A SHORT REVIEW OF UZODINMA IWEALA’S ‘BEAST OF NO NATION’

‘​It is starting like this’… And that is how we get drawn or drafted into the wonderful story of Agu, a school boy who got torn away from his regular life of family, school and church and grew rapidly loosing his innocence and childhood to war.

For me the strong points of this novel are in its imagery use, story telling and the language use. 
Uzodinma’s power of description is spelndid, and very graphic, and asides from the fact that it makes the story come alive, it also lays emphasis on the memory of Agu. It is said that children never forgets  and Uzodinma put this into Agu’s story. It us a perfect recollection, wonderfuk use of memory. And it authenticates the story. 
The story is told by Agu, the protagonist of the novel, and apart from the fact that he was telling of things that had happen, he talks in present continuous tenses. I think the writer is trying to tell us that in as much as this is Agu’s story it is still happening. More so, I think in Agu’s mind, nothing is over.

Photo Credit – @zaynabtyty

The broken English in which the author wrote is kind of strange for a modern reader, and people including myself have complained about struggling with it. Also, I think it is very contextual and a strategy. One, to reveal the locale of the story, and two to add a bit of humour to the horrendous story that Agu has to tell.
The fact that this war happened in an unknown African nation points to the fact that war is not a citizen of any country, also this has happened in some part of Africa which the author didn’t want to mention.
The debut is a good one. The author did a nice work on it, it came out fine. I will give this book a 6 on a scale of 10. 
It is an African story, that will literarily have you at the edge of your seat, and dig a lot of pity and sympathy out of you for children whose childhood were eaten up by war, and their tales of survival, which poke the question of how hard is it to talk about war, especially when children become victims.

A Review of Abubakar A. Ibrahim’s ‘Season of Crimson Blossom’

We find love in strange places. The moral compass of the society tends to make us look behind our backs when rolling on the adventure of love. The spotlight in this novel is on Reza a young thug in his twenties falling strangely in love with a widow old enough to be his mother. The setting is in the puritanical Northern Nigeria, obviously this love will raise eye brows. Abubakar examines the society through the lenses of the characters and setting, he pokes how people live under the influence of approval or certain standards of the society. Hajiya Binta and Reza find themselves in this situation and they are grilled by religion, family and communal influences, and placing all these above their emotions, feeling and preferences holds the high points of the book.
The book is politically charged and it opens up a conversation that delves into seeing the human side of the characters, asides all the violence, religion, politics and societal norms. With subtle humor yet very strong themes this book beams with rays that penetrates how the society works.

This is in part what Abubakar A. Ibrahim sought to explore with his debut novel Season of Crimson Blossom. SCOB lays bare a vivid example of how we live to meet up society and norms. This novel is very contextual and it represents a new voice that is telling ignored stories in a recent and up to date voice that is Familiar.

In this book, the characters pop up and come alive with serious feelings of love, loss, grief loneliness and sex. Yes, sex.

Who puts sex in the same book that has Northern Nigeria and religion in it?Abubakar! He joins a new voice that is emerging in the Nigeria Literature that is telling, re-telling the Northern Nigeria story and breaking stereotypes.

The beauty of this book is in its ability to place contrasts side by side and in an objective manner. It lays bare the characters, leaves them to the mercy of the society while silently questioning the reasons why they cannot choose to live the way they want without the prying eyes of the society and family.  Hajiya Bintu and Reza are both adults, who can have sex, and also be in a relationship, while we see this in post modern view as okay, Abubakar puts a question mark on it with the allegory of the mother and son. Reza sees his mother in Hajiya and Hajiya see her lost son in him, this make it look like incest, he presents a context that alienates the act.

Sexuality is explored in a an unusual manner. Sex is pop culture, which often neglects the aged in the society, as against general belief Hajiya’s sexuality is brought alive, ‘awakened’ of sought, by Reza. Sex often paints as a total masculine affair, that often obscure the female form as a participant rather than an object. Hajiya was an object to her formal husband, she can’t control the act nor play a apart in the act. It was as if her sexuality was dead till Reza made it ‘born again’. Let’s face it, old people too crave sex, just as much as tyoung people do.

The awakening that this theme deploys washes up the sociocultural and religion facbrics of the locale and that of the contextual backdrop of the story. This is the beautiful thing that the contemporary writings of the new generation Nigerian writers are contributing to the literary scene. And in my opinion it is very interesting, because they genrate real time coversations, which in tunrn creates awareness. 

As for style, Abubakar pens like a god, he holds his character and puts life into them with vivid descriptions that carry the reader along, and make him want to forget he is reading fiction. He writes in such a way that the characters presents the society, and the society contain them. His language is good and strong, he has a special use if language that evokes imagery as tools of expression and communication, this gives the story a proper spine. I give him a plus on this one.

As for me I will give this book a nine. It is an excellent work. Well worked and written. Season of Crimson Blossoms was shortlisted in September 2016 for the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature and it was announced winner in October 2016. Find it people and read it.

You can oder for it on Amazon. And if you are in Nigeria, check out Amab Books, Roving Heights and Bookville or any choice bookshops near you.

Breaking Silence: A Reading of Elnathan John’s ‘Born on A Tuesday’

Northern Nigeria googled, cannot come up without a tag of violence, the BokoHaram Sect in particular. for Nigerians and many foreigners, the lives and stories of the people who come from the northern part of Nigeria are mostly nothing but the ‘pieces’ of news that we gather from the media. Just a very few have had first hand experiences of how life is in the area, and many of the few have not had the opportunity or are not ready to tell of their experiences.

I am not sure about calling BOAT a Northern Nigerian Literature, but I am sure that in the Nigerian Literature Scene, literature from the North are not many, and even the available ones are not of much interest of study or are not available or known. So, what Elnathan John has done with BOAT is to bridge this void to a  great extent.

BOAT like ‘Season of Crimson Blossom’ by Abubakar Adam Ibrahim delivers current and vivid stories of the north into the mainstream of the Nigerian Literature. Other than steady news of violence, we are able to see, read and feel though in fiction, some close to real experiences of life in the north, that there are people living there excluded from the violence, survivors or victims who still have the capacity to live, love, bear pain, make decision and interact with the outside world, a normal process of life with ‘normal’ people.

BOAT transcends and projects beyond violence. The story is told in the voice of Dantala, the protagonist in the story, of how he lives on the streets, blends into a gang that gets employed by a small political party to fight its opposition. The attack on the opposition’s headquarters office turns ugly and Dantala escapes to another city where he finds solace (food, shelter, education, mentor-ship, love, betrayal, loyalty) in the hands of the Sheikh of the Mosque. He maneuvers through the story with the background of his sick mother and his brothers who have joined a rival sect considered extreme and dangerous, a point where his loyalty and quest for self finds expression.

Elnathan writes this story in a mixed tone, sometimes humorous, sometimes sad, sometimes funny and sometimes tragic. His writing is very vivid, it describes to the letters, takes us to the scene of events and ropes us into the live of the characters and their environment which is of particular concern and interest. The language of Dantala is Nigerian, and many other instances there are code mixing and switching without any foot note or hyphenated explanation. This in some way project an inquisition into the cultural essence of the book, it draws the reader to find out, to explore and get into the language, cultural setting and experience in the book. A plus,I think, for the editor for the careful abandonment of trying to spoon the reader.

Elnathan story telling skill is superb. He writes in a linear way, the events roll into each other with a careful commitment to memory by the use of Dantala’s journal (a journal which also helps focus on his evolving process and integration). This style I think is close or similar to Achebe’s, in a more particular way of holding cultural essence in African Literature. BOAT offers a front row exposition into the burning issues of violence in the northern part of Nigerian, as a way to present the everyday lives of the people who live and base there, along religion, politics and culture. It presents them as a people not as victims only. For example, a reader can have a close imagination of what an Almajiri passes through and how they survive.The narrative is clean and a good debut for the two-time Caine Prize finalist.

BOAT breaks the silence and mono view that surrounds the Northern story.

 

 

April Bloom, Book Cases and Music

Okay, cheers of the new month. Since the last update for March, between you and I, I have not finished reading James Marlon’s ‘The Brief History of Seven Killings’. It has not been easy, keeping my day job which I have had no break from everyday since March. I am now on Page 150. Please clap for me jare. Sure, I am still reading it.

I found and joined The Port Harcourt Book Club. It has been very exciting. The book club had been existing under my nose for a while and I never knew. As usual, I stumbled upon its existence on twitter. They read a book every month and meet for the book discussion and some kind of review every last Sunday of that month by 4pm at a venue of choice in Port Harcourt. For the month of April, they, or should I say we are reading ‘Love is Power or Something Like That‘ by A. Igoni Barrett, the book is available at Bookville Bookshop, Mummy B road, Port Harcourt. It is an open book club, so if you are in Port Harcourt or passing by you can join. Find them on twitter, @ThePHCBookClub

Between March and now, I have knocked down two books, and both are short stories collections. The one for The Port Harcourt Book Club, ‘Love is Power or Something Like That’ by A. Igoni Barrett, a Port Harcourt boy himself and ‘Smithereens of Death’ by Olubunmi Familoni an Ibadan base writer. I am unto the third book, ‘We Need New Names‘ by NoViolet Bulawayo, the 2014 Etisalat Prize for fiction winner. It is a good progress on my reading habit if you ask me. And of course, their reviews are coming right up, maybe this month too.

Book Cover

Now Reading

Next on the blog should be my short review of Elnathan John’s ‘Born On A Tuesday‘. I have managed to finish the last two chapters which the pity that flushed me up for Ahmed did not allow me to read. Watch this space.

THE OTHER THINGS…

Nigeria in suffering from fuel scarcity. I know it is no news. But guys, it is not easy, the money I have spent on fueling my car since this brouhaha started is already double my monthly usual and mounting. It is not funny anymore.  I just hope that this week shall be the end of it, if not maybe what happened in 199somthing will happen again.

Among other things, I love music and of all kinds, so far it sounds good to me and fits my mood per time. There is this beautiful Nigeria  female sensation Aramide. She sings Afro Soul, and I came across her last year. She has a new music video out for her single Love Me, in which she featured Adekunle Gold, another Afro Soul sensation I will say.

A shot from the video – Aramide & Adekule Gold                     Courtesy : BellaNija

I love the feel of the song, its mixture of Yourba and English Lyrics, the flush of the African feel in the instrumentals and the lush video shoot and quality. It has been on replay on my music player for a while. Enjoy the new video here.

Catch you later guys.

 

 

African Literature is More – Oluwaseyi G. Abidoye

FROM reading my first African Literature piece to now, I have subconsciously developed the love for any writing that comes out of Africa, especially Nigeria.

Thinking about this, I have for some time now, devoted my free time to being a connoisseur of African Literature. African Stories, Poetry and Art move me. From the novel genre to short stories and flash fiction, I feel a part of me in every story.

So I have tried to collect the experiences and feelings that I have with reading these stories from back in time and reading them now. I have seen that at each point, a particular story speaks in essence of time and understanding to the reader.

What I read as meaning and contexts to Things Fall Apart, for example, when I was younger is not what I read as meaning to it now that I am older and more learned than I used to be. The reading experience gets better with time and understanding. So are the discourses that Things Fall Apart generates from 1958 till date, they have become more, and seen in new perspectives.

I want to believe that this particular experience is happening to writing in Africa. African Literature has grown from its early stage as it was to something more phenomenon. It has gone beyond stories, protests, definition and its struggles for recognition and documentation both in written and oral form to become a platform that takes these earlier stages of development as tools for projection, not as form, type or definition

African Literature is now a platform that is open to different voices, across genres. Africans alike, writers, artistes, painters, photographers, spoken word performers (in oral) have all taken to this platform to display, discourse, present and churn out issues, that as much as peculiar they are to Africa, have positioned Africa in a global discourse and recognition.

Not that African Literature is assuming a new role in this ‘platform’ nomenclature or form, it has only become grandiose. It is bigger. African Writers are now all over the place, Publishing African Writers now is big business, writing is more, readers are more, dissemination is more, so is the discourse, so is the aesthetics and literariness.

Beyond the traditional and formal single view or perspective of discourses in African Literature about the social commentaries, there is more attention to the level of aesthetics and the literary characteristics that African Literature now presents. African Literature is now finding inter-textual relations and cross continental juxtapositions both in style, structures and the level content development. Detailed attention is now being placed on canonizing African Literature not only in the social and political contexts but on style, structures, beauty and deployments as works of art.

So, African Literature has evolved, It is not just stories of cultural, political, anthropological documentation of Africa anymore, it has become more, defining its writers also, their styles, their experiences and their capabilities to deliver all these in beautiful stories that span time and holds relevance for discourses on equal grounds in global Literature discourse anywhere anytime. African Literature has come to stay.

Book Review : Julius Bokoru’s ‘The Angel That Was Always There’

Memory is powerful; it is a very heavy burden that is not so easy to put down. Thanks to Literature, despite the painful remembrance, and occurrences that cloud Julius Bokoru’s mind, he was able to carefully paint a story of himself, his village and growing up, his losses and how he seeks identity even in the midst of family members, all these are featured in his faction novel ‘The Angel That Was Always There’.

The book reads like a bedtime story, it carries along the reader in an unwavering manner that completely wraps up in undivided attention. This book purges pity and mild feelings among others for the protagonist of the book Julius. And for people who grew up, lived or still live in Port Harcourt and Bayelsa State of Nigeria, the book is civil history at good notch, they should read it.

Julius Bokoru

Book Cover

Love triangle between a fierce village belle Hetty, the author’s mother, and Trust Bokoru and Jonah Donghahbeyi, Trust’s distant cousin. Hetty loves Trust, ends up with Jonah and his American charisma, but gets pregnant for Trust and Julius was born. With this plot, Julius narrates how his sets forth to find his father and gain acceptance among his half siblings, and the most sweet rendition of how he loves his mother and how her love for him is like that of an angel that watches over one. The sad and pity feeling sets in when Julius lost his mother and his quest for his father became more of a necessity than just familiarization.

This book paints romance in its local flavour, no hidden shadows. It employs journals as a means of memory and poetry as a tool of love. And I must say the book is bearing an Ijaw placard and it is completely Nigerian.

Books For March and The Others That Amuse Me – Oluwaseyi G. Abidoye

First I apologize for the lateness on publishing the reviews of the books I read in February. My day job became a big baby that needed more tending than what the sunlight does for the earth. I was crushed in between writing, reading and working, since the later pays the bills for now, it took the larger part of me.

I am still reading Marlon James’s The Brief History of Seven Killings, contrary to the title, the book is not brief, it is bulky, and I am yet to pass the 100th page. I find myself grappling with the language and that, is slowing down my reading process, also, the book requires a very retentive memory from the reader and that demands paying keen attention, so I put a page divider somewhere in the book. So ‘ama’ continue reading Marlon’s TBHOSK for the month of march.

About Okey Ndibe’s Foreign Gods, Inc. I really enjoyed the book, find my short review here.

Elnathan John’s Born on a Tuesday is an eye opener to me, as it should be for many. It recounts the story of Northern Nigeria in a manner which no one has attempted before. I can say the book is a handbook for understanding the typical life of an almajiri, their vulnerability, hopes and how they are neglected to sheer destiny, unguarded and weary. My review of it will come up in a few days from now.

THE OTHER THINGS

Rivers State of Nigeria is bubbling with political killings and threats of more killings among election campaign and other political activities. Indeed power has changed hands and like karma, what went around is about to come around. I am not reporting news, this is just a mental note to self, to be careful this weekend and mind my own steps, words and actions. The rerun election is coming up the 19th of March, 2016. I hope it will not be re-killings, re-ringings and re-contesting the results of the election.

I MADE A FRIEND

For the kind of job i do, making friends solely for business reasons is the only thing that comes to mind when the phrase ‘making friends’ is mentioned. Outside work, the friends I keep are my childhood friends, asides them, I have virtual friends too, on social media.  I guess everyone knows how that kind of friendship works, stalking, likes, tweets and re-tweets and the likes. nothing really personal. But this week, I made a formal attempt to turn one of my virtual friends into a buddy friends. Let us see how that works out.

MICROPOETRY

So, while surfing the web as usual, I stumbled on the term ‘micro-poetry’. It is a kind of poetry that favors short words and concise thoughts, I do not know how formal or acceptable this kind of poetry is yet, I am still reading up about it. But I can say that this poetry favors the lazy writer, who have problems with words and too many verbose expression. Micropoetry is spontaneous in formation and dissemination and it is being made popular by tweets and twitter’s 140 character attribute. So, I decided to try men hands at it, I formed two and here they are:

TINGLING EARS

My ears want to hear good news,

Only that the windy evil men do

Clouds the sound wave,

Still, I hear whispers of love and conquest.

BURNER

No, don’t touch me,

I am not fire, so you feel you can toy with me,

I am the ice that burns from the crown to the sole,

Tips and curves all round

I hope I tired, who will score me now. Chao!

Happy Me, Happy Reading – Oluwaseyi G. Abidoye

After what looks like a speed reading, I finished reading Foreign Gods Inc. in less than a week, sometimes I read during work hours and lunch break and in between mountains of work load. It is surprising what a five minutes reading break can do to a tired brain. After all, if I sum the hours I spent reading this book it is not up to 24 hours, that means i read up the book in less than a day. Phew! That is quite possible because the book is an interesting page turner.

And while I was settling down my brain systems, waiting for the delivery of my copy of Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings, the delivery guy called me to inform me that he will also be delivering a copy of Elnathan John’s Born On A Tuesday the next day. Happy me, jumping me. I took delivery of these books the next day and set out to read James Marlon as I proposed, but now, I am almost done with Elnathan John.

 

So it seems ama be reading three books this month, Foreign Gods Inc., A Brief History of Seven Killings and Born On A Tuesday. An improvement I think. And if anybody asks me, I am enjoying this experience. Watch out for short reviews of theses books in the coming week.

Books for February – Oluwaseyi G. Abidoye

I am happy I was able to meet up with my reading target for the month of January. I guess just knowing a few people are following this blog and patiently waiting for my writings is enough urge to finish reading the books (Things Fall Apart and Memoirs of a Geisha) I set out to read. Check my feedback and reviews on them here and here in the order listed above.

For the month of February, I will be reading Okey Nide’s Foreign Gods Inc. and James Marlon’s A Brief History of Seven Killings. I caught particular interest in these books while following the Ake Book and Arts Festival last year. I am going to be reading them both in paper form.

Image of A Brief History of Seven Killings courtesy of rnib.org.uk and image of Foreign Gods Inc. courtesy of amazon.com

THE MAN AND HIS BOOK – Abidoye Oluwaseyi Gideon

Inseparable from his classic, Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe can never be forgotten. He was clearly a man that walked on the rocks and took his time to etch his footprints on them. On Things Fall Apart, the simplicity and care he employed in the delivery of the story, yet not losing its underlying meaning, political, historical and cultural contextual essence is explicitly valuable and exemplary. The text has become a reference point for the mode of African prose delivery and experience.

Chinua made himself a world literary citizen. Even to generations unborn, Things Fall Apart would always be a right of passage into modern African Prose and Literature. His overwhelming influence and mark on the African literary world cannot be under emphasized.

On my last walk with him through the pages of There was A country, I endlessly imagined for several hours the great hope that laid in the hands of the educated Nigerian Youth during Achebe’s growing time. I can never stop to imagine that really, there was a country, Nigeria in her full glory and pride.

After the reading, i somehow reached a conclusion that Things Fall Apart grew out from the part of Achebe’s heart that loved his root, yet embraced the western culture. As a child he loved reading so much he had read most English Literature Classics for the fun of it… No wonder he finally gave Nwoye, Okonkwo’s son to the missionary,killed Okonkwo, and gave room for a new beginning.

Despite his embrace of western education, the African in him never took it well with Conrad’s description of Africans. In essence, Achebe abhorred discrimination, racism, and down to his roots in Nigeria, marginalization. On specific accounts, Achebe has fought for Africans, Nigeria and the Igbo nation. He seemed to have taken grounds to boldly stand for every layer of his black identity, right from the top, continental, to the bottom, local. Achebe was proud of his origin to the very end.

His loyalty to the African nation, Nigeria (when there was a country), Biafra & the entire Igbo nation is admirable, and undoubtedly courageous. More than a great loss to the entire world, Literature and Nigeria as a whole, Achebe is an irreplaceable great loss to the Igbo nation. In all that could have been written to describe him and his relations in this world, this words should also find a place among them, Chinua Achebe : A Man of His People, A Citizen of the World.