Publishers’ Note: Gathering Food
There is a certain way of perpetuating the discourse of food: relishing a meal while predetermining the next. This might be the subliminal rationale behind the Prequel Issue to the Food Issue, the culinary delight of hors d’oeuvre. This philosophy might as well promote gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, but Temitayo Olofinlua’s piece pointedly asserts this behaviour as... Read More
Rekindling Love
Cover Book Title: A Love Rekindled Author: Myne Whitman Published: Createspace, March 2011 Type: US Trade 6X9 Paperback; EBook Price: $11.99; $2.99 Pages: 276 Like Myne’s first novel, A Love Rekindled is a contemporary romance set in Nigeria, and like in A Heart to Mend, she does a thorough job of bringing the settings to life. In A Love Rekindled however, the story is... Read More
The Global Swagger Revolution
When I heard Terry-G’s song, I assumed swagger was a slang, and would not be found in an English dictionary. This ignorance lasted for, perhaps, two months. Then I heard the word being used out of Terry G’s context, something less entertaining, and I checked a dictionary. Perhaps he popularized the usage of the word in Nigeria as T.I. had popularized it in America (globally?);... Read More
The Serious Guide to Becoming a Seriously Unfashionable Writer
A few months ago a co-worker drew me aside. ‘Wow! I didn’t know someone like you could write a story as deep as that. I even scrolled back to the top of the page to confirm that it was you,’ she adjusted the frame of her glasses as she spoke. ‘Really?’ I asked. ‘Yes now,’ she went on. ‘You know you visit all those fashion blogs everyday. And you’re…’ I could... Read More
Planning Obsolescence
Emmanuel Iduma and Dominique Malaquais in Conversation As an addendum to our previously considered speculations about technology in Issue #7, Dominique Malaquais, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, serves as the perfect conversationalist. I met Dominique in 2009, at the Word into Art into Africa (WiAiA), a workshop organised by an... Read More
Of Wigs and Creative Writing
What does the study of Law mean for my writing? Is it an aid or an encumberance, or a ‘middlesome interlopper?’ Does it make me see things clearly, or form a cloud over my eyes? My only response to this arises from a simple purport of conflict and resolution. Law is concerned, in my view, with the ‘creation’ of conflict and the attendant resolution. Indeed,... Read More
Of Homosexuals and Sexification
I raise these points in response to Olusolape’s 36th Facebook Note, and well, Richard Ali’s responses to him. I beg the reader to patiently consider the arguements raised on Olusolape’s page, and read alongside this. 1. For me, the “the progress of tolerance” is as much a non-issue as “the fact that some people are gay.” 2. This is because,... Read More
Love Notes for Saraba
By TEMITAYO OLOFINLUA Saraba you came to me, first in the month of love, February, 2009. You came as a Facebook message. A message across miles from a friend I’d never met—Emmanuel Iduma. And don’t ask me how come I have a friend I have never met. It was plain curiousity that made me click the link on a visit to that website where you live. That was when I submitted myself... Read More
The Success of a Failure
By DAMILOLA AJAYI Now I can’t precisely remember when I conceded to Agatha’s impression of the Colloquium of New Writing. Perhaps it was after she made the statement, or earlier, when I walked into the programme venue to find the organizers to be fellow students, or later when a facilitator began his monologue on the death of Nigerian literature, on how our gathering that... Read More
Warriors of South
By EMEKA IDUMA 1967 is a very fortunate year in the history of Nigeria. Just seven years after we decided that we were old enough to take care of ourselves, we hit gold. This time it was not blonde-colored neither was it held together by metallic bonds. Black gold became a curse, guise-skinned as wealth, to the common people of Nigeria. While our leaders rejoiced at the blessing... Read More
