ImageNations

Every art enthusiast has at least an artiste he or she is dedicated to, whom he would follow thoroughly. They may not necessarily like everything about these artistes but they make it a point to know them and their works. This is common about musicians and visual artists. Almost five years ago, when I was making a list of  100 Books I want to read in five years , I took such a decision. I promised myself I would read every book  Chimamanda  publishes, irrespective of the reviews that she would garner. (Another author I mentally selected was Ayi Kwei Armah.) Since then I have read all four of Adichie's known published books, including  Americanah  (Fourth Estate, 2013) ,  the author's third novel after the highly-successful  Half of a Yellow Sun  (2006) and her fourth published book following her anthology of short stories,  The Thing Around Your Neck   (2009).  When a writer achieves success and fame with his early works and ...

Over the past few months, several Africans have come up with great novels that have received rave reviews. It is important that we get to know these novels. In my previous discussions, I talked about how relatively prolific African writers have become. Here are a selection of three and I will post what has been written about them since I have not read them myself: Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selasi [Ghana/Nigeria/UK]. According to the Diana Evans in The Guardian :   [Ghana Must Go] stands up to the hype. Taiye Selasi writes with glittering poetic command, a sense of daring, and a deep emotional investment in the lives and transformations of her characters. There is a lot of crying in this novel, lots of corporeal observations of the pain inflicted by social experience and the ties of love. But the tears flow lightly through passages of gorgeous description and psychological investigation, leaving behind a powerful portrait of a broken family – "a fa...

Ever since I listened to Chimamanda 's Dangers of a Single Story , I have mentioned and referred to it several times. I refer to it any time people try to stereotype others; anytime people try to define others using lexical and imagistic  clichés . However, due to the recent upsurge in negative reportage from mainstream media, such as CNN  - which are suppose to know best - and smaller outlets like  motherboard , I think it is high time I posted it here on my blog, rather than referring people to it, which I am not certain they would actually open it. Some colleague bloggers, Obed Sarpong and Edward Tagoe , have responded to this reportage. The story has several inaccuracies but these had already been pointed out by these two bloggers. I would want to tackle the mere idea of leaving ones country with a prejudiced mind to have confirmed what one has heard and seen much too often on the news and in the newspapers. To do this, I would kindly employ, at least virtually, the...

Adichie, in TNY Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie , author of Half of a Yellow Sun , Purple Hibiscus and The Thing Around Your Neck , has published a short story in The New Yorker titled Birdsong. Follow this link to read so that we can discuss in the comment box. Also, in January of this year, Uwem Akpan , author of the dystopian short story collection, Say You're One of Them , an Oprah Book Club selection, published another short story in The New Yorker titled Baptizing the Gun. Read this piece and let me know what you think. Follow the link here .

I have been surfing and reading some stories on the net today and I would want to share with you these two authors who have entertained readers with good novels and plays. One is amongst the old generation of writers, in the class of the Achebe's and Soyinka's and the other is amongst the new generation of authors, and both are women. Ama Ata Aidoo (author of ' Anowa' and ' The Dilemma of the Ghost ') recently visited Nigeria and was interviewed by Molara Wood . This is an interesting and intellectual interview that digs deep into the author. She talks about her life's works, her present work, her thoughts concerning the new generation of authors and the problem with the literary arts in Ghana. She also talked about her childhood, the influence of Efua Sutherland and many others. Read the full interview here.... Chimamanda Adichie (Author of ' Half of a Yellow Sun ' and ' The Thing Around Your Neck ') has also been interviewed on Oprah.c...

A poll was conducted for all books that were reviewed on ImageNations from July to September 2009 and which had ratings of 4.5 or higher. In all nine (9) books excluding a book on poetry, Dimples on the Sand , by Henry Ajumeze and a non-fiction political book, Kwame Nkrumah: Vision and Tragedy , by David Rooney were selected. The poll closed today October 16, 2009 at two o'clock GMT. In all there were fourteen votes and Half of a Yellow Sun won with 60% of the votes. This was followed by P urple Hibiscus , which won 21% and Two Thousand Seasons (14%). There were two collection of short stories: The Thing Around Your Neck (7%) and Mr. Happy and the Hammer of God (7%). NOVEL Half of a Yellow Sun is ImageNations' Book of the Quarter. Half of a Yellow Sun is Adichie's second novel following Purple Hibiscus . It tells of the human side of the Biafra war. The novel won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2007.  Click to read my review of Half of a Yellow Sun . Bri...

Title: The Thing Around Your Neck Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Genre: Novel Publisher: Fafarina Pages: 218 ISBN: 978-978-48012-3-2 Year: 2009 Country: Nigeria Ms Adichie's third novel, The Thing Around Your Neck, is a collection of twelve short stories set in Nigeria, America, or Cape Town  and sometimes switching between Nigeria and America .Though the stories are not linked, a common theme runs through, the life of Nigerians. More detailed subject matter includes religious fanaticism (a clash between Christians and Nigerians), interaction between traditional religion and Christianity, and marriage life. Set in Kano, Northern Nigeria, 'Private Experience' tells the story of religious intolerance existing between the Igbo Christians and the Hausa Muslims in Northern Nigeria. However, amidst  the bloodshed, two women, one Igbo and one Hausa, worked in cooperation to ensure their survival. Thus, whilst the bigger picture shows lack of restraint a...

Chimamanda's debut novel, Purple Hibiscus  (Farafina, 2003; 298), was published three years before the much-acclaimed and award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun . It won The Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Hurston-Wright Legacy award and was short-listed for the Orange Prize and the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize, and long-listed for the Booker Prize of 2003. Set in Enugu and Nsukka, in Nigeria, 'Purple Hibiscus' is a story by fifteen year-old Kambili whose life and the life of her immediate family members (brother and mother) are imprisoned by a father, referred to only as Papa, whose attachment to the doctrines of the Catholic faith and to Western Culture is so strong and entrenched that it borders on insanity at best. Papa expects absolute obeisance and subservience without questions. His demand for perfections ranges from academics, where he would not accept a second position when there is a first position, to religion, where he considers the Igbo language as not good e...

Title: Half of a Yellow Sun Author: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Genre: Novel Publisher: Fafarina Pages: 435 ISBN: 978-073-149-x Year: 2006 Half of a Yellow is the second of Adichie's books. The story presents the struggles, the heartbreaks, the loss, the unity, the hopes and disappointments of a family and a people during the Biafran war of 1967-1970. Olanna and her sister Kainene had just arrived in Nigeria after their academic sojourn in the United Kingdom with great expectations: one to join her 'revolutionary lover' and become a lecturer at the university and the other to takeover the family business, respectively. However, just before they could settle down and realise their dreams, the coup that would start a series of massacres and later lead to secession and its concomitant warfare, occurred. The overthrow of the Hausa government by the Igbo-led military resulted in dissension amongst the Hausa population of the military. This is because there was ...