JamzNG Latest News, Gist, Entertainment in Nigeria
The Lagos scene is where books are born – according to the written word, with multifaceted events organized for seasons at a time.
I have been many moons away from Lagos, that is “Eko – the city on the lagoon”, in the words of the poet Odia Ofeimun.
It was therefore quite a surprise to receive a phone call in my rustic country hermitage from the friendly Azafi Omoluabi of Parresia Publishers, Lagos, informing me that she was sending me a copy of Akin Adesokan’s newly published novel South Side.
It is definitely not in my constitution to say “No” to Azafi, even though I am so far away from the lights of the big city.
He didn’t send me just one book: he sent me four!
When I went to collect the parcel, the dishonest manager of the transport company insisted that I had to pay one thousand Naira, even though I knew that Azafi had paid for the transport.
I refused to pay and was quite willing to start a war, but Azafi volunteered to pay the additional cost required.
The four Parrhesia books sent by Azafi are as follows: South Side by Akin Adesokan; Yoruba Boy Running by Biyi Bandele; New York, My Village by Uwem Akpan; and How to Get Rid of Ants by Jesutomisin Ipinmoye.
In this day and night without electricity in Nigeria, reading books can only happen haphazardly.
“Somehow we survive,” as my late great friend, Dennis Brutus, the legendary South African poet, wrote.
South Side is Akin Adesokan’s second novel, following the Nigerian Authors Association’s award-winning first novel Roots In The Sky in 1996.
Uprooting is all the rage as South Side protagonist Abel Dankor tries to find an anchor in the wide world. Abel is a successful novelist who got an inauspicious start as a refugee student in 1950s England. A migratory bird in search of home, Abel’s desire to settle in the fictional West African country of Mande is thwarted by the unexpected death of his benefactor, the poet Sir Koroma Fouta. The search for meaning in displacement for Abel is somewhat enlivened by the haunting presence of Lady Valeria and the emergence of Yacouba, his childhood friend, in a high-level position in Mande. Adesokan’s South Side gains a captivating verisimilitude with the publication of the titles, year of publication and synopses of Abel Dankor’s five novels as an epilogue.
Displacement is also the focus of Biyi Bandele’s latest novel, Yoruba Boy Running, published after his sad death in August 2022. The 270-page book can be read as a faction based on the life and times of the Reverend Samuel Ajayi Crowther (c1809-1891), legendary missionary, linguist, minister and abolitionist. In his foreword to Yoruba Boy Running titled “Introduction: A Triumph of Resilience,” Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka writes: “We all knew Ajayi’s story, of course, from primary school. Kidnapped as a child and sold into slavery. Rescued by British warships and deposited in a settlement called Sierra Leone. Finally returned to his home in what is now Nigeria a quarter of a century later, after life-or-death escapades and, fortunately, immersion in the waters of intellect.” Soyinka draws an eerie parallel between the Malian slave traders who kidnapped 13-year-old Ajayi in the Nigerian town of Osogun in 2021, as narrated by Bandele, and the modern marauders who kidnap school children in Nigeria today. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose 2006 novel Half Of A Yellow Sun was made into a film by Biyi Bandele, pays the late tribute: “A true artist. A brilliant writer. An original thinker.”
A different form of displacement underlines Uwem Akpan’s 481-page novel New York, My Village. The protagonist, born a year after the Biafra war in 1968, is called Ekong which means “War”. She wins a Toni Morrison Black Editors Fellowship for her tenure as editor-in-chief of Mkpouto Books in Uyo, Nigeria, vowing, “Nothing would stop me from enjoying New York to the core, as we say at home in Ikot Ituno-Ekanem in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.” He travels to America and attaches himself to a publishing house, Andrew & Thompson, to study their operations for four months during which he is asked to edit an anthology of short stories by minority writers on the Nigeria-Biafra war. The white cultural majority in the United States is juxtaposed with the harsh treatment of minorities by the majority Igbo population during the Biafra War.
The latest book sent to me by Parresia publishers is a collection of short stories, How To Get Rid Of Ants by Jesutomisin Ipinmoye. You’d better be warned at the start: “Enter a collection that surprises you with stories and characters that span the strange, the bizarre, and the crazy.” The fifteen stories are those that agitate people’s minds, as the late Zimbabwean nonconformist writer Dambudzo Marachera, author of House of Hunger, would say, interposing, among other stories: getting rid of the ants almost turns into unhinging the cosmos; greed for eating exceeds the limits of life and death; plotting to get married becomes a matter of signs and wonders; acquiring instant wealth somehow turns the world upside down, etc. There is this application form placed in the book: “Jagbajantis Jazz Services: Curse Application Form – We exist so thunder can shoot your enemies!” Jesutomisin Ipinmoye’s How To Get Rid Of Ants is an avant-garde charmer.
The four books of Parrhesia have given me great relief in these depressing times. The fact that we are still publishing well-crafted books at this level in Nigeria deserves celebration. The books of Azafi Omoluabi and Parresia are reasons to believe.
Post views:
63
