bookshy: October 2016

Today, as I get closer to the end of my celebration of Nigerian women writers, it's all about Nike Campbell-Fatoki.

Photo via Pulse.ng

Writer of the historical-romance fiction, Thread of Gold Beads - which was published in 2012 - Campbell-Fatoki worked for years in International Development, and now currently works for Municipal government in the Washington DC area. In her own words, Thread of Gold Beads:

... chronicles the fictional character Amelia, daughter of the last independent King of Danhome, King Ghebanzin ... [who] searches for her place within the palace amidst conspirators and traitors to the Kingdom. Just when Amelia begins to feel at home in her role as a Princess, a well-kept secret shatters the perfect life she knows ... A struggle between good and evil ensues causing Amelia to leave all that she knows and loves. She must flee Danhome with her brother, to south-western Nigeria. In a faraway land, she finds the love of a new family and God. The well-kept secret thought to have been dead and buried, resurrects with the flash of a thread of gold beads.

The story is set between the late 1890s and early 1990s, during the French-Dahomey war of Benin Republic, but also takes place in Abeokuta and Lagos in South-Western Nigeria. Indeed, Campbell-Fatoki's maternal great-grandmother fled the Dahomey kingdom in the 1890s to western Nigeria, (similar to Amelia in the book). On why Campbell-Fatoki wrote the book, on one hand she wanted to 'preserve some of this history' through her writing. She however 'didn't go in planning to write historical romance/fiction - something she raised in this interview on Under the Neem Tree:

I was merely drawn to and inspired by the stories I had heard about the last independent Kingdom of Dahomey, the French-Dahomey war told by her grandmother as told by her grandmother and the research that revealed so much history and legacy. I for one didn't know that there existed an army of female warriors in Africa until I did my research. I knew I had to bring that era to life.

Thread of Gold Beads has also been translated into French and was published August 2015. Nike is also currently working on her next historical fiction novel set in 1800s Abeokuta, Lagos and Freetown. However, Campbell-Fatoki does not only write historical fiction. In her recently published short story collection, Bury Me Come Sunday Afternoon, the lives of contemporary Nigerians (in Nigeria and the diaspora) - is the focus. Or as Campbell-Fatoki explains via an email interview on Nigerian Reporter:

The stories address societal issues that we experience of witness daily - mental illness, religious fanaticism, child sexual molestation, domestic abuse, to name a few.

Why were these stories for her new collection? Because they

... focus on social issues that we face daily but do not readily speak about. We are eager to jump on issues of world hunger, free trade, national GDP - macroeconomic issues, but we fail to address the issues that affect us directly, our daily struggles as individuals. I want readers to look into the face of what they fear and call it by name. Only then can we begin to address them and find solutions.

In a blog post explaining the inspiration behind the collection, Campbell-Fatoki goes into more detail writing that:

Each story draws from my witnessing what others have gone through or my own experiences. We must peel back the layers, go beyond the surface to understand others and their personal motives. For those that have been misunderstood, those that do not have a voice, those that have been dealth a bad hand, [BMCSA] is also for you.

The draft of the short story Searching for Miss Anderson, for instance, was written 'while in a hospital room watching over my son in January 2015.' And the others:

'Losing My Religion' draws from my experiences growing up in religious establishments and how if we as people can be led like sheep to the slaughter if we are not careful. 'The Hunchback' was inspired by the community of Makoko in Lagos and what they endured during the 72-hour vacate notice in 2012 when one of the inhabitants was killed.

Campbell-Fatoki also founded Our Paths to Greatness - celebrating the accomplishments of Africans within and outside the continent. As explained on the website,

... it provides access to educational and professional opportunities, leadership training to undeserved Africans in Africa and in the diaspora, fosters and facilitates African arts and cultural education and collaborated on sustainable development projects for the African community.

Definitely also check out Nike Campbell Fatoki's website to find out more, and her blog to follow her musings.

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With only a few days left of my celebration of Nigerian women writers, today the focus in on writer and broadcaster Chikodili Emelumadu.

Photo via Sub-Q Magazine

On writing and broadcasting, Emelumadu notes in this interview on Geosi Reads that while they both 'revolve around telling stories' ... writing deals with the written word as a method of reaching people while broadcasting is audio/video. Still, for Emelumadu, 'writing is not new' - as she discusses during an interview on Sub-Q:

I've been doing it since I could write words. And before I could write, I was telling stories. Before I could tell them, I thought them and dreamt them and felt them and was them.

Emelumandu is currently working on a novel about a group of girls on a quest. Although after trying many different formats - plays, poetry, novels and novellas - she notes in her interview on Geosi Reads that she has 'finally "settled" on short stories'. Well, her story, Bush Baby, in African Monsters was one of my favourites in the collection - and this is an entire collection I gushed about. Her works can also be found in a number of publications including: Soup in One Throne, Candy Girl (nominated for a Shirley Jackson Short Fiction Award in 2014) and Soursop in Apex, Jermyn and Pure Water in Eclectica, Tunbi and Bossy Boots in Luna Station Quarterly, The Fixer in Sub-Q, and Story, Story: A Tale of Mothers and Daughters in Omenana.

Some fun facts about Chikodili Emelumandu: the story Soursop was inspired by something she read from the Nigerian food blogger Kitchen Butterfly:

Well, it was the end of my workday and I was browsing 'the internets' when I decided to check out this blog [Kitchen Butterfly]. This was my second time on the website and I was omery from writing so slowly all day and being frequently interrupted, I just wanted to 'eat' with my eyes, something that I did not create.

There on the front page was a photo of what she called 'custard apples' but which I knew as 'Sweetsops' from reading another Jamaican blogspot a few years ago. The fruits reminded me of their cousins, 'Sour sops' which we have in Nigeria and which I used to devour with relish. I started to salivate and eureka! The story slammed its way into my taste buds. I think it took about an hour and a half or two hours to write. I was just there.

... she rants about life, Igboness and whatever seizes her fancy, translated Toni Kan's story Cotyledons in the Ankara Press Valentine's Day anthology into Igbo, and has reflected on being 'not just a vagina' and how 'women have been othered beyond comprehension' by some men, making women's 'experiences seem alien':

Definitely do check out her blog, where there's also a link to learn commonly used Igbo words.

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Up next in my celebration of Nigerian women writers is the 'Queen of African Horror', Nuzo Onoh, whose passion as a writer has been to re-define the term 'African Horror'.

Photo via Amazon

With an annual publishing date of June 28, Onoh has published three books in the last three years: her debut collection The Reluctant Dead, a collection of three novellas Unhallowed Graves and her most recent novel The Sleepless.

Although Onoh started writing at a young age, as she explains in an interview with Starbust magazine, it was not until she was almost fifty that she finally felt she had 'a sense of freedom [to] do what [she] wanted to do'. What did Onoh do? Well, she went back to Warwick University (where she also has a law degree from) to do a Masters in Creative Writing.

Loving 'everything to do with ghosts', being able to share stories about her own culture and having people understanding it and with Stephen King being an 'all-time hero', Onoh went down the route of the horror genre. In an interview on Africanwriter.com, she also gives credit to not taking on this journey when she was younger:

This is definitely the right time! ... when I was younger, I had no idea what genre I wanted to write in. I wouldn't have realised that African horror is a brand that is just as exciting and relevant as horror from other parts of the world ... I wouldn't have marketed myself in this way or realised there was an audience for my stories.

For Onoh, 'the beauty of horror lies in creating pure terror out of the mundane, the familiar and the innocent.'

Onoh writes 'mainly about Igbo ghost stories', and as mentioned earlier, her aim is to re-define the term 'African Horror'. This is something she sees as a horror sub-genre and hopes will be as 'recognised and enjoyed as other regional horror sub-genres'. In this interview with Short Story Day Africa (SSDA), Onoh notes:

I've been championing the term as a bona-fide sub-genre, just like Scandinavian, Korean, Japanese horror etc., rather than a negative condition of the continent as mostly portrayed by the popular media ... My books ... have introduced this hitherto unknown genre into mainstream horror literary genre.

Onoh's work also has similarities with the traditional Japanese Ghost tales (Kaidan, which means supernatural tales), which she explains in more detail in the same interview with SSDA:

Kaidan stories are ... old-times Japanese ghost stories or oral traditional folklore, just like African horror stories. They are local stories, set in a particular village/region revealing local customs and beliefs. Based on Buddhist philosophy, there is a strong moral element to Kaidan stories. Karma plays an important role, with ghostly vengeance for wrong-doings featuring frequently in tales. This is also quite similar to African ghost stories and each single one of my stories portrays the supernatural consequences of bad actions or omissions by numerous characters ... both the Kaidan and the Igbo/African traditions see a continuous link between life and death, with the dead playing an active part in the lives of the living through hauntings, possession or reincarnation. From these, one can see that there is a strong theme of death, the afterlife and supernatural revenge common to both the Igbo/African beliefs and Japanese Kaidan stories.

But what really is African Horror, you ask? Well, here's a 10-point guide courtesy of Nuzo Onoh published on The Maze of Twisty Passages to help you understand. Some of which includes:

1. ... African Horror is a literary genre in its own right, a sub-genre of horror that has existed for centuries, albeit without a formal title ...

2. African Horror encompassed several horror sub-genres like supernatural horror, psychological horror, demonic/occultic horror, sci-fi horror ... slasher/gore/splatter horror and paranormal romance to mention a few ...

6. Amos Tutuola, the famous author of 'The Palm-wine Drinkard' and 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts' is the father of African Horror.

9. African Horror stories are not Folktales, contrary to popular conception. These days, modern African Horror is written in prose and style similar to mainstream horror, which readers from all over the globe can relate to.

Onoh's writing has been described as 'compelling', as 'very super natural' and 'with plenty of creepiness and plenty of horror', and as 'enchanting'. Find out more about Nuzo Onoh on her website and here's Onoh on BBC Focus on Africa, talking about The Sleepless and on the BBC's World Service 'The Fifth Floor' talking about The Reluctant Dead.

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October is almost over, and so is my month celebrating Nigerian women writers. Today it's all about Mabel Segun - a poet, playwright and writer.

Image via Facebook

While Mabel Segun has written for both adults and children, in this post I focus on her children's books - as she is said to have written, co-authored and edited around eleven children's books. These include the autobiographies for younger readers My Father's Daughter published in 1965 and My Mother's Daughter published in 1986, as well as Olu and the Broken Statue (1985), The First Corn (1989) and The Twins and the Tree Spirits (1991/2004). Segun also has published poetry for children, including one she edited with Neville Grant - Under the Mango Tree (1980) - that features poems for all over Africa and the diaspora.

A champion for children's literature in Nigeria, Segun founded the Children's literature Association of Nigeria in 1978 and set up the Children's Documentation and Research Centre in 1990 in Ibadan. In an interview Mabel Segun did with Wale Okediran, Okediran asked Segun 'what's all this fuss about training workshops' with reference to writing for children as it's 'no big deal'. To which Segun responds:

... writing for children is much more difficult than writing for adults. Children at different ages have different interests, different psychological make-ups and different cognitive experiences. You must use simple language and you must never talk down to children.

Image via Preserving the Landscape of Imagination

In addition, Segun's biography includes being a fellow at the International Youth Library in Munich, on the children's books review panel for African Book Publishing Record published in Oxford, an assessor for the Noma Award for Publishing in Africa and a collaborator with the International Board on Books for Young People in Basel. In 2007, Segun's play for children - Readers' Theatre: Twelve Plays for Young People was joint winner of the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Children's Literature. The twelve plays included popular folktales, as well as ones on Nigerian heroes.

Finally, while my celebration focuses on works published since 1960, I had to share this fascinating excerpt from Segun's interview with Wale Okediran on 'who should rightly be called the first published female writer in Nigeria':

Flora Nwapa is not the first published Nigerian female writer. In 'Nigerian Women in the Arts', Phebaan Itayemi, now Phebean Ogundipe, has this distinction. Her short story, which won a British Council competition in 1946, was published in an anthology ... I am the second Nigerian female to be published abroad. In 1954, twelve years before Heinemann published Flora's first novel, 'Efuru' (1966), three poems were translated into German and published in a German anthology, 'Shwarzer Orpheus'. In 1958, one poem and a short story were similarly published in another German anthology. Before these foreign anthologies were published, I contributed short stories, poems and essays to the Ibadan University College magazine, the 'University Herald' (1950-54). In 1962, I was the only female writer included in 'Reflections' - still before Flora's debut with her novel. In these early days, poetry and short stories were usually published in anthologies. Single author collections were rare.

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Today, as part of my celebration of Nigerian women writers, I focus on the first published female Nigerian playwright and Africa's first female Professor of Theatre Arts, 'Zulu Sofola.

Photo via zulusofola.com

In a blog post I found celebrating 'Zulu Sofola, the author writes that Sofola 'was perhaps, the most important female playwright in Africa during her time'. Particularly in

... a male-dominated world where the voice of women seemed unheard and under-appreciated, 'Zulu Sofola stepped forward and distinguished herself as a literary icon and an excellent dramatist.

Sofola's plays were diverse and could feature tragedy, satire, myths or crime (to name a some). As noted by Abiodun Abe (a director of a number of Sofola's plays and Technical Director of Nigeria's National Theatre) in the aforementioned blog post, her plays:

... are largely traditional and instructive and they tell tales of love and royalty through tragedies and the various experiences of human life in such a way that readers and audience alike are both entertained and informed in one scenario or the other.

In her own words via In Their Own Voices: African Women Writers Talk, Sofola shares what motivates her writing:

I am motivated by human problems that confront us all. It depends on the spirit of a problem before i get the kind of inspiration which makes me want to write about it. Then I do my research.

And via Womanism and African Consciousness, we get what Sofola says she questions through her writing

... most of my writing questions the 'isms' that have been superimposed on the African people.

Some cool facts on Profoessor Sofola: her works include 17 plays, 15 published plays, along with other manuscripts discovered at the time of her death. These include Wedlock of the Gods (1972), King Emene: Tragedy of a Rebellion (1974), The Sweet Trap (1974), Old Wines are Tasty (1979) and Memories in the Moonlight (1986). And the first play Sofola produced and publlished was The Disturbed Peace of Christmas - staged first at Yejide Girls' Grammar School in Ibadan, and then published by Daystar Press (also in Ibadan).

Covers via zulusofola.com

Even more cool facts, in an interview with Adeola James, Sofola notes how music got her into writing:

... music was my original interest. But when I was studying in the United States, I had to select another subject in addition to my main line. That was what landed me in drama. But I found that in dram I was also in music because I could produce plays with a musical background and I could use music for the mood. So it was through music that I got into writing.

Sofola's last play - Queen Omu-Ako of Oligbo - was written and produced while she was a Fulbright Scholar in the Sates. A historical play about the Nigerian civil war, as explained in this article on Aidoo's feminism and Sofola's de-womanisation

[Sofola] shows how the dual-sex system of government functions with an Omu, the leader of women controlling the female are of the government. Being the granddaughter of an Omu, Sofola uses the leadership role of the Queen to debunk notions of female powerlessness and passivity propagated by European culture.

Find out more about 'Zulu Sofola and her works on her official website, and here are some posters and stills of scenes of Sofola's plays.

Virgo Foundations production in London in 2011. Image via wailacaan.com

Still from the performance of Wedlock of the Gods in London via afridiziak.com

Chi Ife Productions in Atlanta in 2013. Image via zulusofola.com

Still from performance of Wedlock of the Gods in Atlanta. Image via broadwayworld.com

Mosaic Theatre Production in Lagos in 2014. Image via lindaikeji

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This month I am celebrating Nigerian women writers, and up next is Kiru Taye - who writes romance and erotica stories. And whether they are historical, paranormal or contemporary, they are said to always be sensual and passionate.

Photo via blackandoutspoken

With over 12 books, fan-fiction erotica and (I think) 5 series, Taye's works include the historical romance series, Men of Valor, set in pre-colonial West Africa. When asked by Myne Whitman why she writes historical romance, Kiru Taye explains how she:

... wanted to write stories that showcased African heritage and culture positively. There are several misconceptions about African before colonisation. One such is that love and romance didn't exist in Africa until the colonials dropped by and taught us. This is totally wrong. Love and romance have always existed in Africa, although expressed in different ways ... So I wanted to write stories that showed Africans falling in love with a historical context while still dealing with other cultural issues that might impact relationships.

Taye further stresses on This is Africa how important it is to write about how 'West Africa ... was rich and diverse with kingdoms like Nri, Benin, Oyo, Ashanti, Aro, Nok', and 'redress[ing] the imbalance and showcase our beautiful heritage through [her] historical romances.

A look at some of Kiru Taye's works via her website.

Taye also writes about sex in her work - as she particularly enjoys 'romance novels which include sex scenes', and as she explains in this interview with Adura Ojo, she is:

... unapologetic about what [she] read[s] or write[s] and really owe no one any explanation. There are loads of young women (and men) that get into relationships or marriages without fully understanding what healthy and pleasurable sex feels like. I hope to educate and entertain them at the same time. Nigerians have sex. So why is talking or writing about sex a taboo?

Plus if you do want to write a sensual, passionate sex scene here's 'lesson number 1' courtesy of Kiru Taye:

Do not be a prick tease ... You either write it fully or you exclude it all together. Don't tease the reader by getting characters frisky and practically through fore-play and then chickening out by slamming the door on the actual consummation.

Kiru Taye is also a founding member of Romance Writers of West Africa and a 2015 Romance Writer of the Year at the Nigerian Writers Award. Although I mentioned earlier she has 5 series, it seems there might be a 6th one soon to be added to her collection - Outcast, a paranormal romance set in Ancient Africa and part one of the Sacred Amulet. What's it about, you ask. Well according to the blurb:

Ugo'ji is an outcast, an untouchable. She lives on the fringe of society as the lowest of the low, a living sacrifice to the gods. The only person she interacts with is her aged grandmother Nne who nurtures her powerful gift of healing. Until the day she meets Ebube, a strange warrior to their lands. He ignites a yearning within her she's unable to ignore.

Ebube is drawn to the young maiden with the emerald green eyes who possesses the body of a goddess and the healing touch of an angel. But he is forbidden from mating with a human and the consequence is the wrath of the gods.

Moreover he is on a mission. If he fails, the gates of hell will be opened and the earth plunged into darkness. He cannot stay and she cannot go with him.

I am actually intrigued. And you can find out more about Kiru Taye, part one of the Sacred Amulet and her other romance series on her website. PS. Here's a teeny excerpt via Kiru Taye's website.

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The only photo I found of Ulasi via Wikipedia.

Up next in my celebration of Nigerian women writers is Adaora Lily Ulasi, who between 1970 and 1978 published 5 books - Many Thing You No Understand (1970), Many Thing Begin For Change (1971), The Night Harry Died (1974), Who is Jonah? (1978), The Man from Sagamu (1978) - all of which (as far as I am aware) are out of print. Although I've heard of Adaora Lily Ulasi, I didn't know much about her and her works until I started researching for this post. To be honest, one of the reasons I'm celebrating women writers is to be able to learn more about writers who I know little to nothing about.

In her chapter on Adaora Lily Ulasi - in the 1996 book Africa Wo/Man Palava: The Nigerian Novel by Women - Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi describes Ulasi as 'the most misunderstood writer from Nigeria', particularly as 'she does not appear interested to throw a little light on her life or her works' (p183). Later in the chapter, Oguyemi explains how Ulasi is in 'the limbo of forgotten writers, whose books are rarely read' (p195).

The little that does exist on Ulasi (and a lot of which I got from Ogunyemi's book) sheds some light on this fascinating woman who was said to be the first West African woman to obtain a degree in journalism and worked in a predominantly male world at the Times complex in Lagos.

Ulasi was also said to be one of the first Nigerians to write detective fiction in English. Although Ogunyemi believes that Ulasi's works are not 'run-of-the-mill detective stories' and are 'larger than, the detective story' (p195) as Ulasi 'creates a hybrid form by fusing the detective story, steeped in the material world, with the magical, the tall tale, the super natural' (p196). While Ulasi did write mystery novels:

... it is clear that she has produced five mysteries. The novels are indeed mysteries ... set in what Hortense Spillers, in another context, refers to as the "terrain of witchcraft" (1987, 189). In Ulasi, seeing is not always believing or deceptive. Her intriguing genre, the juju novel, appears to be Nigeria's answer to the gothic and magic realism ... Ulasi's terrain covers the occult, dark, impenetrable tropical forests; in short, vestiges of the supernatural world, which proliferate the Nigerian imagination. (p193)

For Ogunyemi, Ulasi did more than that, and with her 'conflation of mystery and juju' (p184) writes in a genre Oguyemi terms 'juju fiction'. What is juju fiction?

a bewitched crossroads, where many literary aspects intersect: juju, the mystery novel, fantasy, the ghost story, the tall tale, the gothic, etc.' and her writing 'baffled critics straining to classify her'. (p184)

Ulasi also experimented with language, writing in pidgin - although it was 'anglicised to make the dialogue accessible for her European audience' (p190) and often referred to as 'terrible pidgin' (p191).

Excerpt from The Man from Sagamu via Ogunyemi (p191)

Her novels are also based on her experiences:

as an Igbo girl growing up in colonial Nigeria, an undergraduate student in the United States, a journalist in the Nigerian Times complex, and a wife and a mother in an interracial marriage. (p192)

Basically Ulasi's works sound like the perfect combination of my kind of read - and I am on a mission to find them. Although it does seem like there are a copies of her books available on Amazon, if anyone has leads of where I can get them please do share.

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Photo via the writing disorder

It's day four of my celebration of Nigerian women writers, and today the focus is on Suzanne Ushie, whose recently released story, Let's Talk About Something Else, I had the absolute pleasure of reading yesterday. Published by Saraba - in anticipation of their forthcoming Power Issue - the story follows Uzilibe - a young woman living in Lagos, who quits her job after her boss gropes her, and then heads to London to clear her head and stays with her friend, Bendeustu. But leaving a great job is ridiculous, right? Especially when it was just a grope, right? It's really not a big deal? All he did was brush against her breasts and squeeze her bum? Clearly she overreacted, right? Totally overreacted! Beautiful story on a not-so-beautiful topic, sexual harassment in the workplace and how people react when you react (instead of ignore it).

Cover photograph by Magda Kapa. Source: Saraba

Beyond this new fiction supplement, Ushie - who (used to?) work in advertising and has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia - has had her stories in a number of print and online publications, including Dissembling and The Ghost of Joy in Sentinel Nigeria, Above the Line in Overtime, Swans in Conte Online, From an Empty Place in Fiction Fix, We Don't Sweep at Night in The Writing Disorder, Home is Home in Lunch Ticket and Fine Red Dust in Gambit: Newer African Writing.

Speaking of Gambit, four years ago in an interview with Emmanuel Iduma for The Mantle, Ushie shares her thoughts on the art of creating and more, such as what fascinates her about the writing process: 'The inexplicable thrill that comes with finding a potential good story.' And on the internet as a platform for new and emerging writers: 'The Internet has made life easier for me and tons of other emerging writers.' As well as how her 'experiences as an ad woman occasional show up in [her] work.' There's also this op-ed Ushie wrote a few years ago on finding writing:

For as long as I remember I've always wanted to be a writer. I wrote my first book titled 'The Mahogany Caves', borne out of an imagination shaped by Enid Blyton, just before I turned nine. In those early years I played ten-ten and hopscotch with my sisters in our compound in Calabar, and during our frequent adventures, I imagined that the orchard where my father grew his precious fruits was really a secret garden. There was always something to daydream about, to write about.

Although in the earlier interview on the Mantle, Suzanne Ushie states 'I don't really write nonficiton ... I may write [it] to help clear my head in those moments.' There are a number of non-fiction pieces written by Ushie, which can be read here: The Serious Guide to Becoming a Seriously Unfashionable Writer republished in Saraba's Fashion issue, with some satire which even provides a handbook with 10 points on how to look more like a writer: No. 2 - say goodbye to that 'sixteen inch Brazilian weave for a brand new dreadlocked diet', and maybe even cancel that 'eyebrow waxing appointment at the Day Spa.' There's also The Gravity of Faith and Lipstick, Eyeliner & Everything in Between in Brittle Paper.

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