Showing posts with label Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. Show all posts

Sunday, September 12, 2021

Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Writing from Nigeria

Camouflage: Best of Contemporary Writing from Nigeria


“…an agenda-setting collection and a major milestone in the history of Nigerian literature only comparable to what Wole Soyinka’s Poems of Black Africa is to students and critics of African literature.”

Weekly Trust

“…a large-scale anthology… Camouflage spots the work of [71]…writers. Some have already made their name internationally…What is remarkable, though, is how many fine and startling contributions there are from writers who—unlike Adichie and Habila—are still hardly known.”
The Sunday Independent of South Africa

“…an intricate literary nest woven with straws plucked from Nigeria’s large universe of artistic talents, scattered across the earth.”
— Sunday Sun

“[An] explosive confluence of contemporary voices deployed in various guises and tones to express individual perceptions of the Nigerian situation…a monumental achievement for Nigerian literature.”
— Daily Independent

“[ Camouflage] proves…the depth and richness of contemporary writing by post-Independence generation of Nigerian writers.”
— The Guardian

“…a ground-breaking anthology.”
— National Mirror

“Nigeria’s new writers, delicate and declamatory, intimate and political, immediate and global, imagine themselves into voice in this rich volume. The words are tender, agitated, beautiful, shapely—and breathed directly into the ear. Read this collection to grasp the scope and sophistication of contemporary Nigerian literature, yes, but read it firstly for its pleasures."
— Gabeba Baderoon, recipient of Daimler Chrysler Award for South African Poetry.

CONTRIBUTORS

* Afam Akeh * Adeiza Atureta * Ekene Atusiubah* Omale Allen Abdul-jab bar* Denja Abdullahi * Al-kasim Abdulkadir * Bolaji Adekeye * Wisdom Anierobi * Toyin Alli * Maryam Ali Ali * Felix Obi Abrahams * Pius Adesanmi * Nike Adesuyi * Chimanada Ngozi Adichie * Adolphus II Amasiatu * Amu Nnadi * Seyi Akinlolu * Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima* B. M. Dzukogi* David Diai * Amatoritsero Ede * Victor Ehikhamenor* James Eze * Chiedu Ezeanah* Ismail Bala Garba* Helon Habila* Kamar Hamza* Ogaga lfowodo * Nengi Josef Ilagha * Bina Nengi-Ilagha * Uduma Kalu * Victoria Sylvia Kankara * Toni Kan * Akeem Lasisi * Halima Lawal * Ahmed Maiwada * Mu'azu Maiwada * Razinat T. Mohammed * David Odinaka Nwamadi * Obi Nwakanma* Simeon Chibiko Nwakaudu * Uche Nduka* Angela Nwosu* Maik Nwosu * Nkechi Nwosu-igbo * Onyebuchi Nwosu *Uchechukwu G. Nwosu * Chinyere Obiobasi * Nonye Bethel Obiukwu * Sunday Enessi Ododo * Crispin Oduobok * Patrick Tagbo Oguejiofor * Tolu Gbenga Ogunlesi * Chux Okei Ohai * Sylvester Urdeen Omosun * Ernest Onuoha" Promise Okekwe * Onookome Okome * Ike Okonta * Pita Okute * Bolaji St Ramos* Lola Shoneyin * E. E. Sule * Sumaila lsah Umaisha * Uche Peter Umez * Chika Unigwe * Uzor Maxim Uzoatu * Emmanuel Onyedi Wingate *


ABOUT THE EDITORS

NDUKA OTIONO is an Associate Professor and Graduate Program Supervisor at the Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada. He is the author and co-editor of several books of creative writing and academic research including Oral Literary Performance in Africa: Beyond Text (2021). Prior to turning to academia, he was for many years a journalist in Nigeria and General Secretary of the Association of Nigerian Authors.

————•❀✼❀•————

ODOH DIEGO OKENYODO is a poet and literary journalist whose collection titled From A Poem to Its Creator was shortlisted for The Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2008. Okenyodo coordinates the World Poetry Movement in Nigeria under the platform of the Splendors of Dawn Poetry Foundation, an NGO that uses poetry to engage development issues for awareness and sustainable behaviour change.


Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Nigeria: Where they do not read books

Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa with over 150 million people of different ethnic groups of which the majorities are Hausas, Igbos and Yorubas.


Nigeria: Where they do not read books

Do you know that more Nigerians in Nigeria are no longer excited about reading and even writing?

Do you know that majority of the members of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) do not buy or read the books written by fellow members?

Do you know that majority of the Nigerian publishers of magazines do not buy or read the magazines published by other Nigerian publishers?

Do you know that none of the authors who won the much coveted Nigeria LNG Prize or other local prizes has become bestselling authors in Nigeria?

Do you know that Nigerians spend millions of dollars monthly on sms and most of the SMS/TXT messages are unprofitable gossip?

Do you know that poverty is not the cause of poor reading culture in Nigeria but intellectual illiteracy and intellectual hypocrisy?

Do you know that majority of youths in Nigeria do not know who is Ben Okri, the youngest winner of the Booker Prize in in 1991 at 32?


Ben Okri


I have seen the book gathering dust abandoned in-between files and other items on the table. The book has not been read for months. I have read my own copy immediately the author gave it to me and I reviewed it on Bookalleria, a literary blog. Bookalleria is one of the few Nigerian literary websites owned by writers who love books, but most of the Nigerian writers hardly visit them. They would rather visit the social gossip blogs or frequent their Facebook that does not have any feature for their writings. Majority of Nigerian writers should be blogging and not wasting quality time posting tissues of the issues of their minutiae on Facebook.

Nigerians now prefer to browse more on the Internet.


Blogging is another form of writing and sharpening the craft of writing as the blog offers more space to express your feeling, thoughts and share them with the rest of the world. Molara Wood, Myne White and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie are Nigerian writers with active blogs and a visit to any of these blogs is worth it, because they are filled with refreshing prose, poetry and drama written and posted by the authors and with interactive conversations with their readers. Unfortunately millions of Nigerians on Facebook and Twitter are ignorant of these blogs and have been missing the most original writings of these writers.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie


Over 800, 000 copies of the books of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie have been sold so far and translated into many languages, but less than 50, 000 copies of the bestselling books have been sold in her native Nigeria the most populous country in Africa with a population of over 150 million and over 20 million are graduates of tertiary institutions. Why have these millions failed to read the books of one of the most bestselling Nigerian writers? Intellectual laziness is common in Nigeria.



Majority of Nigerians do more talking than reading books.


Majority of the literate population only read the compulsory textbooks required to pass their compulsory examinations to acquire the paper qualifications they need to get their dream jobs. After getting these qualifications, they abandon their textbooks and rush into the rat race to catch up with the Joneses of their society.

The next publications they read are the daily newspapers, social gossip magazines and porn magazines. Then they go on Facebook to post the tidbits of their daily routines of their perishable pursuits. They spend hours chatting on the phone, gossiping and spreading rumours on the street, at home and in the workplace.

Many Nigerians love reading newspapers and society magazines and they are often seen crowding news vendors on the street.


Nigerians spend billions of naira on phone calls and text messages, so they cannot claim that they cannot afford to buy the few books written and published by Nigerian authors.

The increasing population of illiterates in Nigeria is caused the intellectual laziness of the majority who do not read books. Because how can people become literate when they hate to read and if they do not read, how can they write? So, the population of those who cannot read and write keeps on increasing daily. And how can they learn when they do not read? How much will they learn from sharing the badly written updates on their walls on Facebook or viewing TV comedies, reality shows or music videos that do not teach them how to read or write, but programmed to entertain more than to educate.


Nigerian pupils and students read for their studies and to pass examinations for the qualifications they need to get their dream jobs and to catch up with the Joneses in their rat race.


We are now embarrassed by appalling reports of mass failures recorded in the secondary school examinations and cases of graduates of tertiary schools who cannot write essays and are not better than graduates of high schools. One scholar said most of the universities are glorified secondary schools.


How can we revive the reading culture in Nigeria?

I remember the late 1970s and 1980s when hundreds of thousands of young and old people discussed and shared thrilling stories from the novels in the popular Macmillan’s Pacesetter series, Longman Drumbeat and Heinemann African Writers series.

“There were no GSM phones then,” said a friend.
“Mobile phones have not stopped American and Europeans from buying and reading over 600, 000 copies of the Purple Hibiscus and Half of a Yellow Sun written by our own Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie,” I said.

I also mentioned that millions of copies of the phenomenal Harry Potter novels of J. K. Rowling have been sold in developed countries where mobile phones and social network sites are not excuses for not reading books!

“Millions of Nigerians copy Western haute couture, music and surfing social network sites, but fail to copy their reading culture,” I said.
My friend was speechless.

Using computers should not stop Nigerians from reading books.


The intellectual disorientation of our youths can be corrected by using the same media of mobile phones and social network sites to make them change their negative attitude to reading. We can use hype to motivate and stimulate their intellectual traits and gradually they will appreciate reading as they see the awesome benefits of a vibrant reading culture.


If over 13, 000 copies of the novels of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie can be sold in Nigeria, and then more thousands can be sold when others are motivated and stimulated to join those who are enjoying the passion of reading her books and they will soon be adding more books on their reading list.


Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cell phones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.
~ Harper Lee, author of "To Kill A Mockingbird" on May 7, 2006
.


~ By Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

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Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Dele Momodu’s Photo Album and Other Stories from Nigeria

Dele Momodu’s Photo Album and Other Stories from Nigeria

The title of this article is not the title of my new collection of short stories and you will not find it in The Thing Around Your Neck, the first collection of short stories by the celebrated Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. This is my focus on the craze for scrapbooks of pictures by many Nigerian printers and publishers who have joined the bandwagon of the copycats of Dele Momodu’s Ovation magazine.

I loved Ovation when there was something to read in it. That was when Ovation had interesting features and even good fiction as well and was like the Nigerian version of Hello and OK magazine until the Nigerian publisher Dele Momodu decided to turn it into the Nigerian photo gallery of both the stinking rich and not so stinking rich people in Nigeria. Well from reliable sources, Dele Momodu took that decision, because most Nigerians prefer viewing photo albums of the rich in their Nigerian society and gossip about them to reading articles and fiction. Majority of Nigerians are actually intellectual illiterates or semi literates who have no brains for serious reading, except the compulsory textbooks they must read to pass their academic and professional examinations and once they have passed the examinations and acquired the certificates by hook or by crook, they push aside their textbooks and rush for the gossip tabloids and photo albums circulated all over the place in Nigeria.


Any dummy can copy and paste photographs on blank pages of white paper and print them for sale. But as we can see, gazing at the pictures of the Nigerian aristocrats and plutocrats does not add any value to the society and will not transform any non-literate to a literate person. What we need most now is the revival of the reading culture and increase the scholarship of Nigerians.

The proliferation of scrapbook journalism in Nigeria is doing more harm to Nigerians, because these photo albums are making Nigerians to become lazy readers and breeding a generation of intellectual illiterates.

I read newsmagazines such as Tell and The News and I also read the tabloids as well and they can be very hilarious and humorous. Imagine the National Encomium calling the Academy Award winning American actor, producer, and director Forest Whitaker African-American Nollywood actor? Then the Editor Azuh Arinze of the local Nigerian tabloid called Nigerian publisher and celebrity blogger Linda Ikeji garrulous!


It is a tragedy that in a population of over 140 million people, a prize winning book like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun did not sell up to 20, 000 copies in Nigeria, but pornographic magazines and music videos sell over hundreds of thousands of copies.
We see a generation of intellectual retards and dullards who would rather be lip-synching do me; I do you and chorusing monotonous pornographic jargons of female buttocks than be caught reading best-selling Nigerian books of genius.

That is why I was shocked to find out that most of the students in tertiary schools in Nigeria do not even know who is Leke Alder or Chris Abani and they did not even know that Kaine Agary won the last Nigeria LNG Prize for Literature for her melodramatic prose in Yellow Yellow!
But they have spent millions of naira to download ring tones of psychedelic songs and pornographic musical videos. Nigerians who will not spend ordinary N500 to buy a good book to read will spend over N2, 000 daily to make GSM phone calls. What a shame!

~ Ekenyerengozi Michael Chima

Highly Recommended Books of the Month

Conversations of a 21st Century Saint ~ Leke Alder
$30.00

minding your business ~ leke alder
$35.00


life as i see it ~ leke alder

Graceland (Today Show Pick January 2005) ~ Chris Abani
$10.20

Becoming Abigail ~ Chris Abani
$9.56

Song for Night ~ Chris Abani
$11.66

The Virgin of Flames ~ Chris Abani
$11.90

Kalakuta Republic ~ Chris Abani
$13.25

To Be Hung from the Ceiling By Strings of Varying Length (Black Goat) ~ Rick Reid
$10.85


GraceLand ~ Chris Abani


Daphne's Lot ~ Chris Abani











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