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Myne Whitman , the popular Nigerian author whose debut novel, A Heart to Mend , received great reviews and praise, has released her second novel titled A Love Rekindled . Over the years Myne has established herself as a writer of love stories; in this way she is filling a gap in the literary culture of Nigeria and Africa as a whole. And even though she wouldn't consider herself as an avant-garde in this genre, her vision is to remain in it and become a foremost brand name, a worthy aspiration and an achievable one coming from one who has read Mills and Boon and has been influenced by a wide variety of writers both home and abroad including the likes of Cyprian Ekwensi, Flora Nwapa, Buchi Emecheta , Chinua Achebe , Barbara Cartland, Francine Rivers, and recently, Chimamanda Adichie . From the Blurb: Efe returns to Nigeria after years in the United States, dreaming of an uncomplicated life. However, her nights become plagued by nightmares of Kevwe Mukoro, her ex-fiancé. Long hours ...

Title: A Heart to Mend Author: Myne Whitman Genre: Novel (Love) Publishers: Self Published Pages: 215 (e-copy) Year of Publication: 2009 Country: Nigeria Last week, I wrote an article The African Story , where I bemoans the stereotypic mentality of publishers and vitriolically castigated the Naipaulic and Conradic tales of Africa. Had I read this novel first, perhaps I would have cited it as one of the bright stories coming out of Africa and specifically Nigeria. Myne Whitman 's novel, A Heart to Mend , gave me the reason to hope and dare the vampires. It gave (and gives) me the patience that African writers would realise that their lives is not so abject and that for most of the time the people we see on TV and want to imitate are not our average Westerners. Yet, had Myne Whitman not self-published her novel, I wouldn't have had the opportunity of reading her, not that she sought out for established publishers right from the beginning. She chose the self-publi...

We continue the series we started. Today, I interview the author of A Heart to Mend, a romance novel, that has been published to much acclaim and this is a great achievement if one takes into consideration the dearth of that literary genre on the continent. Myne Whitman , the author of this fresh novel, managed to 'squeeze' some time out of her busy schedule, which included a recent 'showing' at the LA Book Fair, to answer certain questions for us.  Can you tell us something about yourself (place of birth, school and anything in between)? I am a Nigerian blogger, writer and poet. I am also the author of A Heart to Mend, my first novel. I live in Seattle with my husband and write full time. I write mostly romance and love poems though recently I have been trying my pen at literary short stories. I was born at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu, Nigeria and I grew up in that city till my middle secondary school. I attended Ekulu Primary School, Queens Scho...

Nana Ekua's Reading At 7:15 pm yesterday, 13th August 2010, which was a Friday and instead of it being a portentous evening filled with unearthly activities that would gradually converge in evil, we had literary blessings as Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond read from her novel Powder Necklace . The imagistic reading interspersed with humour got everybody laughing. It was a very successful evening in all aspects: the reading, the book purchasing and signing and the conversation that went on on the sidelines. Questions were asked of her and some also congratulated her of telling this story. All I would reveal for now is that it is a coming-of-age novel as I have purchased a copy for future read and review. Also, I met Kinna at Kinna Reads , a Ghanaian book blogger I had met virtually. It was fun talking about books, something I can spend the rest of my life doing.  Righting a Wrong For the past two postings I have been presenting new first novels. So far I have blogged on three of such book...