bookshy: October 2015

... and with this comes the end of my celebration of art in Nigerian literature. I have had so much fun putting these posts together this year and showcasing all the amazing works. From Three Crown Books in the 1960s and Edel Rodriguez's amazing book covers for the reissue of Chinua Achebe's books to the many different covers of Things Fall Apart and the gorgeous, gorgeous illustrations of Nigerian artists including Alaba Onajin, Onyinye Iwu and Karo Akpokiere.

I know there's a lot more I could have looked at, and the end of this celebratory month does not mean an end of my celebration of art in Nigerian literature and beyond. Still, I do hope you have enjoyed this series on art and literature as much as I have, and see you again same time next year for my month dedicated to Nigerian literature. For now, I leave you with two new releases from the North of Nigeria - debut novels from Elnathan John and Abubakar Adam Ibrahim. As Ibrahim says in a recent interview, 'there are not enough stories from the North of Nigeria [leading to a] perpetuation of stereotypes of the people who live in this part of the country', which is why I'm really excited for these two new releases.

First up is Elnathan John's much awaited debut novel, Born on a Tuesday, published by Cassava Republic and out next month.

Dantala lives in Bayan Layi, Nigeria and studies in a Sufi Quaranic school. By chance he meets gang leader Banda, a nominal Muslim. Dantala is thrust into a world with fluid rules and casual violence. In the aftermath of presidential elections he runs away and ends up living in a Salafi mosque. Slowly and through the hurdles of adolescence, he embraces Salafism as preached by his new benefactor, Sheikh Jamal. Dantala falls in love with Sheikh's daughter, Aisha and tries to court her within the acceptable limits of a conservative setting. All the while, Sheikh struggles to deal with growing Jihadist extremism within his own ranks.

This novel explore life, love, friendship, loss and the effects of extremist politics and religion on everyday life in Northern Nigeria.

Then there's Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's, Season of Crimson Blossoms, published by Parresia (also out in November) about 'a fifty-something year old widow and her explicit relationship with a twenty-year old weed dealer and political thug'. As Ibrahim explains, the novel explores all the dynamics that a relationship of this nature can throw up, while situating it within the social and religious context in which the story is set. This interview goes into more detail of this story about a widow who wants to explore her sexual side in Northern Nigeria.

Image via Parresia's Facebook page

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Halloween is just around the corner, and while it may not be associated with Nigeria, there is one thing about the day - ghouls, ghosts, witches, and all things scary - that can definitely be found in Nigerian literature. If you don't know, now you know - we know how to tell a good ghost story! We also have our fair share of urban legends, like Madam Koi Koi - with her red heels (clicking away making sounds that go koi koi koi) going from boarding school to boarding school coming to capture kids late at night. Supposedly, if you lay still in bed and don't make a sound, you might be lucky and Madam Koi Koi won't notice you. So, with the end of this month marking All Hallows' Eve, I thought my next celebratory post could look at art associated with Nigerian ghost stories.

When I think of ghost stories the first one that comes to mind is Amos Tutuola's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts about a young boy who accidentally enters the Bush of Ghosts and encounters a number of ghosts – from the sinister to the not-so-sinister. What I didn't expect when looking for illustrations was to come across these really amazing drawings from an artist, John W. Lane, who one day plans 'to illustrate a complete portfolio of this tale'. Please do! How awesome would that be?

To 7th Town

The Smelling King

Losing Brother

Kitchen Fight. All images via animatedlane

While My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is what first came to my mind, the first novel Amos Tutuola wrote - The Wild Hunter in the Bush of Ghosts - is said to have been heavily influenced by D.O. Fagunwa's Forest of a Thousand Daemons translated from Yoruba by Wole Soyinka. Forest of a Thousand Daemons, said to be the first novel written in Yoruba, takes you to 'a world of warriors, sages and kings; magical trees and snake people; spirits, Ghommids, and big trolls.' While it was first published in 1939, here is the 2012 City Lights publishing edition with illustrations from Bruce Onobrakpeya.

Cover design by Linda Ronan

Images via City Lights

Another well-known ghost story is Ben Okri's Famished Road - that book definitely terrified me when I first read it at 13/14. I was so terrified I put it down and was too scared to pick it back up and continue reading it. Reading it late at night when there's no light (also known as electricity/power) by candle light was probably also not the best idea. Famished Road may follow Azaro, who is an abiku or spirit child, but according to Molara Wood, there was one artist who captured the essence of magical realism. Indeed, Wood described the late Nigerian visual artist Twins Seven Seven as a 'Magical Realist':

'In his fantabulous painted woodcuts, I see the world of D.O Fagunwa, Amos Tutuola, Asiru Olatunde and Ben Okri. Okri may have written about Azaro, but Twins Seven-Seven - born Taiwo Olaniyi Osuntoki - was Azaro personified.'

Here are a couple of Twins Seven Seven's work on abiku's and ghosts.

The long eared ghost

Healing of Abiku Children

More recent ghost stories come from Helen Oyeyemi - Icarus Girl, The Opposite House and White is for Witching. I particularly like the White is for Witching covers, and this animated trailer for White is for Witching, with art work from Jon Klassen.

Finally, going back to urban legends and Madam Koi Koi, here are some illustrations of three famous Nigerian horror stories from Obk studios.

If you're interested in finding out more about Nigerian ghost stories, here's a podcast from BBC World Service on West African horror fiction featuring Nigerian writer Nuzo Onoh who writes 'to scare the adults'. Her book, The Reluctant Dead, is a collection of six short ghost stories. There is also The Naked Convos, Lights Out: Nigerian Horror Story series.

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The original 1958 green Heinemann
hardcover by artist C.W Bacon

Things Fall Apart doesn't tend to make it onto my celebratory posts - as it was published in 1958 - but this year as I am focusing on art, I figure I've found a loophole :) - the fact that there have been many covers published since its 1958 publication. And I know, I know! Chinua Achebe has made it twice onto my celebratory posts - it wasn't my intention. But I must admit, it is pretty amazing that Things Fall Apart has had this many book covers in the last 55 years. With exception of the 1958 and 1959 covers, there are 36 covers in this post. And I'm sure there are plenty more out there.

1959 US edition black cover with a white
and orange African mask.

While looking up covers for this post, I came across A Conversation with Chinua Achebe in Transitions Magazine. So in 2008 (Friday, April 25 to be exact), David Chioni Moore and Analee Heath interviewed Chinua Achebe at his home on the Bard College campus in New York. Moore and Heath brought with them around 20 different editions of Things Fall Apart and discussed 50 years of blurbs, introductions, author photos and book covers. There's the 1958 Heinemann cover which Achebe 'felt ... was striking' when he first saw it. In 2008 (at the time of the interview) Achebe explains how he 'might have said something about the black man standing here on the cover. That's not how he would have been standing. I am speaking of his posture, and his dress, or the lack of it.' As well as the 1992 Everyman Library edition which was a beautiful book to Achebe:

'Well, this book is beautiful . . . , that's what I think. I think, with this edition, this book has arrived after a long journey, and has made it to the end ... It's a good book, and it's how books should be. This is how they used to be, and I'm happy for the book.'

The interview is really fascinating, but sadly not available online (unless you have some sort of access to Transitions - it's from issue 100, which can be found on JSTOR). So, starting with some of the covers the Transition conversation focused on, here's a literary book cover tour of Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

The first Heinemann AWS edition, 1963, designed by Dennis Duerden. Image via Transitions

Fawcett premier paperback of the late 1960s. Image via Transitions

Another Fawcett paperback from the 1970s - a film-based book cover.

On this 'film-based cover', Achebe explains that 'it's a representation of a film rendition of Things Fall Apart. I don't think many people know about that film, but it was made by an American lawyer in Hollywood, Edward Mosk, and his wife Fern, in the early 1970s. The woman on the cover was in the film - Elizabeth of Toro, a Ugandan actress, and the daughter of the king of Toro. The fellow on the cover is from French-speaking West Africa - he was a Senegalese actor who was living in the United States.' As for the 1976 Heinemann cover, Achebe 'quite frankly' didn't know what to make of it.

Heinemann African Writers Series cover from 1976.

Mid-1980s Heinemann African Writers Series edition.

1992 Everyman's Library Edition

... and here are the other covers I found, including the Spanish and isiXhosa editions. There's also a really interesting article in Chimurenga by Sean O'Toole which goes on a visual history of Things Fall Apart.

Charting the evolution of Achebe's covers, Moore ends the conversation by asking Achebe what he would expect will be on the cover of Things Fall Apart for the 100th anniversary edition?:

'We started in 1958 with a blurb about primitive society from the inside, then moved to late '60s and '70s more revolutionary, more violent, more politicized imagery, on to more abstract 1980s presentations, and finally an august world literature treatment here in 2008.'

Well in 2058, Chinua Achebe hoped that ' ... references to the exotic or the primitive or the Other will have gone ... and that whatever is happening in Africa will be handled just as something happening in Australia, America or elsewhere.'

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