ImageNations

 I have not been posting for some time now. I've resorted to microblogging on Twitter and have found it difficult coming back here. However, I intend to return but with a twist. I would want to do a literary analyses of M.anifest's lyrics. M.anifest is a Ghanaian Hip-Hop artiste whose technical abilities and attention to the writing craft is unmatched. Unlike the usual, follow-the-crowd attitude, where technical dexterity is sacrificed for popularity and commercialisation, M.anifest has remained true to his craft, putting the art first. His latest album, MTTU (Madina to the Universe), is scheduled for release later in the year. I hope you enjoy this.

It's been a long long time. A lot has happened in my life and in the world at large. We have had this pandemic, which has locked almost every country down. In this period, there are few activities you can do and reading is one of them.  Share your COVID-19 Reading List with us so we can have an interesting chats. Tell us the favourite on the list and why.

Twenty-four outstanding stories have been selected by an international judging panel from 5182 entries from 48 Commonwealth countries. The writers come from 14 countries including, for the first time, Samoa and Ghana. The Commonwealth Short Story Prize is awarded for the best piece of unpublished short fiction in English from the Commonwealth. As well as being open to entries translated into English from any language, it is the only literary prize in the world where entries can be submitted in Bengali, Chinese, Malay, Portuguese, Samoan, Swahili, and Tamil. Again, in 2018, we’re delighted that a translated story has reached the shortlist. The inclusion of other languages in the Prize speaks to Commonwealth Writers’ recognition of the need for linguistic diversity to promote the richness of varied literary traditions and lesser-heard narratives. The 24 entries have earned their place on the shortlist - a rich collection of stori es showcasing the skill and talent of the write...

The lines blurred over teary eyes As yesterday's sentences crawled through the crenels of a hypnic-jerk mind Afraid to think of things the world taboos Yet bold to defend it resolutely in conversation with itself As I looked down from the roof of the earth I recreated your little cheeks swelling with laughter... the twilight twinkles in those tiny eyes... We may have endlessly, hopelessly fallen into this thing which has for years written itself into society's hypocritical epithet And we may have to ball it up and dump it in their dump-truck... Or timidly follow their path and forever hide this primal base from their accusatory eyes, away from: Them who hide their dangling scrotums in hideous togases to deceive naive maidens Them who walk the shore to rebuke the footprints of yesterday's memories Them who cast stones from behind books and creeds... But tell me, how does one bury a sailing cork? Why should one pluck a smile from 35,000ft and smash it agroun...

Art is dynamic. Art is adaptive. And regardless of where it originates, and with what rules, it is bound to transform and adapt to different cultures. The debate has always been to stick within the rules, be novel with the rules, or to break the rules entirely. But it is these debates, and how they are treated by active-passive artists and the critics alike, that makes art simply ART. It is what has kept it valuable and relevant in an age where the computer is determined to take over our lives and transform everything into a virtual non-reality. Haiku is just one poetry form. It is perhaps the shortest poetry form, albeit with the longest set of rules. One Haijin (a Haiku poet), Jane Reichhold wrote in her book that one must learn all the rules, practice them, and break them. This is such a difficult thing to do, breaking them. Nevertheless, it is what one must do to remain relevant or to adapt the art form to a given culture. And Haiku is one poetry form that requires a lot of ad...

Paul Beatty's The Sellout  have been announced as the winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize. This makes Paul the first American to have won the prize since the change in rules in 2015, allowing any book published in English in the UK eligible. According to the Man Booker Prize   "The Sellout is a searing satire on race relations in contemporary America", which was "described by The New York Times as a ‘metaphorical multicultural pot almost too hot to touch’, whilst the Wall Street Journal called it a ‘Swiftian satire of the highest order. Like someone shouting fire in a crowded theatre, Mr. Beatty has whispered “Racism” in a postracial world.’" Though the prize has over the years been bogged with controversy - readers keening about its dumbing down  (sacrificing literary merit on the altar of readability) and the bolder ones threatening to form another prize , The Man Booker Prize is still an authoritative source for good books, new novelists, and bold n...

"Furo Wariboko awoke this morning to find that dreams can lose their way and turn up on the wrong side of sleep." With this foreboding line Igoni Barrett ushers the reader into the complex and funny world of Furo Wariboko who woke up one morning to find himself transformed into a Caucasian with a black-patched bottom, green eyes and red hair. However, this furious instantaneous genetic mutation did not affect his speech and so Furo looks like a foreigner but speaks like a Nigerian. How will Furo, a young graduate born and bred in a low-income suburb of Lagos and attending his first interview on the first day of this startling transmogrification, navigate the dangerous curves and turns of this identity quagmire? How will he convince people of his Nigerian identiy, when his looks rejects his name and his documents reject his looks? How will he face his family and tell them that he is the Furo they knew the night before? How will they reconcile the two Furos into his new phys...