I have moved to http://toluogunlesi.wordpress.com/
New Tolu Ogunlesi BLOG
Adieu
10 months ago
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Friday, 16 January 2009
New Blog @ NEXT
Happy Nu Yr!
Breaking News: This writer has now officially moved! :-)
It's been a pleasure hovering around, eavesdropping on the 'meeting' between Fela and Abba...
I'm now blogging at NEXT
NEXT is the exciting new paper from Nigeria, published by the Pulitzer-winning journalist Dele Olojede, the first African-born winner of the Prize. Read about NEXT's launch here
I'll be writing a weekly blog for NEXT's website.
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 5 - You're invited to my party
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 4 - Song of a goat
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 3 - The melanin-spangled banner
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 2 - National distraction commission
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 1 - H.O.P.E Alliance
Breaking News: This writer has now officially moved! :-)
It's been a pleasure hovering around, eavesdropping on the 'meeting' between Fela and Abba...
I'm now blogging at NEXT
NEXT is the exciting new paper from Nigeria, published by the Pulitzer-winning journalist Dele Olojede, the first African-born winner of the Prize. Read about NEXT's launch here
I'll be writing a weekly blog for NEXT's website.
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 5 - You're invited to my party
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 4 - Song of a goat
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 3 - The melanin-spangled banner
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 2 - National distraction commission
Tolu Ogunlesi NEXT Blog 1 - H.O.P.E Alliance
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Happy New Year!
As the year comes to an end, enjoy a (very brief) selection of memorable (in my judgement, thank you!) photos taken by me in Scandinavia between September and November 2008 (my own imitation of a TIME Magazine Photos of the Year edition)
[PS. The Accenture photo, taken in Helsinki, is there 'cos I used to work with the Nigerian office of Accenture, I left in January 2008 to take up my current job in a mobile phone company...]
All images by Tolu Ogunlesi, (c) 2008
All images by Tolu Ogunlesi, (c) 2008
[PS. The Accenture photo, taken in Helsinki, is there 'cos I used to work with the Nigerian office of Accenture, I left in January 2008 to take up my current job in a mobile phone company...]
All images by Tolu Ogunlesi, (c) 2008
All images by Tolu Ogunlesi, (c) 2008
Tuesday, 16 December 2008
Tuesday, 9 December 2008
Notes from Uppsala [10] - To be continued...
Published in The Guardian Life Magazine (Sunday, December 07, 2008)
This will be the last of the Notes from Uppsala.
The varied wanderings – physical and mental – of the last three months have now come to an end, and it is time to embrace the life that I let go. Time to readmit the life of sweat and of cold baths and repudiate the one of snow, steaming breath and hot baths.
*
Wherever two or three Nigerians are gathered (outside Nigeria), ‘Nigeria’ insists on being in their midst – in their words, in the perplexed tenor of voices, the involuntary wringing of hands and shaking of heads – the silent listener provoking speech, the unacknowledged protagonist of all stories, the overbearing waka-pass in an impromptu (& purely absurdist) plot.
I spent my final Sunday evening as guest of a Nigerian family. The second Nigerian family to invite me to dinner in Uppsala. Away from home it is the closest one can get to home; sitting across a table from people who know – or knew – Nigeria from the inside; who despite packing their bags and leaving at some point, still allow themselves to face and to feel the wayward homeland.
At every such gathering of fatherlanders it is impossible to resist dwelling on the great African territory that owes its famous name to a British Dame.
A land that inspires, constructs, destroys and re-invents stories. All sorts of stories – the surreal, the merely comic, the tragic, the nostalgic, the brashly magical. As Nigerians we congregate in far-away lands to speak of (failed) politics, corruption, migration, of encounters with new cultures and new languages, of the negotiations of disparate (and often violent) forces that play in the many vacant spaces of the exiled mind. The recently-arrived are expected to regularly update their ‘seniors’ on the state of the green-and-white union.
There is plenty to laugh about, and to shake the head about. There is the air of undeclared contest – my story is bigger than yours!
And there is of course the food – the mention of pepper or an apology for its absence; the delight at seeing that garri and/or ogbono are not averse to exile; the possibility of abandoning fork and knife and settling for the flawlessness of painstakingly-washed fingers.
*
I spent the day before the Nigerian dinner enjoying another dinner. My Nigerian colleague (at the institute) and I were invited by another colleague (a Sri Lankan whose husband is Swedish) for dinner at their home in the Stockholm archipelago, about 15 minutes from the city centre. The area is what you might call the ‘Banana Island’ of Stockholm, with generously-gardened houses priced in the tens of millions of Swedish crowns. On the drive to her house she pointed out the houses of famous persons. Tiger Woods (whose wife is Swedish) has got a summer residence there. On a tiny island all by itself lies the home of one of the members of the famous Swedish musical group ABBA.
In the thick of winter, the sea, which lies only metres away from the twisting road, freezes over several inches and becomes a giant skating rink.
*
Someday, when I do a ‘Highlights of a Scandinavian Tour’ piece, certain experiences will stand out, one of which will be this:
Walking through the Uppsala cemetery one evening, in the dark, trying to see which tombs were Viking tombs amidst the sprawl of concrete slabs. The only available light was the weak, ghostly (no pun intended) one from the lanterns that burnt on some of the tombs (it was a few days after ‘All Saints Day’). It was so calm, so peaceful, that before my eyes ‘Requiescat In Pace’ seized for itself new meaning (or perhaps merely reclaimed the purity of its original meaning).
*
Perhaps I should just do a Top 5, or Top 6 countdown of most exciting experiences in Scandinavia:
Top on the list should be the 17-hour ferry trip from Finland (Helsinki) to Sweden (Stockholm).
Then there would be my guided tour of Oslo, worth every cent of the cost – starting from the Oslo City Hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually, to the Holmenkollen ski resort, to the Vigeland Sculpture Park to the Kon Tiki Museum to the Viking Ship Museum, and finally the newly-built glass wonder, the Oslo Opera House.
There would be Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s ‘Old City’, with its imposing entrance and quaint air and narrow walkways and tiny shops.
How can I forget Helsinki, wet, windy, gray city, with its bloody history and Stone Church (which played a role in the Biafran War) and colossal bookstore and a language so generous with vowels you can’t but wonder if consonants are not being victimised for some disguised complicity in the Swedish and Russian conquest of the country.
Oslo, hands folded in a gesture of perpetual apology; a plea for understanding, for being so self-effacing in the midst of so much wealth.
Copenhagen, city of bikers, joggers, and artificial lakes. And an elusive Little Mermaid.
Last but not least, Uppsala, the oversized University campus, suffocated by designer shops and famous graves, and watched over by the oldest church in the whole of Scandinavia.
Thank you for not swallowing me. Or at least for not forgetting to spew me out again.
This will be the last of the Notes from Uppsala.
The varied wanderings – physical and mental – of the last three months have now come to an end, and it is time to embrace the life that I let go. Time to readmit the life of sweat and of cold baths and repudiate the one of snow, steaming breath and hot baths.
*
Wherever two or three Nigerians are gathered (outside Nigeria), ‘Nigeria’ insists on being in their midst – in their words, in the perplexed tenor of voices, the involuntary wringing of hands and shaking of heads – the silent listener provoking speech, the unacknowledged protagonist of all stories, the overbearing waka-pass in an impromptu (& purely absurdist) plot.
I spent my final Sunday evening as guest of a Nigerian family. The second Nigerian family to invite me to dinner in Uppsala. Away from home it is the closest one can get to home; sitting across a table from people who know – or knew – Nigeria from the inside; who despite packing their bags and leaving at some point, still allow themselves to face and to feel the wayward homeland.
At every such gathering of fatherlanders it is impossible to resist dwelling on the great African territory that owes its famous name to a British Dame.
A land that inspires, constructs, destroys and re-invents stories. All sorts of stories – the surreal, the merely comic, the tragic, the nostalgic, the brashly magical. As Nigerians we congregate in far-away lands to speak of (failed) politics, corruption, migration, of encounters with new cultures and new languages, of the negotiations of disparate (and often violent) forces that play in the many vacant spaces of the exiled mind. The recently-arrived are expected to regularly update their ‘seniors’ on the state of the green-and-white union.
There is plenty to laugh about, and to shake the head about. There is the air of undeclared contest – my story is bigger than yours!
And there is of course the food – the mention of pepper or an apology for its absence; the delight at seeing that garri and/or ogbono are not averse to exile; the possibility of abandoning fork and knife and settling for the flawlessness of painstakingly-washed fingers.
*
I spent the day before the Nigerian dinner enjoying another dinner. My Nigerian colleague (at the institute) and I were invited by another colleague (a Sri Lankan whose husband is Swedish) for dinner at their home in the Stockholm archipelago, about 15 minutes from the city centre. The area is what you might call the ‘Banana Island’ of Stockholm, with generously-gardened houses priced in the tens of millions of Swedish crowns. On the drive to her house she pointed out the houses of famous persons. Tiger Woods (whose wife is Swedish) has got a summer residence there. On a tiny island all by itself lies the home of one of the members of the famous Swedish musical group ABBA.
In the thick of winter, the sea, which lies only metres away from the twisting road, freezes over several inches and becomes a giant skating rink.
*
Someday, when I do a ‘Highlights of a Scandinavian Tour’ piece, certain experiences will stand out, one of which will be this:
Walking through the Uppsala cemetery one evening, in the dark, trying to see which tombs were Viking tombs amidst the sprawl of concrete slabs. The only available light was the weak, ghostly (no pun intended) one from the lanterns that burnt on some of the tombs (it was a few days after ‘All Saints Day’). It was so calm, so peaceful, that before my eyes ‘Requiescat In Pace’ seized for itself new meaning (or perhaps merely reclaimed the purity of its original meaning).
*
Perhaps I should just do a Top 5, or Top 6 countdown of most exciting experiences in Scandinavia:
Top on the list should be the 17-hour ferry trip from Finland (Helsinki) to Sweden (Stockholm).
Then there would be my guided tour of Oslo, worth every cent of the cost – starting from the Oslo City Hall, where the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually, to the Holmenkollen ski resort, to the Vigeland Sculpture Park to the Kon Tiki Museum to the Viking Ship Museum, and finally the newly-built glass wonder, the Oslo Opera House.
There would be Gamla Stan, Stockholm’s ‘Old City’, with its imposing entrance and quaint air and narrow walkways and tiny shops.
How can I forget Helsinki, wet, windy, gray city, with its bloody history and Stone Church (which played a role in the Biafran War) and colossal bookstore and a language so generous with vowels you can’t but wonder if consonants are not being victimised for some disguised complicity in the Swedish and Russian conquest of the country.
Oslo, hands folded in a gesture of perpetual apology; a plea for understanding, for being so self-effacing in the midst of so much wealth.
Copenhagen, city of bikers, joggers, and artificial lakes. And an elusive Little Mermaid.
Last but not least, Uppsala, the oversized University campus, suffocated by designer shops and famous graves, and watched over by the oldest church in the whole of Scandinavia.
Thank you for not swallowing me. Or at least for not forgetting to spew me out again.
Thursday, 4 December 2008
Three Months Up North...
My short essay/ mini-travelogue Three months up North... has just appeared on the website of the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala, Sweden, my 'office'/Host Institution from September 1 to November 28, 2008.
You can read a similar end-of-residency essay by the Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo, inaugural Guest Writer (2001) at the Institute, here (Pages 40 and 41 of the pdf file)
You can read a similar end-of-residency essay by the Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aidoo, inaugural Guest Writer (2001) at the Institute, here (Pages 40 and 41 of the pdf file)
Tuesday, 2 December 2008
Notes from Uppsala [9] - Nigerianitis
Published in The Guardian (Lagos) Life Magazine (Sunday, November 30, 2008)
As I spend my (final) days trying to psychologically disengage from Sweden – it’s for my own good that I do this before I return to Lagos – I find myself thinking again and again about the life I left behind, and to which I will be returning in less than a week.
*
Accents are baggages that we carry on through life, unable to drop.
Actually, that wasn’t supposed to be an attempt at philosophical profundity. It was meant simply as an ordinary observation, open to rigorous questioning.
*
I think the statement is true in some ways and untrue in others. True in the sense that everyone has got an accent; as in, everyone has got to have an accent. Compulsory. Every time we step outside our ‘linguistic comfort zones’ our accents tag along, with or without our permission, compelling us to sometimes repeat words for the benefit of people who are not used to our ways of pronouncing (certain) words.
*
Untrue in the sense that people sometimes deliberately cultivate (i.e. drop and pick up at will) accents – at great personal cost of course. Or what else would you say to the case of a Nigerian who has never been outside the country for longer than 2 weeks at a time, but insists on speaking ‘American’ – or at least his/her idea of ‘American’ – and has to maintain the unintentionally comical (sometimes sickening) charade at all times. Chances are that if you turn on the radio in Nigeria, especially to one of those stations in love with phone-in programmes targeted at a young (hip) audience, you will hear all sorts of strange ‘Vocal Variations on a Theme of Americana’.
*
A few years ago I was asked by a Ugandan why I don’t/didn’t speak like a Nigerian? Whenever I get around to compiling the most baffling questions I have ever been asked, this will take a Top-10 position. How could anyone imagine that I do not speak like a Nigerian! I, who grew up in Abeokuta and Ibadan, archetypal Yoruba cities, and not in no-man’s-Land Lagos where one might assume that a ‘wannabe’ mentality reigns, the land where Money Talks, and where People-Talk-Like-Money. It took a while for me to realise what the Ugandan meant. It was all about Nollywood. As you are all aware, Nollywood is one of our greatest exports to the world, especially to other African countries. Kenyans, Ugandans, Ghanaians, South Africans, Zambians all adore our Omotolas and Genevieves and Ramsey Noahs as much as – if not more than – we do. The bulk of what these people therefore know about Nigeria comes from television; impressions piped in through Africa Magic and itinerant VCDs.
In this case the Ugandan had come to a conclusion that there is such a thing as a Nigerian Accent, and had approximated the voices he heard in our home videos into a ‘Nigerian Accent’.
*
There’s nothing wrong with thinking that way, or making such approximations!
Well, not exactly. There is a small problem, and it is this: Nollywood (I’m straying into potentially dangerous territory here) – at least the version of it that travels the farthest; the ones originally shot/recorded in English – is typically an Igbo phenomenon, set in Igboland or around Igbo characters, families, culture and customs. And (Achebean) proverbs.
This is where the Ugandan must have got it wrong. What he had approximated into a Nigerian accent was no more than the Igbo Nigerian accent. There is of course the Yoruba Nigerian accent, and the Hausa one, amongst many others – don’t we all know how many Naija comedians would go out of business if a ban were to be placed on Hausa-Yoruba-Igbo accent jokes?
*
I have just finished watching (on YouTube of course, where else?) a series of comedy sketches by the British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili, on a phenomenon newly discovered by him, called “Nigerianitis”.
He defines Nigerianitis as follows:
1. “It’s when you feel slightly emotional, and a Nigerian voice just shoots out of you involuntarily”
2. “A [Nigerian] voice that shoots out of [you] for no reason”
By these definitions it is obvious that Nigerianitis is not an syndrome that afflicts/affects Nigerians. Only non-Nigerians are at risk of contracting it.
Omid singles out “Nigerian Traffic Wardens” (in England) as a set of people who inspire (rouse, arouse, instigate) demonstrations of (the symptoms of) Nigerianitis in foreigners. He talks of the wardens speaking in “unnecessarily eloquent language” (“unnecessary” because they are traffic wardens, not University Professors), and advises that in dealing with them it is important for non-Nigerians to “shout back” (and hiss and make noises like ‘Aha!’) at them in the most Nigerian accent they can muster.
*
Snow has finally reared its frozen head. The last few days have seen non-stop snowing that has left a layer of shin-high soft white ‘powder’ everywhere. Temperatures hover around minus-five degrees centigrade, but I’ve been told that in the past they have gone as low as minus-twenty.
I’ll be out of here (and languishing in temperatures of 30+ degrees) before that happens!
View photos and leave comments at http://www.felameetsabba.blogspot.com/
As I spend my (final) days trying to psychologically disengage from Sweden – it’s for my own good that I do this before I return to Lagos – I find myself thinking again and again about the life I left behind, and to which I will be returning in less than a week.
*
Accents are baggages that we carry on through life, unable to drop.
Actually, that wasn’t supposed to be an attempt at philosophical profundity. It was meant simply as an ordinary observation, open to rigorous questioning.
*
I think the statement is true in some ways and untrue in others. True in the sense that everyone has got an accent; as in, everyone has got to have an accent. Compulsory. Every time we step outside our ‘linguistic comfort zones’ our accents tag along, with or without our permission, compelling us to sometimes repeat words for the benefit of people who are not used to our ways of pronouncing (certain) words.
*
Untrue in the sense that people sometimes deliberately cultivate (i.e. drop and pick up at will) accents – at great personal cost of course. Or what else would you say to the case of a Nigerian who has never been outside the country for longer than 2 weeks at a time, but insists on speaking ‘American’ – or at least his/her idea of ‘American’ – and has to maintain the unintentionally comical (sometimes sickening) charade at all times. Chances are that if you turn on the radio in Nigeria, especially to one of those stations in love with phone-in programmes targeted at a young (hip) audience, you will hear all sorts of strange ‘Vocal Variations on a Theme of Americana’.
*
A few years ago I was asked by a Ugandan why I don’t/didn’t speak like a Nigerian? Whenever I get around to compiling the most baffling questions I have ever been asked, this will take a Top-10 position. How could anyone imagine that I do not speak like a Nigerian! I, who grew up in Abeokuta and Ibadan, archetypal Yoruba cities, and not in no-man’s-Land Lagos where one might assume that a ‘wannabe’ mentality reigns, the land where Money Talks, and where People-Talk-Like-Money. It took a while for me to realise what the Ugandan meant. It was all about Nollywood. As you are all aware, Nollywood is one of our greatest exports to the world, especially to other African countries. Kenyans, Ugandans, Ghanaians, South Africans, Zambians all adore our Omotolas and Genevieves and Ramsey Noahs as much as – if not more than – we do. The bulk of what these people therefore know about Nigeria comes from television; impressions piped in through Africa Magic and itinerant VCDs.
In this case the Ugandan had come to a conclusion that there is such a thing as a Nigerian Accent, and had approximated the voices he heard in our home videos into a ‘Nigerian Accent’.
*
There’s nothing wrong with thinking that way, or making such approximations!
Well, not exactly. There is a small problem, and it is this: Nollywood (I’m straying into potentially dangerous territory here) – at least the version of it that travels the farthest; the ones originally shot/recorded in English – is typically an Igbo phenomenon, set in Igboland or around Igbo characters, families, culture and customs. And (Achebean) proverbs.
This is where the Ugandan must have got it wrong. What he had approximated into a Nigerian accent was no more than the Igbo Nigerian accent. There is of course the Yoruba Nigerian accent, and the Hausa one, amongst many others – don’t we all know how many Naija comedians would go out of business if a ban were to be placed on Hausa-Yoruba-Igbo accent jokes?
*
I have just finished watching (on YouTube of course, where else?) a series of comedy sketches by the British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili, on a phenomenon newly discovered by him, called “Nigerianitis”.
He defines Nigerianitis as follows:
1. “It’s when you feel slightly emotional, and a Nigerian voice just shoots out of you involuntarily”
2. “A [Nigerian] voice that shoots out of [you] for no reason”
By these definitions it is obvious that Nigerianitis is not an syndrome that afflicts/affects Nigerians. Only non-Nigerians are at risk of contracting it.
Omid singles out “Nigerian Traffic Wardens” (in England) as a set of people who inspire (rouse, arouse, instigate) demonstrations of (the symptoms of) Nigerianitis in foreigners. He talks of the wardens speaking in “unnecessarily eloquent language” (“unnecessary” because they are traffic wardens, not University Professors), and advises that in dealing with them it is important for non-Nigerians to “shout back” (and hiss and make noises like ‘Aha!’) at them in the most Nigerian accent they can muster.
*
Snow has finally reared its frozen head. The last few days have seen non-stop snowing that has left a layer of shin-high soft white ‘powder’ everywhere. Temperatures hover around minus-five degrees centigrade, but I’ve been told that in the past they have gone as low as minus-twenty.
I’ll be out of here (and languishing in temperatures of 30+ degrees) before that happens!
View photos and leave comments at http://www.felameetsabba.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Lunch Poetry @ Uppsala Missionskyrka (Thur, 27 Nov, 2008)
Tomorrow (Thursday) at lunch hour (12 noon) I will be hosted by a gathering of Uppsala poets who meet weekly at the Missionskyrka (Mission Church), located at the intersection of Dragarbrunnsgatan and St Olofsgatan. Bernt Jonsson will be reading Swedish translations of two of my poems, while I will read in English, as well as share with the audience some 'deep spiritual stuff' from Fela's oeuvre.
Lunch poetry with Tolu Ogunlesi
Lunch poetry with Tolu Ogunlesi
Images from Helsinki - Temppeliaukio Church / Temppeliaukion Kirkko (BIAFRA'S CHURCH)
Temppeliaukio Church is the ‘stone church’ (it was hewn out of solid rock) in Helsinki on whose wall the word B-I-A-F-R-A was graffitied (during its construction in the late 1960s) by young Finns trying to draw the world’s attention to the horrendous starvation that characterised the Nigerian Civil War (more famously known as the Biafra War).
NB. The close-up shots of rock below (3rd and 4th photos from the top) show where the slogans of BIAFRA were spray-painted.
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
NB. The close-up shots of rock below (3rd and 4th photos from the top) show where the slogans of BIAFRA were spray-painted.
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
Monday, 24 November 2008
Images from Oslo - Opera House
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
Wednesday, 19 November 2008
In Helsinki Times...
Helsinki Times is the first weekly English language newspaper in Finland. My article - A VISIT TO FINLAND - appears in the latest edition, in the "EXPAT VIEW" column. It's online here
I was in Helsinki in late October for the 2008 Helsinki Book Fair
I was in Helsinki in late October for the 2008 Helsinki Book Fair
A debt to Uppsala...
As I prepare to leave (these days I somehow manage to start every sentence of mine with that phrase), I think I ought to give something back to Uppsala for all generous love it has given to me, and for the sun and snow it has so selfishly withheld.
Perhaps I will have to return to Lagos first, to put enough distance betwixt myself and this lovely city that has been home for 3 months, before I can attempt to embark on any such creative 'philanthropy'...
While I muse over what Uppsala has meant to me, and while I pray desperately that I shall not have to pay for overweight luggage at the airport when I leave in a little over a week from now, I will share a poem... my gift to Paris after a (forced) 24 hour sojourn there in February 2005...
* 'forced' because Paris was not meant to host me... I was there only to catch a connecting flight to Lagos. I ended up missing the flight, ended up having to spend a night...
PARIS
You look at one another with
measured smiles, pursed lips
or Absolute Hesitations
and speak with your eyes
above the din of your skins
in conversations of many frequencies.
there's the disappointment
that comes when French falls
through the teeth of a kinsman
and you think –
another nigger down.
And there's the Enlightenment
of discovering
that not every black man is
from the country
you left behind.
you glance at one another
in rituals of Suspicion
wondering who's legal
and who smells
of impending deportation
Paris is the City
where you speak the slowest,
like a stammerer,
to avoid tangling your tongue.
the City where
you find your way
around the fastest
despite their speaking
in tongues.
Tolu Ogunlesi (c) 2006
Originally published in Sentinel Poetry #49 (4th Anniversary Issue), here
Perhaps I will have to return to Lagos first, to put enough distance betwixt myself and this lovely city that has been home for 3 months, before I can attempt to embark on any such creative 'philanthropy'...
While I muse over what Uppsala has meant to me, and while I pray desperately that I shall not have to pay for overweight luggage at the airport when I leave in a little over a week from now, I will share a poem... my gift to Paris after a (forced) 24 hour sojourn there in February 2005...
* 'forced' because Paris was not meant to host me... I was there only to catch a connecting flight to Lagos. I ended up missing the flight, ended up having to spend a night...
PARIS
You look at one another with
measured smiles, pursed lips
or Absolute Hesitations
and speak with your eyes
above the din of your skins
in conversations of many frequencies.
there's the disappointment
that comes when French falls
through the teeth of a kinsman
and you think –
another nigger down.
And there's the Enlightenment
of discovering
that not every black man is
from the country
you left behind.
you glance at one another
in rituals of Suspicion
wondering who's legal
and who smells
of impending deportation
Paris is the City
where you speak the slowest,
like a stammerer,
to avoid tangling your tongue.
the City where
you find your way
around the fastest
despite their speaking
in tongues.
Tolu Ogunlesi (c) 2006
Originally published in Sentinel Poetry #49 (4th Anniversary Issue), here
Tuesday, 18 November 2008
Things Fall Apart @ 50 in Uppsala, Sweden
The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala invites you to a discussion on
Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a milestone in African literature, and the 50 years’ anniversary since its publication has been the topic of many conferences and seminars. Now the turn has come to Uppsala. Both Africa and African literature has undergone many changes since 1958, but this book still hangs on as the classic number one. It has been translated to 50 languages, for thousands and thousands of African school children it has been prescribed reading, it has not once been out of print. We will discuss such questions as why is this book about the meeting between the Igbo people and the colonisers still a classic? What did the book mean for the African novel? What does it mean today for writers and readers in Nigeria? Why has it not yet been translated to Igbo?
These and other questions will be discussed by Stefan Helgesson, literature scholar and literature critic, and Tolu Ogunlesi, a young Nigerian writer, presently ending his 3-month grant as African guest writer at the Nordic Africa Institute.
The event is part of the series “The Writers’ Africa”.
Welcome!
Venue: The Nordic Africa Institute (Library), Kungsgatan 38, Uppsala
Date and time: Thursday 20 November 2008, 18.00-20.00. (Note the library is open until 18.00, welcome to browse!)
Mai PalmbergCoordinator for the ”Cultural Images in and of Africa” research programme
Nordic Africa Institute
Things Fall Apart
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a milestone in African literature, and the 50 years’ anniversary since its publication has been the topic of many conferences and seminars. Now the turn has come to Uppsala. Both Africa and African literature has undergone many changes since 1958, but this book still hangs on as the classic number one. It has been translated to 50 languages, for thousands and thousands of African school children it has been prescribed reading, it has not once been out of print. We will discuss such questions as why is this book about the meeting between the Igbo people and the colonisers still a classic? What did the book mean for the African novel? What does it mean today for writers and readers in Nigeria? Why has it not yet been translated to Igbo?
These and other questions will be discussed by Stefan Helgesson, literature scholar and literature critic, and Tolu Ogunlesi, a young Nigerian writer, presently ending his 3-month grant as African guest writer at the Nordic Africa Institute.
The event is part of the series “The Writers’ Africa”.
Welcome!
Venue: The Nordic Africa Institute (Library), Kungsgatan 38, Uppsala
Date and time: Thursday 20 November 2008, 18.00-20.00. (Note the library is open until 18.00, welcome to browse!)
Mai PalmbergCoordinator for the ”Cultural Images in and of Africa” research programme
Nordic Africa Institute
Images from Oslo - Viking Ship Museum
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
All images (c) Tolu Ogunlesi, 2008
Sunday, 16 November 2008
Op-Ed - We Must Set Forth At Midnight
My article We Must Set Forth At Midnight (title borrowed from Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka's memoir, YOU MUST SET FORTH AT DAWN appears in The Guardian (Nigeria) - Sunday November 16 - here.
* Apologies for the dodgy formatting (creative line breaks) of the piece - 'website devil' it must be...
* Apologies for the dodgy formatting (creative line breaks) of the piece - 'website devil' it must be...
Notes from Uppsala [8] - Counting Down
Published in The Guardian (Lagos) Life Magazine (Sunday, November 16, 2008)
***
My days in Uppsala are slowly grinding to an end (slightly faster however than the wheels of justice). There are many things I’ll miss about this University Town of about 200,000 residents.
*
The only thing I’ll be fortunate to miss (very narrowly) will be the worst of winter. It has snowed once, one Friday evening, a few weeks ago. Perhaps it will snow again before I leave. But the dark days are here, nightfall at 4pm, which has not been as disorienting as I’d assumed it’s be. The mind always gets fooled of course, but there is always the clock to give my sense of chronological balance a helpful jolt.
I’ll miss the forty-minute train ride to and from Stockholm for sightseeing – a lot of my time in Stockholm is actually spent no farther than the Central Station, wandering through the intimidating array of magazines stocked at Pressbyran or browsing through paperbacks at the Pocket Shop.
*
“Sweden is a lovely place with a strong work/life balance culture”
That’s from an email someone sent to me on learning that I was in Sweden.
Many companies (multinationals especially) in Nigeria like to go on and on in a nebulous manner about “work-life balance.” They need to come over to Sweden to see that “work-life balance” is a “life”, not a discussion topic; an “end” and not merely a means to an end.
*
Alas, three months here will not be enough to convert me to the “Lunch at Noon, Dinner at 5pm” religion.
*
I don’t look forward very much to returning to the crazy traffic, the noisy generators, the utter impossibility of anonymity (the kind that I have so nicely settled into here). But go back I will, to the life I know best, the one I have spent the longest experiencing.
*
In the two weeks or so I have my work cut out. Shopping. And more shopping. Or perhaps it will merely be window-shopping.
I have two readings in my last week, one at a gathering of Uppsala poets who meet once a week at the Mission Church, the other at the English Bookstore in Uppsala.
And then there is a last bout of sightseeing to be done.
Tentative plans: A boat trip to the Swedish archipelago, a visit to Swedish furniture giant IKEA, and then to Uppsala’s museums.
Perhaps a night club outing (hoping to God that the songs are in English!). But I know that, on the premise of Newton’s fourth Law of Motion – “White Men Can’t Dance” – I’ll feel far more comfortable flailing my arms and twisting my ankles in a Swedish club than in a Nigerian one.
*
There will be the list of regrets (hopefully not “highway long”) – I’d have loved to travel more around Sweden, away from the Big Cities and University Cities, to get a feel of rural Swedish Life.
I haven’t yet had a taste of Glögg and aquavit, traditional Swedish liquor.
I had hoped to visit a Volvo factory, but that doesn’t look likely any more.
I keep forgetting that I have been meaning to rent a bike.
The much dreamed about photo-shoot with the Swedish Royal Family doesn’t look too feasible anymore.
*
I will miss the Chinese Garden, where I spend the occasional afternoon tucking into an inexpensive (by Nigerian standards) buffet, musing on the fact that Chinese restaurants in Lagos are typically elitist establishments, meant as markers and maintainers of class in a society where people like to entrench separateness between themselves and other people on the basis of the expenses they make.
*
The anonymity is for me the most appealing thing. But it is a strange form of anonymity, a felt (internalised) anonymity – on the basis of skin color alone it is the farthest thing from anonymity; nothing stands out more than the color black in a world of white skins and pristine snow – but unless you are an illegal immigrant there is a feeling that in this strange land no one knows you, there is no one to offer unsolicited advice, no obligatory aso-ebis to buy.
Uppsala I assume is one of those few places left on the face of the earth where a Nigerian can still feel fairly anonymous. You try that in London!
***
My days in Uppsala are slowly grinding to an end (slightly faster however than the wheels of justice). There are many things I’ll miss about this University Town of about 200,000 residents.
*
The only thing I’ll be fortunate to miss (very narrowly) will be the worst of winter. It has snowed once, one Friday evening, a few weeks ago. Perhaps it will snow again before I leave. But the dark days are here, nightfall at 4pm, which has not been as disorienting as I’d assumed it’s be. The mind always gets fooled of course, but there is always the clock to give my sense of chronological balance a helpful jolt.
I’ll miss the forty-minute train ride to and from Stockholm for sightseeing – a lot of my time in Stockholm is actually spent no farther than the Central Station, wandering through the intimidating array of magazines stocked at Pressbyran or browsing through paperbacks at the Pocket Shop.
*
“Sweden is a lovely place with a strong work/life balance culture”
That’s from an email someone sent to me on learning that I was in Sweden.
Many companies (multinationals especially) in Nigeria like to go on and on in a nebulous manner about “work-life balance.” They need to come over to Sweden to see that “work-life balance” is a “life”, not a discussion topic; an “end” and not merely a means to an end.
*
Alas, three months here will not be enough to convert me to the “Lunch at Noon, Dinner at 5pm” religion.
*
I don’t look forward very much to returning to the crazy traffic, the noisy generators, the utter impossibility of anonymity (the kind that I have so nicely settled into here). But go back I will, to the life I know best, the one I have spent the longest experiencing.
*
In the two weeks or so I have my work cut out. Shopping. And more shopping. Or perhaps it will merely be window-shopping.
I have two readings in my last week, one at a gathering of Uppsala poets who meet once a week at the Mission Church, the other at the English Bookstore in Uppsala.
And then there is a last bout of sightseeing to be done.
Tentative plans: A boat trip to the Swedish archipelago, a visit to Swedish furniture giant IKEA, and then to Uppsala’s museums.
Perhaps a night club outing (hoping to God that the songs are in English!). But I know that, on the premise of Newton’s fourth Law of Motion – “White Men Can’t Dance” – I’ll feel far more comfortable flailing my arms and twisting my ankles in a Swedish club than in a Nigerian one.
*
There will be the list of regrets (hopefully not “highway long”) – I’d have loved to travel more around Sweden, away from the Big Cities and University Cities, to get a feel of rural Swedish Life.
I haven’t yet had a taste of Glögg and aquavit, traditional Swedish liquor.
I had hoped to visit a Volvo factory, but that doesn’t look likely any more.
I keep forgetting that I have been meaning to rent a bike.
The much dreamed about photo-shoot with the Swedish Royal Family doesn’t look too feasible anymore.
*
I will miss the Chinese Garden, where I spend the occasional afternoon tucking into an inexpensive (by Nigerian standards) buffet, musing on the fact that Chinese restaurants in Lagos are typically elitist establishments, meant as markers and maintainers of class in a society where people like to entrench separateness between themselves and other people on the basis of the expenses they make.
*
The anonymity is for me the most appealing thing. But it is a strange form of anonymity, a felt (internalised) anonymity – on the basis of skin color alone it is the farthest thing from anonymity; nothing stands out more than the color black in a world of white skins and pristine snow – but unless you are an illegal immigrant there is a feeling that in this strange land no one knows you, there is no one to offer unsolicited advice, no obligatory aso-ebis to buy.
Uppsala I assume is one of those few places left on the face of the earth where a Nigerian can still feel fairly anonymous. You try that in London!
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
Sunday, 9 November 2008
Notes from Uppsala [7] - Mixing Races
Written before the historic Elections that brought Barack Obama to power, and published in the Guardian Life magazine (Sunday, November 9, 2008),
By the time you read this, the United States of America will have a new President. I believe it will be Barack Obama Jr., son of a Kenyan father and an American mother. Barack Obama Sr. left home and family behind to travel to America in search of an education, perhaps a new life. He met Ann Dunham at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, while they were both students there. Not long after, Sen. Obama was born.
*
It is a story that many will be familiar with. In the forties and fifties shiploads of Nigerians regularly set sail from Lagos, headed for colonial Britain’s Universities (and to a lesser extent America – Nnamdi Azikiwe being one of the more famous examples of Nigerian students in America). In the sixties and seventies Russia, Hungary, Poland and other Communist (Eastern European) countries joined the list of destination countries for young Nigerians seeking certificates for a better life. These opportunities were the fallout of the Cold War; it must have dawned on the Imperial Powers that the Cold War was not merely a battle for military supremacy, it was also a battle for the minds of men and women, and Africa was virgin ground, waiting to be taken. So that they turned on Africa and lavished it with scholarships and exchange programs.
*
It was inevitable that many of the young Nigerians who left would fall in love with women from their host countries – like Barack Obama Sr. Some came back home with their (new) families. Others chose to stay behind. Today, in and out of Nigeria there are sizeable communities of “half-castes” (that word is now ‘Politically Incorrect’) of Nigerian origin.
*
Many Ghanaians moved to Nigerians in the seventies and early eighties escaping political and economic turmoil in their country. By the early eighties there was a sizeable Ghanaian population in Nigeria, working at all sorts of jobs, from blue collar jobs ones like shoe-mending to white collar ones like teaching. Most of my primary school teachers were Ghanaians, and they were such excellent teachers it seemed like God had created them specially for that purpose. In 1983 we asked them to leave (see Ghana-must-go). They did. But I’d like to imagine that in the years they spent here, they fell in love with and/or married Nigerian women, and had children, and that there is a sizeable population of Ghanaian-Nigerians, or Nigerian-Ghanaians (take your pick) scattered between Nigeria (those who stayed) and Ghana (those who left).
Interestingly, years before we asked the Ghanaians to leave, they asked us to. In 1969 Ghana deported 50,000 Nigerian migrants, for “economic reasons.” And today, Nigerians are again moving in droves to Ghana, to take advantage of a country where things work better, where there are more possibilities than the one they left behind.
*
A significant number of Koreans moved to Japan during the 2nd World War, and have lived there since (even though they still remain largely as second-class citizens, due to the fact that Japan is (in the words of the New York Times) a “homogenous and insular nation… notoriously unwelcoming to immigrants…”
But once upon a time even the “notoriously unwelcoming’ Japanese had to “move”. I was surprised to discover that the largest Japanese population outside of Japan is found not in a neighbouring Asian country, not even in America –“Home to Everyone” (where there are about 1.2 million Japanese – 2005 figures) – but in Brazil. There are an estimated 1.5 million people of Japanese descent living in Brazil, descendants of the thousands of Japanese who have been traveling to Japan since the Brazil-Japan Immigration Treaty of 1907 permitted the Japanese to seek work on Brazil’s coffee plantations – the same plantations to which millions of Africans were forcefully shipped during the transatlantic Slave Trade.
*
About 6% of Finland’s current population is made up of people known as “Swedish-speaking Finns”, (the percentage has actually fallen to this figure over the centuries) their origins can be traced to the time when Finland used to be a part of Sweden, before the Russian conquest of 1809.
*
A while ago I wrote about the following exchange between myself and an American postgraduate student that I met here in Uppsala:
Him: "Did you know that in Liberia Nigerians are treated as God?"
Me: “Yeah, ECOMOG...”
Him: “And did you know that there is a village (in Liberia) full of half-Liberian half-Nigerian children…”
Me: [laughing] “Yeah... “
It’s a joke even in Nigeria, about the sizeable number of Nigerian-Liberian children in Liberia, whose fathers happen to be Nigerian soldiers.
*
I can’t help ending the way I started, with Barack Obama.
In 2006, on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he said: "Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations... I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher... we've got it all."
By the time you read this, the United States of America will have a new President. I believe it will be Barack Obama Jr., son of a Kenyan father and an American mother. Barack Obama Sr. left home and family behind to travel to America in search of an education, perhaps a new life. He met Ann Dunham at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, while they were both students there. Not long after, Sen. Obama was born.
*
It is a story that many will be familiar with. In the forties and fifties shiploads of Nigerians regularly set sail from Lagos, headed for colonial Britain’s Universities (and to a lesser extent America – Nnamdi Azikiwe being one of the more famous examples of Nigerian students in America). In the sixties and seventies Russia, Hungary, Poland and other Communist (Eastern European) countries joined the list of destination countries for young Nigerians seeking certificates for a better life. These opportunities were the fallout of the Cold War; it must have dawned on the Imperial Powers that the Cold War was not merely a battle for military supremacy, it was also a battle for the minds of men and women, and Africa was virgin ground, waiting to be taken. So that they turned on Africa and lavished it with scholarships and exchange programs.
*
It was inevitable that many of the young Nigerians who left would fall in love with women from their host countries – like Barack Obama Sr. Some came back home with their (new) families. Others chose to stay behind. Today, in and out of Nigeria there are sizeable communities of “half-castes” (that word is now ‘Politically Incorrect’) of Nigerian origin.
*
Many Ghanaians moved to Nigerians in the seventies and early eighties escaping political and economic turmoil in their country. By the early eighties there was a sizeable Ghanaian population in Nigeria, working at all sorts of jobs, from blue collar jobs ones like shoe-mending to white collar ones like teaching. Most of my primary school teachers were Ghanaians, and they were such excellent teachers it seemed like God had created them specially for that purpose. In 1983 we asked them to leave (see Ghana-must-go). They did. But I’d like to imagine that in the years they spent here, they fell in love with and/or married Nigerian women, and had children, and that there is a sizeable population of Ghanaian-Nigerians, or Nigerian-Ghanaians (take your pick) scattered between Nigeria (those who stayed) and Ghana (those who left).
Interestingly, years before we asked the Ghanaians to leave, they asked us to. In 1969 Ghana deported 50,000 Nigerian migrants, for “economic reasons.” And today, Nigerians are again moving in droves to Ghana, to take advantage of a country where things work better, where there are more possibilities than the one they left behind.
*
A significant number of Koreans moved to Japan during the 2nd World War, and have lived there since (even though they still remain largely as second-class citizens, due to the fact that Japan is (in the words of the New York Times) a “homogenous and insular nation… notoriously unwelcoming to immigrants…”
But once upon a time even the “notoriously unwelcoming’ Japanese had to “move”. I was surprised to discover that the largest Japanese population outside of Japan is found not in a neighbouring Asian country, not even in America –“Home to Everyone” (where there are about 1.2 million Japanese – 2005 figures) – but in Brazil. There are an estimated 1.5 million people of Japanese descent living in Brazil, descendants of the thousands of Japanese who have been traveling to Japan since the Brazil-Japan Immigration Treaty of 1907 permitted the Japanese to seek work on Brazil’s coffee plantations – the same plantations to which millions of Africans were forcefully shipped during the transatlantic Slave Trade.
*
About 6% of Finland’s current population is made up of people known as “Swedish-speaking Finns”, (the percentage has actually fallen to this figure over the centuries) their origins can be traced to the time when Finland used to be a part of Sweden, before the Russian conquest of 1809.
*
A while ago I wrote about the following exchange between myself and an American postgraduate student that I met here in Uppsala:
Him: "Did you know that in Liberia Nigerians are treated as God?"
Me: “Yeah, ECOMOG...”
Him: “And did you know that there is a village (in Liberia) full of half-Liberian half-Nigerian children…”
Me: [laughing] “Yeah... “
It’s a joke even in Nigeria, about the sizeable number of Nigerian-Liberian children in Liberia, whose fathers happen to be Nigerian soldiers.
*
I can’t help ending the way I started, with Barack Obama.
In 2006, on The Oprah Winfrey Show, he said: "Michelle will tell you that when we get together for Christmas or Thanksgiving, it's like a little mini-United Nations... I've got relatives who look like Bernie Mac, and I've got relatives who look like Margaret Thatcher... we've got it all."
Thursday, 6 November 2008
On Religion and Soccer (for lack of a better title)
Update (07 November)
Thanks Waffy for 'reminding' me that actually, Lagos is no longer the capital of Nigeria.
Hey, folks, that was a (Freudian?) slip. I take all the responsibility for it.
Lagos stopped being the administrative capital of Nigeria in 1991, when the then President Babangida moved the seat of Government to Abuja (wiki)
But in a sense it remains the defacto commercial capital, and of course the most populated. And it's where I live. The (personal) question I get asked the most here is "So where in Nigeria do you live?" to which I answer, LAGOS. So somehow I must have answered the Kebab guy below with the same confidence, without thinking about what exactly it was he was asking me.
And then I went ahead to blog, still without thinking about it (Note to self: Do Not, Ever Again, Blog After Midnight!).
This error suddenly makes me feel like I'm Sarah Palin...
For the purposes of this blog, I think I might leave the exchange below as it is. But please, for the purposes of history and history lessons, Lagos is no longer the capital of Nigeria. It is only where I live...
I'm off to find the Kebab guy to admit my error...
***
I'm on the last lap of my tour of duty...
I don't want to think about it, about how much I'll miss this life, these cities, quaint Uppsala, big city Stockholm, how I'll miss getting lost in the midst of these people whose language I cannot speak, miss stopping people to ask for directions and having to quickly say "English, English" when they start talking to me in Swedish, miss the kebab joints and 'Chinese garden' and being stuck with BBC world...
But now's not the time to dwell on memories...
Yesterday evening I went to a kebab place. The guy at the counter, of Middle Eastern origin started to speak Swedish to me.
"English, English" I said. He complied. I made my order. Then he asked me where I was from.
Nigeria, I told him.
The capital of Nigeria is what?
Lagos.* (see Update)
Ah, Lah-gos...
*
...so are there both Christians and Muslims in Nigeria?
Yes.
In equal numbers?
Well, there seem to be more Muslims than Christians, I say. (At least that's what I think)
But all your football players are Christian, eh?
Well... most...
*
(I want to explain that most of Nigeria's soccer superstars are Igbos, from South Eastern Nigeria, and that the Igbo are mostly Christians - Catholics to be precise. I want to further explain that I can't recall having ever met a Muslim Igbo, even though I'm sure they exist...)
But this is not seminar session on 'Religion, Geography and Soccer in Nigeria: A critical appraisal'
Then he starts to reel out names of Nigerian soccer players:
The usual suspects - Kanu Nwankwo, JJ Okocha ("the guy at Bolton" is what he says as he tries to recall the name), Julius Aghahowa, Sunday Oliseh, "Uche" (he's forgotten the surname)...
When he says 'Uche' I suggest 'Uche Okafor', which I think he hears as 'Kuffour' because he immediately tells me that Kuffour is from Ghana.
I marvel at his knowledge of Nigerian players, and he tells me that he's a fanatic, and even apologises that his knowledge has diminished over time...
It's somewhat refreshing to be away from literary circles for once, where the first question I am asked always has something to do with Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka.
*
Just before I leave (after eating) I walk up to him to ask where he's from.
He hesitates for a moment, then speaks.
"Let's talk later" he says "It's complicated"
Complicated? I leave almost scratching my head. How complicated can it be? As complicated as the "it's complicated" of Facebook?
I guess he's right. The Identity Question always manages to be one of the most complicated in the world... ask Barack Obama for further details...
Thanks Waffy for 'reminding' me that actually, Lagos is no longer the capital of Nigeria.
Hey, folks, that was a (Freudian?) slip. I take all the responsibility for it.
Lagos stopped being the administrative capital of Nigeria in 1991, when the then President Babangida moved the seat of Government to Abuja (wiki)
But in a sense it remains the defacto commercial capital, and of course the most populated. And it's where I live. The (personal) question I get asked the most here is "So where in Nigeria do you live?" to which I answer, LAGOS. So somehow I must have answered the Kebab guy below with the same confidence, without thinking about what exactly it was he was asking me.
And then I went ahead to blog, still without thinking about it (Note to self: Do Not, Ever Again, Blog After Midnight!).
This error suddenly makes me feel like I'm Sarah Palin...
For the purposes of this blog, I think I might leave the exchange below as it is. But please, for the purposes of history and history lessons, Lagos is no longer the capital of Nigeria. It is only where I live...
I'm off to find the Kebab guy to admit my error...
***
I'm on the last lap of my tour of duty...
I don't want to think about it, about how much I'll miss this life, these cities, quaint Uppsala, big city Stockholm, how I'll miss getting lost in the midst of these people whose language I cannot speak, miss stopping people to ask for directions and having to quickly say "English, English" when they start talking to me in Swedish, miss the kebab joints and 'Chinese garden' and being stuck with BBC world...
But now's not the time to dwell on memories...
Yesterday evening I went to a kebab place. The guy at the counter, of Middle Eastern origin started to speak Swedish to me.
"English, English" I said. He complied. I made my order. Then he asked me where I was from.
Nigeria, I told him.
The capital of Nigeria is what?
Lagos.* (see Update)
Ah, Lah-gos...
*
...so are there both Christians and Muslims in Nigeria?
Yes.
In equal numbers?
Well, there seem to be more Muslims than Christians, I say. (At least that's what I think)
But all your football players are Christian, eh?
Well... most...
*
(I want to explain that most of Nigeria's soccer superstars are Igbos, from South Eastern Nigeria, and that the Igbo are mostly Christians - Catholics to be precise. I want to further explain that I can't recall having ever met a Muslim Igbo, even though I'm sure they exist...)
But this is not seminar session on 'Religion, Geography and Soccer in Nigeria: A critical appraisal'
Then he starts to reel out names of Nigerian soccer players:
The usual suspects - Kanu Nwankwo, JJ Okocha ("the guy at Bolton" is what he says as he tries to recall the name), Julius Aghahowa, Sunday Oliseh, "Uche" (he's forgotten the surname)...
When he says 'Uche' I suggest 'Uche Okafor', which I think he hears as 'Kuffour' because he immediately tells me that Kuffour is from Ghana.
I marvel at his knowledge of Nigerian players, and he tells me that he's a fanatic, and even apologises that his knowledge has diminished over time...
It's somewhat refreshing to be away from literary circles for once, where the first question I am asked always has something to do with Chinua Achebe or Wole Soyinka.
*
Just before I leave (after eating) I walk up to him to ask where he's from.
He hesitates for a moment, then speaks.
"Let's talk later" he says "It's complicated"
Complicated? I leave almost scratching my head. How complicated can it be? As complicated as the "it's complicated" of Facebook?
I guess he's right. The Identity Question always manages to be one of the most complicated in the world... ask Barack Obama for further details...
Wednesday, 5 November 2008
How to write (books) about Africa: A Guide for the Aspiring Westerner
by Tolu Ogunlesi
This was inspired by the now-famous Binyavanga Wainaina (wiki) article, How to Write About Africa, originally published in Granta
1. Join the Peace Corps. In all honesty, this is enough. Join the Peace Corps, and you will write about Africa. Whether you’d really like to, or not. There’s something about the Peace Corps that makes you suspect that it’s an undercover MFA program, haunted by muses and sundry writing spirits
But then, here’s more specific guidance on what to do after you join the Peace Corps:
Spend 1 year in a lost village. This is the "100% Proven and Guaranteed" way to get inspiration for a book on Africa. Visit the city, or even a small town at your own peril; there you will waste your mornings at the local Starbucks and your evenings fighting obesity and gorging on greasy McDonald’s fare and Heineken six packs, almost like you were back home in Minnesota or Idaho. Another drawback, one year in an African City is a sure way to go back home without setting eyes on even one African beast.
Examples of existing "peace-corps books":
· The Village of Waiting (1988) by George Packer
· Black Papyrus: A Year in the Life of an African Village (2003)
· Why the Sky Is Far Away: A Folktale from Nigeria, Retold by Mary-Joan Gerson (1974)
· In Bikole: Eight Modern Stories of Life in a West African Village, illustrated by Monica Vachula, 1978
· State of Decay: An Oubangui Chronicle; A Novel of African Adventure (2001)
· The Children of Mauritania: Days in the Desert and by the River Shore (1993)
2. Make sure your book title has at least one of the following "buzz-words" –
Tribe, Genocide, Slave, Hills, AIDS, Scramble, Matchete, Village or Grave.
These words help magnify searchability on Amazon and Google, and standoutability in crowded bookstore shelves, and rumors have it that Amazon actually preferentially ranks such books e.g.
· Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village (Henry Holt, 2003)
· The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (Basic Books, 2001).
· Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).
· My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989).
Also very importantly, try to make sure that the word Africa appears in the title. See Rule 1 for more examples.
3. Still on titles. "Farther is better" is the Golden Rule.
The farther your title is from ordinariness, and the closer it is to the Exotic and/or Fantastical, the better:
· When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa (Little, Brown, 2007)
· We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998)
4. Get blurbs from at least 2 of the following:
– the latest African-baby-adopting white celebrity diva
– the latest celebrity African ex-child-soldier
– a Chinese Government official extolling the "rich" virtues of the continent (caveat: this might not go down well with the US State Department, and will therefore invariably affect your chances of getting a US Publisher)
– one of the growing numbers of African hawker-or-herdsgirl-turned-new-york-supermodel...
– Bono
5. Last but not the least. Your cover photo. You certainly need to get this right. Instead of the hackneyed (Conradian) images you’d find in The Economist (No. 1 Suspect) – fly-covered, potbellied children, an AK-47 clutching "rebel", a family posing outside a hut, cows, a queue of black-skinned humans clutching bowls and smiling) – Be Positively Different
It's now called CSR - Continental Social Responsibility. Use a toothless, smiling, saggy-breasted black-skinned African "Ma" clutching Coca Cola in one hand, and an iPod in the other.
It's a globalised world after all…
This was inspired by the now-famous Binyavanga Wainaina (wiki) article, How to Write About Africa, originally published in Granta
1. Join the Peace Corps. In all honesty, this is enough. Join the Peace Corps, and you will write about Africa. Whether you’d really like to, or not. There’s something about the Peace Corps that makes you suspect that it’s an undercover MFA program, haunted by muses and sundry writing spirits
But then, here’s more specific guidance on what to do after you join the Peace Corps:
Spend 1 year in a lost village. This is the "100% Proven and Guaranteed" way to get inspiration for a book on Africa. Visit the city, or even a small town at your own peril; there you will waste your mornings at the local Starbucks and your evenings fighting obesity and gorging on greasy McDonald’s fare and Heineken six packs, almost like you were back home in Minnesota or Idaho. Another drawback, one year in an African City is a sure way to go back home without setting eyes on even one African beast.
Examples of existing "peace-corps books":
· The Village of Waiting (1988) by George Packer
· Black Papyrus: A Year in the Life of an African Village (2003)
· Why the Sky Is Far Away: A Folktale from Nigeria, Retold by Mary-Joan Gerson (1974)
· In Bikole: Eight Modern Stories of Life in a West African Village, illustrated by Monica Vachula, 1978
· State of Decay: An Oubangui Chronicle; A Novel of African Adventure (2001)
· The Children of Mauritania: Days in the Desert and by the River Shore (1993)
2. Make sure your book title has at least one of the following "buzz-words" –
Tribe, Genocide, Slave, Hills, AIDS, Scramble, Matchete, Village or Grave.
These words help magnify searchability on Amazon and Google, and standoutability in crowded bookstore shelves, and rumors have it that Amazon actually preferentially ranks such books e.g.
· Nine Hills to Nambonkaha: Two Years in the Heart of an African Village (Henry Holt, 2003)
· The Graves Are Not Yet Full: Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (Basic Books, 2001).
· Machete Season: The Killers in Rwanda Speak (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).
· My Traitor's Heart: A South African Exile Returns to Face His Country, His Tribe, and His Conscience (Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989).
Also very importantly, try to make sure that the word Africa appears in the title. See Rule 1 for more examples.
3. Still on titles. "Farther is better" is the Golden Rule.
The farther your title is from ordinariness, and the closer it is to the Exotic and/or Fantastical, the better:
· When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa (Little, Brown, 2007)
· We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families: Stories from Rwanda (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998)
4. Get blurbs from at least 2 of the following:
– the latest African-baby-adopting white celebrity diva
– the latest celebrity African ex-child-soldier
– a Chinese Government official extolling the "rich" virtues of the continent (caveat: this might not go down well with the US State Department, and will therefore invariably affect your chances of getting a US Publisher)
– one of the growing numbers of African hawker-or-herdsgirl-turned-new-york-supermodel...
– Bono
5. Last but not the least. Your cover photo. You certainly need to get this right. Instead of the hackneyed (Conradian) images you’d find in The Economist (No. 1 Suspect) – fly-covered, potbellied children, an AK-47 clutching "rebel", a family posing outside a hut, cows, a queue of black-skinned humans clutching bowls and smiling) – Be Positively Different
It's now called CSR - Continental Social Responsibility. Use a toothless, smiling, saggy-breasted black-skinned African "Ma" clutching Coca Cola in one hand, and an iPod in the other.
It's a globalised world after all…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)