Alert! Authors Marié Heese and Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani have won the Commonwealth Writers Prize – Africa region awards, for their novels The Double Crown: Secret Writings of the Female Pharaoh, which took the Best Book gong, and I Do Not Come to You by Chance, which was acknowledged as Best First Book. Heese and Nwaubani each win £1 000, and go on to compete for the overall prizes of Best Book (£10 000) and Best First Book (£5 000) in May.
The works were each selected from shortlists of seven. The announcement was made in Johannesburg this morning, at the SABC’s Radio Park campus, where Lebo Mashile – a Noma Award winner – presided over addresses by the British High Commissioner, Nicola Brewer, Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Africa Region judge Dan Ojwang, chairperson of the Africa Region prize, Elinor Sisulu and the SABC’s Phil Molefe. Brewer and the Acting High Commissioner of India, Shri Shambhu Kumaran, announced the winners.
Heese hails from Stilbaai in South Africa’s Western Cape, and is previously best-known for her children’s books. She publishes in both Afrikaans and English, and is the daughter of the revered Afrikaans author Audrey Blignaut (see her book on her mother, Audrey Blignault: uit die dagboek van ‘n vrou). The Double Crown has emerged as the winner from an extremely strong field, which included the likes of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Mark Behr, Zakes Mda and Andrew Brown.
Nwaubani keeps Nigeria’s “Best First Book” winning streak alive, following as she does in the footsteps of a certain Uwem Akpan, who rose to the heights of world literature after winning the prize last year and going on to become an Oprah Book Club choice. “I was born in Enugu, Nigeria,”, she tells African Writing in a comprehensive 2009 interview, “A year later, my parents moved to my hometown, Umuahia. I spent the first part of my childhood years in Umuahia Town—in the GRA, close to the railway station, amongst the expatriates and the Rotary Club members.” In a refreshing development for Nigerian letters, Nwaubani remains based in her home country. Her fellow shortlistees included the likes of Ghana’s Ayesha Harruna Attah and South Africa’s Alistair Morgan.
Speaking on behalf of the CWP Africa Region judges, Dan Ojwang remarked:
It is noteworthy that of the 14 books that made it onto the shortlists this year 10 are by women, which is unprecedented in the history of the CWP, Africa Region.
Given the exceptional depth and variety of books submitted for the prize, it is not possible to reflect at length about every single highpoint. However, there are a few interesting trends about which the panel of judges would wish to comment. These broad trends can be seen in the thematic content of the books, elements of interesting formal innovation and also areas of glaring problems.
One of the remarkable aspects of the entries was the high number that concentrated on human trafficking and migration. The most striking of such novels were Eyo by Abidemi Sanusi (Nigeria), On Black Sisters’ Street by Chika Unigwe (Nigeria) and Refuge by Andrew Brown (South Africa). Reading these entries, the panel of judges was struck by the way slavery, in new guises, has come to speak powerfully of the plight of a generation of Africans who have come of age at a time of destitution, political repression and out-migration—a time when home is all too often quite unhomely. Yet, in spite of the harrowing experiences presented in these novels, none of them resort to the neat endings that readers may expect after being shown so much suffering.
“I am the chosen of the Gods. I have always known that. This knowledge has been the source of my strength and power, and it is the reason why I know that those who now seek my death and desire to usurp my throne shall not succeed.” Marié Heese breathes literary life into the bare historical bones of ancient Egypt’s female pharaoh, Hatshepsut, with breathtaking success. She recuperates ancient Egypt for contemporary gender politics while also providing a highly imaginative account of how life may have been lived in the ancient world. A female leader who realizes her political ambitions in a male world, constantly confronting the challenges of wielding state power at an enormous personal cost, Hatshepsut provides a wonderful protagonist for a modern feminist readership. Hatshepsut’s voice is compelling, direct, insistent and totally believable.
I Do Not Come to You by Chance
“I do not come to you by chance. Upon my quest for a trusted and reliable foreign businessman or company, I was given your contact by the Nigerian Chamber of Commerce and Industry ….” There are few e-mail users around the world who have not received a ‘419’ letter promising them a large share of an equally obscene amount of money. We have all wondered about the people behind these scams. Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani’s novel provides some of the answers. Taking its title from the opening line of an e-mail scam letter, I Do Not Come to You by Chance provides a behind-the-scenes look at the 419 phenomenon, which takes its name from the section of the Nigerian Criminal Code which deals with advance-fee fraud.
You can read the first chapter of Heese’s The Double Crown via the Little White Bakkie preview service below (click here if it doesn’t load). Nwaubani’s UK publisher, Orion, has made chapter twelve of her book available online: click here to read an excerpt from I Do Not Come to You by Chance.
Heese has also compiled “reading notes” on her novel; take a look:
Congratulations to both winners, who now go on to compete with other regional winners for the overall “Best Book” and “Best First Book” awards, to be announced at a ceremony held in Dehli, India, just a few weeks from now.
Alert! The Silverbird Galleria on Victoria Island, Lagos – a place more commonly associated with extravaganzas like Mr Nigeria World 2010 and Man of the Year 2009 – played host to a new literary series that kicked off in late February called The BookJam @ Silverbird.
The first BookJam attracted over 50 guests, who gathered to hear three Nigerian authors – including Jude Dibia, who is known in these parts – plus special guest Michela Wrong, read from and discuss their work:
Jude Dibia read from his second novel, ‘Unbridled’ at the BookJam, while Imasuen read excerpts from his debut novel, ‘To Saint Patrick’. Kafayat Quadri, a regular at literary meetings, provided a musical interlude.
Wrong read excerpts from her acclaimed book about Kenyan corruption, ‘It’s Our Turn to Eat’. As for the last reader, Kaine Agary, she said her book ‘Yellow Yellow’ (which won the 2008 NLNG Literature Prize) is a coming of age story about a young woman growing up in the Niger Delta.
The fact that some had to stand somehow paled into insignificance as the writers satisfied the curiosity of audience members who posed questions about their works. Ms Wrong seemed to hit the right note when she declared that, “Nigerian writers take refuge in fiction.” She drew parallels between the exile of Kenyan anti-corruption campaigner John Githongo, who she focuses on in her book, and the self-imposed exile of Nigeria’s corruption czar, Nuhu Ribadu.
Alert! The Commonwealth Foundation has released the shortlists for its annual Commonwealth Writers’ Prize – a worldwide literary sweepstakes that sees writers of fiction in four regions (Africa, the Caribbean and Canada, South Asia and Europe, and South East Asia and the Pacific) compete first for regional awards and finally for top honours amongst the regional winners at a different literary festival each year. (2008’s finals were held at the Franschhoek Literary Festival.)
While the rest of the continent didn’t quite break South Africa’s stranglehold on the Africa region shortlists, SA Lit is slightly less rampant than in 2009, when only one book from outside our country made either list (that being Akpan’s). Nigeria is well-represented this year with four titles among the fourteen shortlistees, while Ghana also gets a look in with Ayesha Harunna Attah’s Harmattan Rain. That still leaves the continent’s literary powerhouse with fully nine of the fourteen shortlisted titles – and one suspects that the lists might have been lengthened to seven titles each to accommodate more continental diversity.
Among the SA books, it’s interesting to note that not all originate from SA publishers: Gill Schierhout’s The Shape of Him is a Jonathan Cape title, while Come Sunday by Isla Morley is out from Sceptre. Then there’s Mark Behr’s Kings of the Water, which, although out from Penguin, was first published in the US. Is SA Lit experiencing the same “diaspora” phenomenon as writing from Nigeria? None of the non-SA authors on the lists, meanwhile, actually live in Africa. What does this say about the state of African letters, or, alternatively, the editorial process behind the picking of the shortlistees?
BOOK SA members Dawn Garisch, Rosemund Handler, Andrew Brown, Alistair Morgan and Erica Emdon feature on this year’s shortlists. Penguin, meanwhile, scored highest among local publishers, with four of its titles getting the nod. Here are the complete lists, without further ado:
Book details: 2010 Commonwealth Writers Prize Shortlist – Best Book, Africa Region
Alert! The Penguin African Writers Series has just debuted in the UK – featuring five of the six books that appeared under the series’ aegis in South Africa (BOOK SA can’t determine which one was left out; any help on this score is much appreciated) – but the event has left Guardian books critic Akin Ajayi underwhelmed.
The books give the series a backward-looking feel, Ajayi writes. Rather than showcasing what’s new on the continent – with material from the generation driving the likes of Kwani?, Chimurenga or Saraba, for instance – he feels the new AWS editors have opted for works that convey the dusty, if freshly-liberated, Africa of the 20th century:
Perhaps I’m hard to please, but I can’t help feeling a little underwhelmed by Penguin’s new African Writers Series, launched last month and published by its Modern Classics imprint. It’s not that I think the series is a bad thing, far from it, but by modelling itself upon the iconic Heinemann imprint of the same name, the impulse to compare the two is irresistible. And, to judge from the first five books published, I fear that Penguin won’t come out of this looking very good.
First, a bit of context. The original AWS was inaugurated by Heinemann in 1962, the brainchild of publishing executive Alan Hill. Hill, whom Chinua Achebe describes in his book of autobiographical essays Home and Exile as “an adventurer with all the right instincts”, recognised that the nascent post-colonial publishing industry was not supporting the growth of original African literature. Domestic markets at the time were dominated by foreign publishing houses, and were considered primarily a territory for selling books written and published abroad. Not much was happening to encourage and promote new writing from within.
We first sniffed out the news in this piece from Sally Scott, then contacted the CCA to confirm:
Break out the pen and all that boundless creativity: UKZN’s Centre for Creative Artists is hosting the 13th Time of the Writer international writers’ festival next month, and if you are a student, and quick about it, there is still time to enter the short story competition.
The good news is that funding from the Department of Arts and Culture (and other sponsors) has been forthcoming once again and, as usual, some excellent writers are being “locked down” (visas and such being sorted out) for the five-day festival. The bad news is that this year the festival has been cut by one day.
Alert! Remember the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Prize for Literature? At $50 000 (US) it’s the richest literary award on the continent – when it’s actually given, that is. Twice in the prize’s short history (it was established in 2004), the money has not found its way into a worthy author’s pockets. The latest instance of such anti-largesse was last year, when by all accounts the “Grand Awards Night” was an utter fiasco, and the cash went to an NGO (thus partly fulfilling its sponsor’s corporate social responsibility requirements).
The fallout came swiftly, with Nigerian writers roundly condemning the committee that oversees the awards process. Now comes a report that the writers and the committee have met face-to-face, with – surprise! – no conclusive results.
Akintayo Abodunrin writes in 234Next.com that the NLNG and its Literature Committee waxed paternalistic in their speeches at the meeting, with one literary sage claiming that “the fact that no writer won… is not to dispirit competition but to make them aspire higher”. More troubling, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) appeared to take a stance of appeasement toward the committee, saying that its representatives “know what they’re doing”.
Two glimmers of hope did emerge: in future, the prize might be open to the Nigerian diaspora; and the names of the committee’s judges might be disclosed. Nothing, however, was finalised or made concrete – although the delegates to the meeting did all enjoy a slice of birthday cake. How nice for them:
The Literature Committee yielded grounds on two major points of contention: the residency condition which bars writers not resident in the country from entering their works; and non disclosure of the identity of judges – at the forum held at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), Lagos. Nonetheless, it was obvious that the first dialogue since the 2004 inauguration of the prize, would not be enough to iron out all the grey areas. More regular meetings have to be held; the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) needs to become proactive and stop sucking up to sponsors, especially the NLNG. In addition, more initiatives to support literature and writers are needed.
The Oslo House of Literature was an impressive sight recently with the gathering of several big names in African literature – including Petina Gappah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Niq Mhlongo and Binyavanga Wainaina.
Nigeria’s Tolu Ogunlesi (Conquest and Conviviality) was also there and reports back on the experience:
In a piece I wrote after my first visit to Oslo in September 2008 I observed: “To the eyes Oslo is not a very appealing city. To my mind parts of it were plain depressing. In my journal there is a note I made, as follows: ‘Norwegians think [Oslo] is an ugly city. I think so too.’ But it is a city of proud inhabitants.”
Returning a little over a year later for a week-long celebration of African literature organised by the Oslo House of Literature, I’m more forgiving. The city is not that ugly after all. But with a population of about half a million, it will always be a Tiny City in my estimation. Half a million people will be a housing estate in Lagos, I think.
There are no direct flights between Lagos and Oslo. A Lufthansa flight deposited me in the German city of Frankfurt, where I would catch a connecting flight to Oslo’s modest airport. (The last time I was in Oslo I came by train, an endless journey from Gothenburg in neighbouring Sweden to Oslo’s Central train station).
Wole Soyinka headlined last week’s Jaipur Litfest and the reports are trickling through. Here’s Soyinka on the day he learned of his Nobel:
Jaipur: Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, the first African to have received the honour [...] told the Jaipur Literature Festival that he was shocked to win the coveted prize. Although speculations were rife about him winning the prize but the announcement came as a shock.
The normally composed writer got animated at the mention of the topic and decided to ‘entertain’ the audience with the story of his Nobel Prize. “I was on my way to Nigeria, and was stopping at Paris when the first burst of rumour happened. I alighted in Nigeria amidst the news. One of my cousins, asked me about it. I said, ‘I want to go to sleep’. This wretched cousin, I will call him a traitor, let in a Swedish journalist. The journalist said, ‘My newspaper has asked me to be with you when the announcement takes place.’ And when the announcements were made I couldn’t absorb it,” he said.
And here’s the laureate on racial profiling and terrorism:
First African Nobel laureate Akinwande Oluwole ‘Wole’ Soyinka feels that racial profiling is a “complete failure” when it comes to curbing global terrorism.
“The arrest of the Nigerian national from the flight to Detroit in December for alleged possession of explosives does not call for racial profiling of all terror suspects. The Nigerian national may have fallen into bad company. It should be inquired where he was indoctrinated. He may have been of a spiritual nature and was indoctrinated into the jihadist philosophy,” Soyinka told the media at the Jaipur Literature Festival Friday.
“It is unfair to discriminate against terror suspects on racial grounds. Several Nigerian nationals lost their lives in the London underground terror attacks and in strikes elsewhere across the globe,” said the 75-years-old Nigerian novelist, poet and playwright.
Alert! Last week was “Nobel Laureate Week” on the island of St Lucia, home of one such laureate, Derek Walcott.
His fellow Nobellow (terrible, I apologise) Wole Soyinka was on hand to give the annual Derek Walcott lecture – and it was a smash hit, according to this reporter from the St Lucia Star:
But the undisputed star of this year’s Nobel Laureate Week was undoubtedly Soyinka—writer, teacher, thespian, activist, former political prisoner and professional thorn in the side of past and future Nigerian dictators. His lecture focused on censorship—not just the blatantly enforced kind, but the more subtle forms of collective and personal self-censorship that inhibit growth. The island’s artistic and intellectual community flocked to his lecture like he was Mandela. In a way, he was.
Soyinka, who grew up halfway between Christianity and African traditionalism, looks like a typical purist Black Power philosopher, but is an acknowledged syncretist. He has written extensively on both African and European literary traditions and has staged plays where he combines elements of both. He learned the hard way that the answer to life’s questions are not black or white, not Christian or Muslim, not Yoruba or Igbo, but various versions of all of the above.
Tara June Winch, an Australian writer who was awarded a Rolex mentorship under Nobel Prize winner Wole Soyinka, speaks highly of her mentor in the following interview:
What was your first impression of your mentor, Wole Soyinka?
He was first mentioned in the letter from Rolex inviting me to apply. And I hadn’t heard of Wole Soyinka before then because in Australia – I don’t know why, I think because we are so cornered into the Pacific – there is not a plethora of African writing available to us, which is really sad and completely different from America and Europe in their engagement with African writers. It’s strange that I never noticed this in the past until the Rolex mentorship. And then I started to read Wole’s works and one in particular, one book of essays, The Burden of Memory, the Muse of Forgiveness. The first chapter was on repression and reconciliation, and I was at a writing conference for my work when I got the book. Reading that chapter, I saw the complete correlation between the African problem and the [Australian] Aboriginal problem – exactly the same. It was completely transparent and I was crying. Discovering Wole was like discovering a guidance you never knew existed, but it was the most important guidance that you could have. Everything that I have read of Wole’s, it’s as if I have been looking for that in writing – in terms of his poetry, essays and fiction and plays and in terms of everything I have wanted to read. It’s all contained in his work. Then I couldn’t get enough. I had stacks and stacks of Soyinka all over my kitchen table. And my first impression of meeting Wole, I remember I was just smiling when he came to the airport in Lagos to meet me and the other three finalists [before he chose his protégée]. I said to myself: “Stop smiling so much.”
