioma’s unexplained wrong treatment of her relatives seems quite puerile. It also doesn’t ring as true that Aunt Isioma, given her wealth and connection, would leave Gladys (a first time visitor to Lagos) all to her self in her job hunt although she had kindly provided her the service of a car and a driver. In reality especially in

Nigeria

, such an Aunt (especially one portrayed to be eager to help) would have done much more. But then, this is fiction and I guess the author has the right to the soul of her story.

“A Heart to Mend” which is the author’s début offering comes with many more pluses than minuses and gives an indication that this author is one to be watched for even richer outings in the future. Nigerian readers for example can now satisfy their yearning for well written, homegrown romance stories while the foreign readers can treat themselves to a different kind of romance; that made in the highly boisterous commercial city of Lagos,

Nigeria

.

[Sylva Nze Ifedigbo lives in Abuja, Nigeria. He writes fiction as well as socio-political essays.]

Zimbabwean Land Saga, Discrimination, Oppression and Plenty More!!!

2010-01-10T21:09:00.000Z

Critical Literature Review is happy to present its first review of 2010. Phillip Chidavaenzi begins this year by covering Zimbabwean author Lawrence Hoba's short story anthology "The Trek & Other Stories" which is published by Weaver Press. Here is hoping that this whets your appetite for the plethora of reviews that Critical Literature Review intends to bring your way in 2010. Enjoy!

It is heartening that young writers are being accorded the space to tell their stories while showcasing their writing skills in the cut-throat world of literature.

One such writer, Lawrence Hoba, had just had his collection of short stories – ‘The Trek & Other Stories’. Hoba is no stranger to the contemporary

Zimbabwe

literary cannon, with some of his stories having appeared in newspapers such as the now defunct “Mirror” and various short story anthologies both in print and online.

However, it is the recent publication of his slim volume of short stories that is poised to consolidate his voice as a writer in his own right. Perhaps the collection’s major strength is that it sits right on the pulse of a nation battling to correct historical wrongs in land ownership patterns in a way that has drawn contradictory perceptions, while trying to be understood as a justice seeker rather than a sadistic punisher.

A number of the stories here give multiple perspectives on this contentious issue, although they tend to easily lend themselves to the anti–land reform debate. In a highly polarized nation where there is no middle ground, Hoba has chosen a viewpoint that poses many questions and gives us an opportunity to reflect on the pressing need for land reforms and the manner of implementation. When all the propaganda and romanticism about reclaiming rich, productive ancestral lands have died down, there is always need for a candid, honest review of the programme. And ‘The Trek & Other Stories’ does just that – it could well be one of the missing links in the body of literature in

Zimbabwe

that looks at the aftermath of the land reform programme.

Over the past years, there have been countless land reform audits that however have remained locked up in some government offices, and their contents have remained shrouded in a veil of secrecy. Most of the stories in this collection – such as ‘The Trek’, ‘Maria’s Independence’ and ‘Having My Way’ – all explore the land resettlement saga in

Zimbabwe

, which has over the past 10 years dominated local and international media.

A close reading of the land resettlement discourse in

Zimbabwe

reveals the glaring absence of women, whose voices have been significantly annihilated. This is one anomaly that the first story, ‘The First Trek – The Pioneers’, somewhat addresses. In this story, the young narrator says, “mhamha’s hoe is worn from use, baba’s is still new and clean” (pp.2) Ironically, at the gate of the farm there is a sign post that reads, ‘Mr. B. J Magugu, Black Commercial Farmer.’

In addition, the story ‘Maria’s Independence’ gives us an insight into the diversity of characters washed onto the farms by the political waves. I think this is a very important story in as far as it rightly locates women within the issue of land reform. The land reclamations were not only about men, but some women have stood the test and managed to turn themselves into successful farmers regardless of societal perception of the woman as the weaker vessel, particularly within political discourse.

In ‘The Second Trek – Going Home’ Hoba’s focus is on the black farm worker who is caught in between the feuding white commercial farmer and the belligerent black peasant farmer fighting to occupy the commercial farm. The story further highlights that the commercial farm –previously occupied by the peasant farmers – is not necessarily a humanized space that is easily habitable. There are no social utilities such as schools and hospitals. Furthermore, those farm workers that originated from countries such as

Malawi

remain trapped within the farm under new ownership because they can’t go back home. This is the dilemma that many farmers who originated from other countries face.

Two stories, ‘A Dream & A Guitar’ and ‘Tonde’s Return’ explore the ravages of the HIV and AIDS pandemic which has wreaked havoc in many families and communities, especially in Africa.

Hoba has to be commended for coming up with a competent collection of stories that are a true reflection of contemporary

Zimbabwe

[Phillip Chidavaenzi is an award–winning Zimbabwean novelist and literary critic. His debut novel, ‘The Haunted Trail’ (2006), scooped a National Arts Merit Award for the Outstanding First Published Creative Work in 2007. Two of his short stories, ‘A Father’s Homecoming’ and ‘The Ties that Bind’ made into the Crossing Borders online literary journal. Several other stories and literary reviews were published in publications such as The Herald newspaper, ‘The Mirror’, ‘Parade’ and ‘Moto’ (all now defunct), and ‘The Southern Times’ newspaper. More information on his writings can be accessed at http://chidavaenzi.blogpsot.com]

TANIA HERSHMAN REVIEWS ALI SMITH'S "THE FIRST PERSON AND OTHER STORIES*

2009-12-26T23:40:00.000Z

CLR wishes you all a Merry Christmas and a Wonderful New Year and would like to thank everyone (especially the reviewers) who have made its first quarter a success. We have great things lined up for 2010, so watch this space.

2009 has been dubbed in many quarters as "The Year of the Short Story". It is with this in mind that Critical Literature Review has decided to dedicate its final edition of the year (and indeed this decade) to a short story anthology. CLR proudly presents Tania Hershman's review of Ali Smith's short story collection "The First Person and Other Stories". Hope you enjoy reading it.

Ali Smith is one of my favourite authors. In fact, I believe she is why I began writing short stories, why I love them. And so, before I begin, I am going to take issue with the back cover of the book. The third quote, after wonderful praise from Alain de Botton and the Scotsman, is from the Daily Telegraph: "Smith has a talent for finding unexpected flashes of beauty and comedy in the everyday". The word I take issue with is "everyday" (is it one word?). Ali Smith never writes about the "everyday", whatever it is. Or, in as much as all writers who do not write fiction that takes place in other worlds, other planets, other dimensions, or stories about the truly abhorrent in society, perhaps everyone writes about the "everyday". But to me, this word demeans what Smith does so beautifully.

Smith's stories are the epitome of the "What if...?" What if you were shopping and found a baby in your supermarket trolley? What if you were at an opera and a character from Gershwin arrived? What if a parcel addressed to someone else turns up when you are ill at home? None of these brief summaries does justice to what Smith does. She plays with the reader, twist and turn, lead you one way and then pull the rug from under you, quietly, gently. And leave you feeling winded, stunned, joyful.

This collection is called The First Person and Other Stories, where "the first person" might relate to the term in fiction which means that the story is being told by "I", and we are in the main character's head, or it may mean being the first person to.... and already Smith is teasing us. She includes four quotes at the beginning, including this from Katherine Mansfield: "True to oneself! Which self?" I take from this that Smith, who writes almost exclusively here in the first person, except for two stories, that she is hinting that all these selves are part of one self, and at the same time, we are not so easily defined, labelled, boxed in. We are not just one thing, we are many.

Smith has her own take on "first person" point of view: not only is the story being told by "I", in many of the twelve stories "I" is talking to "you", which creates an intense intimacy, intensified by her lack of quotation marks and of names for her characters. They are particular and they are general at the same time. We are eavesdropping on that space between two people, often lovers or ex-lovers, it is as if we are standing between them and they are whispering to each other through us:

I don't know if I am up to this any more, I say.

Yawn, you say.

(You don't actually yawn, you say the word yawn. Then you look at me across the table and smile. I'm still unused to your smile, and to it being directed at me. Sometimes when you smile at me I have the urge to look over my shoulder and see who you are smiling at.)

There are those who object to the addressing of a story to "you" because the reader can feel put upon, can think "But I'm not saying yawn", etc... However, because there is an "I" talking to the "you", this doesn't happen here. We are the silent witness to their conversation.

Were I to try and outline the plots of some of these stories, this would be to fail miserably in conveying the magic of Smith's writing and so I won't. One thread I noticed running through these stories are questions of identity: if everyone treats you as the mother of the baby you just found in your supermarket trolley, do you feel like its mother? If your lover tells you her fantasy of what you would buy in a music shop, how does her view of you change your own view of yourself?

Smith also plays with the notion of "story": in one story we move from a set of characters and a scene to another, apparently unconnected set of characters elsewhere, often within the same paragraph, and we don't return, there is no neat tying up. But there is no sense of dissatisfaction, no yearning to find out what happened to that couple we met at the beginning. Smith's words weave a tale so that somehow we understand what is going on here, despite the leaps in location and time, despite the lack of traditional narrative.

Smith's first story doesn't seem to be fiction at all, but a story about short stories, which ends with a list of other writers' definitions of the short story. As with other collections I have reviewed, Smith is telling us what it means to her.

Alice Munro says that every short story is at least two stories.

Ernest Hemingway says that short stories are made by their own change and movement, and that even when a story seems static and you can't make out any movement in it at all it is probably changing and moving regardless, just unseen by you.

Walter Benjamin says that short stories are stronger than the real, lived moment, because they go on releasing the real, lived moment after the real, lived moment is dead.

William Carlos Williams says that the short story, which acts like the flare of a match struck in the dark, is the only real form for describing the briefness, the brokenness and the simultaneous wholeness of people's lives.

I could not describe Ali Smith's stories better myself so I won't attempt it. This is another beautiful, vital short story collection from one of the greatest short story writers alive today. If you write short stories, if you love to read them, this is a book that you need on your shelf. This is the flare of that match struck in the dark.

* This book review was first published in The Short Review.

[Tania Hershman (http://www.taniahershman.com/) is founder and editor of The Short Review (http://www.theshortreview.com/). Her collection, The White Road and Other Stories (http://www.thewhiteroadandotherstories.com/), is published by Salt Modern Fiction and was commended in the 2009 Orange Award for New Writers.]

IT'S STORY TIME!!!!!!!

2009-12-20T23:37:00.005Z

This week, Critical Literature Review is happy to publish its first review in collaboration with StoryTime, a web magazine which showcases the works of budding and established African writers. Below, Nuvoyo Rosa Tshuma does a review of two of the stories published on StoryTime. The first story covered is Kola Tubosun's "Behind the Door" and the second is a story by Nigel Jack titled "Thinking Out Loud".

Should you desire to read fresh innovative African writers telling a plethora of fiction stories in all genres, StoryTime should be right up your alley. Until you do, enjoy the two reviews below.

REVIEW # 1 - BEHIND THE DOOR BY KOLA TUBOSUN

If you were to decide write a story themed on HIV/AIDS, what will you think to write about? An emotionally charged tale centred on big-headed children lying in the dusty African soil with murderous ribs trying to stab through leathery skin? That little pep-talk type story about the guiles of sex and multiple partners? Or perhaps you’re one of those religious fellows who take the evidence out of a Holy Book in a bid to lecture lost souls towards their salvation?

Would you consider penning a simple, everyday-yet-not-so-everyday tale about going for an HIV/AIDS test? This is what Kola Tubosun did with his story “Behind the Door”.

What I enjoyed most about this story was its simple, down to earth straightforwardness; the way the author took this theme of HIV/AIDS testing and made it good story writing. This story does not do what many HIV/AIDS related stories I’ve read seem to like to do (I am a culprit to this very same trend I now criticize) which is to lecture, to pep talk, to emotionally blackmail, to act as therapy (though I would say this story and its theme of testing can be a form of therapy for some). This does not mean that all these tendencies are ‘wrong’, but simply monotonous. Anyone can shed a tear the first time they read a highly charged story centred around HIV/AIDS, probably the second time too. But after roughly ten readings of similar or identical stories, emotions tend to have dried out with the reader displaying a cynicism that does neither the story nor its author any good. Hence the saying about fresh eyes looking at old angles, or better still, exploring those other dusty corners.

‘Behind the Door’ tells the story of an unnamed protagonist who, while at a hospital decides to test for HIV. It reads rather more like an experience the author himself has gone through. Little things are given so much attention and detail that you feel the author is describing what he has seen or undergone. Our protagonist is calm and seems, before the test, to be deliberately attempting to dissociate himself from his feelings. His analysis, therefore, reads as having an intellectual tone to it; a detached observer of the things happening around and within himself. His analysis is at first centred on things other than the implications of the test itself e.g. there are alternating focuses on interalia - a previous experience when the protagonist was directed to the wrong room and therefore did not go for testing; another patient who is getting pre-testing counselling; the phlebotomist who is conducting the test.

Our protagonist is very observing and calmly so. It can be argued that he is perhaps too analytical for one in his position i.e. about to test for HIV for the very first time. This does make him rather intriguing, and perhaps helps the story in the sense that through him, one gets to learn quite a bit about the hospital environment; that testing environment. A more shaky character might have given a jittery picture of the testing environment and this also has a crucial effect on the aura of the story.

The author uses a straightforward story telling style combined with a controlled voice and well handled characters who are carefully manipulated to advance the tale. Every scene works well to give that sense of compactness; the author has a clear mastery of the voice he has chosen to assume and moulds a neat story dabbed here and there with tints of intellectualism. ‘Behind the Door’ will be published in 2010 in the upcoming StoryTime ‘African Roar’ Anthology.

REVIEW # 2 - THINKING OUT BY NIGEL JACK

The English employed in this tale is almost lyrical; one can tell that the author clearly enjoys the colourful play of words which he has beautifully utilised here. The first paragraph lures your attention with velvety scenes – “Our noises would sink into the early evening breeze like the lovely voice of cheese in our little mouths”. The language is never straightforward or direct; it is used to lull, to beat like waves, to palpitate with the rhythm of a sing-song heart. Every scene is artistic e.g. “The routine was too redundant and absurd for me. Surely it couldn’t be all about waking up to a dish of hot porridge hearing cattle mooing, birds chipping, cooing and hooting, watching dew melt away from green blades of healthy grass while appreciating the scent of a youthful morning as her skirts were being gently pulled up by the sun.”

Our protagonist dances around childhood scenes, prances around memories of his rural education, ponders over religious fanaticism and delights over the beauty of a woman. He is a philosophical fellow, our protagonist - taking time to sprinkle his musings with melody.

However, I do feel that the author concentrated most of his energies on the lyrical quality of his language, and sort of gave the storyline the back seat. The effect is that the scenes leap suddenly from one to the other in a rather untidy fashion, leaving the reader to grope around for the strings that link them together. The author touches on one issue, then suddenly leaps from this to touch on another, and just as suddenly go back to the first issue. This makes the story hard to follow. I found myself asking the question: What exactly is the author trying to convey?

The title of the story of course tells us that our protagonist is ‘Thinking Out Loud’, but even this form of ‘free flow’ needs a coherent format that the reader would be able to follow. If one is to employ a colourful fashion to ones writing, it would be better to also have a fairly clear and unconvoluted story line that can draw the reader in. It becomes rather tasking to handle the interplay of beautifully woven words with an unclear story. Many readers can often be quite whimsical and rather weak willed; if it takes too much effort, lots of people tend to give up easily. This is the fine line that a writer must walk; expressing his artistic licence yet bowing to the whims of his readers. Readers are the masters and the writer paradoxically is a sort of liberated slave, playing on artistic persuasion rather than a pacificatory bondage.

“Thinking Out Loud” is a story budding with great potential, and again, I applaud the beautiful language.

[Novuyo Rosa Tshuma is a Zimbabwean student currently pursuing her studies at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has had short stories published in young people’s anthologies in Zimbabwe, and has a short story in the upcoming BEDanthology by Modjaji Books (South Africa) as well as another short story in the upcoming in the StoryTime ‘African Roar’ Anthology. Novuyo was twenty when she attained third prize in the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2008. Her short story ‘You in Paradise’ won the Intwasa Short Story Competition 2009 and will be published in the next issue of African Writing Online Literary Magazine. More of her musings may be found at The Pen and I.]