ImageNations

@Farida's Reading at the Goethe Institute Last Friday, under the auspices of the Ghana Writers Project and the Goethe Institute, the Ghana Voices Series organised its first book reading of the year, which saw Farida Bedwei read from her debut novel, The Definition of a Miracle . Her detailed description of scenes and events was palpable as she read different passages to the audience. The lighter side of the story sends guffaws all across the hall. Her description of life in the early and later 90s in Ghana is fresh and the language precise especially for the main character, from whose view point the story was narrated. There is nothing as interesting as meeting an author and questioning her on her book as the question and answer session proved. I made a purchase which I got autographed; it would be reviewed on this blog in the course of the year. The Definition of a Miracle  would be launched on March 5, 2011 at the PAWA (Pan-African Writers Association) House located near Accra...

Proverb: Dua koro gye mframa a, ebu Translation: If one tree stands alone against the wind, it breaks; or if one tree alone receives the wind, it breaks . Usage (Context): There is strength in numbers. (No. 2054 Page 99 from in Bu me Bε by Peggy Appiah et al. ) __________________ Caveat: The text in red is my own translation. I try to bring it as close to the Original Twi version as much as possible without affecting the meaning. 'Gye' in Twi means 'receives' and not 'against' as used in the authors' translation. However, both versions do not affect the meaning of the proverb.

Five poems of mine have been published in the Fifth Issue of Sentinel Nigeria . These are: The Man and The People Every Piece Shall Go, These Impartial Cleaners Merchants of Menace Private Existence Horrorscope Click here to read the poems . And while there please take time to explore the rich content the site carries.

Today's quotes come from a book I would be reviewing next week The Clothes of Nakedness  by Benjamin Kwakye. If people would spend thinking half the time they spend talking the world would be a better place. If people filtered their thoughts before they spoke, they would not come out with the rubbish we hear these days. Kojo Ansah, Page 120 ...blaming others may blind a man's eyes to his own faults. Kofi Ntim, 123 ...a man is sometimes blind to the thorns on the path he walks. His friends must provide the light to illuminate the path. Kojo Ansah, 123 Our enemies are like eggs in our backyards. You see, they become powerful if we let them. You can allow an egg to hatch into a chick and watch it grow into an adult hen, strong and ready to peck your corn and defecate over your yard. Or you can prevent all that by dropping the egg on the floor. Mystique Mysterious, 124 Oh, everyone is a hypocrite to some extent in this world of mass make-believe. Mystique Mysterious, 132 Rumo...

Adefolake (Folake) Taylor, whose first name means 'spoil me with riches', is an Internal Medicine MD, and the author of a recently published inspirational book that chronicles her life as an immigrant in the US aptly titled The Only Way is Up.  Dr Taylor considers herself to be the most optimistic and radiant person you will ever meet. She decided to write this book after observing her husband interact with their daughter and watching a Larry King Live programme that same night on women and self-worth. The MD cum author took time off her busy schedule to talk to ImageNations. ImageNations is grateful to have her here. Can you tell us about yourself? What should we know about Folake? I am a wife, a mother, an MD and for the past year and a half, an author. I was born in the UK and evidently to Nigerian parents, for those who could tell by my first name. I have lived in the UK, Nigeria and for more than a decade, in the United States. What is about medical doctors and writing? ...

Title: Tropical Fish Author: Doreen Baingana Genre: Linked Short Stories Publishers: Cassava Republic Pages: 156 Year of Publication: 2005 (this edition 3008) Country: Uganda For the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Winners (First Best Book)  and Africa Reading Challenge Tropical Fish is a collection of eight linked short stories about three sisters - Patti, Rosa, and Christine - as they journey through life in the town of Enttebe, Uganda. With the exception of Lost in Los Angeles , all eight stories are set in Uganda and they all deal with the choices they made and where it led them. Even though the story was set in the period after Idi Amin's misrule and the deterioration that was imposing itself on the country, politics was never the object, except in some places where references are made to it such as when an ex all-European school was left to deteriorate and the Seventy-two hours ultimatum given to the Indians in Uganda to leave. However, HI...

VIDA , a Women Literary Organisation which was founded in August 2009 "to address the need for female writers of literature to engage in conversations regarding the critical reception of women’s creative writing in our current culture" has conducted a fascinating research into the gender distribution of book reviews and articles. Their findings have generated a wave of discussion on the gender biasness in literary circles or the less emphasis placed on women writings. Available statistics from big publishing houses such as Atlantic, Boston Review, Granta, London Review of Books, Harper, New Republic, New Yorker, New York Times Book Review, New York Review of Books, according to VIDA, show skewness in representation against women, even though "women write and women read".        Source:  VIDA Some responses even suggests that since women form a larger percentage of the reading public there should be a greater representation of women in these studies. The...

Proverb: Dua a εbεbere ama yεn ate bi adi no, yεnsosɔ ogya ngu ase Translation: The tree which will bear fruit for us to pick some and eat, we don't light fire underneath it. Usage: You don't harm someone who helps you. (No. 2024, Page 98 in Bu me Bε by Peggy Appiah et al. )

For sometime now most books have been adapted television; Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice , Sense and Sensibilities and Emma and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre amongst them. Whereas some television adaptation of books have been successful others have not been so. As of now I have not as yet heard of any Ghanaian novel which has been adapted to television, in the form of a series. I might be absolutely wrong, hence if there is any please let me know. However, this is about to change. I was watching ETV Ghana when I saw the advert calling on people to audition at the ETV premises for the TV adaptation on Boakyewaa Glover's Circles . After a few search I read the announcement on the author's website: On Sunday, February 6 th , I finalized a contract with ETV Ghana to adapt CIRCLES into a TV show. The show will be produced by ETV, scripted by me and will begin airing June 2011. My book is coming to TV, y’all! ( Source ) The auditions are set to begin on February 26, 20...

Since December I have been trying to update my blog daily, though strictly weekends are excluded, and I have enjoyed it. Searching for topics to talk about that would inspire reading has been tasking but also fun. Quotes and Proverbs have become constant features in this effort. Whereas the proverbs are local with translations, the proverbs are from books I have read and reviewed. Today's quotes comes exclusively from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice . It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. Mrs. Bennet When a woman have five grown up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty. Mrs. Bennet A lady's imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony in a moment. Mr. Darcy I admire the activity of your benevolence, but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion ...

Readers of this blog know that I read different novels but promote extensively only African-authored novels. They also know that I have a challenge to read a list of 100 novels  in five years, of which I am only fourteen percent through and in the third year. Consequently, I embarked upon a compulsive book buying some two Saturdays ago . And Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice was one of twenty-three books purchased. Let me inform my readers that henceforth most of my readings would be geared towards meeting my challenges . Pride and Prejudice (1813) is my first Austen novel and the second English Classic I have read this year following from Hardy's Jude the Obscure . Pride and Prejudice is a story set in the early nineteenth England in the town of Hertfordshire where five sisters lived, each with a different aspiration and disposition. Jane is servile, humble, quick to agree and forgive and almost never judges. Elizabeth, around whom the majority of the story is told is th...

Every other Sunday, a group of dedicated poets, spoken word artistes, inspired musicians, instrument players and lovers of the art meet at  Nubuke Foundation  to participate in a program dubbed the  Ehalakasa TalkParty . This biweekly music-poetry-performance show, organised by the Writers Project of Ghana and GGG Channels, has come to define the art scene of Accra. Here we seek not perfection but expression for as our motto goes it lives in us.  We believe that every person has art in him which need to harnessed. Our first meeting for the new year, February 13, 2011, saw performers and artistes of varied background coming to either perform or listen.  Nubuke Foundation & Kofi The backdrop acrylic-on-canvass was done by the owner of Nubuke Foundation, Ghana's famous artist who works in several media, Kofi Setordji . Kofi (right with grey hair talking to Naa as Kyekyeku similes on), as he wants to be called by all irrespective of age, is affable and k...

The Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa Region Shortlist has been announced. I got this information from Accra Books and Things who also led me to Africa is a Country , where the list have been posted. In the Best Book category there are six books: 4 from South Africa, 1 from Nigeria and another 1 from Sierra Leone. In the First Best Book category there are again 6 books equally shared between Nigeria and South Africa.  Hey! What are the writers in the other countries doing? Is this indicative of the dearth of excellent writers in the remaining fifty-two countries?  Africa Best Book: The Memory of Love by Aminata Forna (Sierra Leone) Men of the South by Sukiswa Wanner (South Africa) The Unseen Leopard by Bridget Pitt (South Africa) Oil on Water by Helon Habila (Nigeria) Blood at Bay by Sue Rabie (South Africa) Banquet at Brabazan by Patricia Schonstein (South Africa) Africa Best First Book: Happiness is a Four Letter Word by Cynthia Jele (South Africa) Bitt...

Some people have everything; some people have nothing; some people have hopes and dreams; some people have ways and means - Robert (Bob) Nesta Marley Like life, Literature is marked by epochs. Such epochal categorisations are important if one wants to understand the culture that influenced or shaped the general body of thought of painters, writers, sculptors, musicians and the literati in general. For instance English Literature could roughly be categorised as being of or belonging to the Elizabethan Era, Jacobean Literature, Augustan Literature, Romantic Movement, Victorian age, Modernism, Post Modernism and other such categorisation. Though my reading of South African Literature is limited and so I cannot describe myself as a cognoscente of South African Literature nor even expert in chicken Literature – all that I am is a simple reader who does not, perhaps, qualify even as a bibliophile – for the purpose of this article, let’s say South Africa’s Literary oeuvre could be class...

Proverb: Sε ɔdehye anko a, akoa dwane Translation: If the royal does not go into battle, the slave runs away Usage: If a leader does not give a good example, his followers will desert him. From my understanding, this proverb has been used to mean that if those who stand to benefit from an action does not lead the people, the followers there only to help would do worse by deserting him. This proverb has roots in the period when a Chief/King is supposed to lead his people into battle. I believe that if the American and British people had known this proverb they would have insisted that George Walker Bush and Tony Blair would follow their men into battle. And if every blood-thirsty leader do this, I believe the lust for war would decline. Currently, in Ghana there are stories that the opposition presidential candidate has made statements that could incite people to violence in the coming election. According to the tapes, he said they would match the current government boot for boo...

Enjoy the following quotes from books I have recently read. A cooperative of any kind in South Africa would cause a riot of hysteria among the white population - their wealth and privilege are dependent on the poverty and distress of black people.  ( Bessie Head in A Woman Alone ) I would propose that mankind will one day be ruled by men who are God and not greedy, power-hungry politicians. ( Bessie Head in  A Woman Alone ) When a person is said to have died he is not dead, he is merely transformed, the breath of life having left this covering of flesh and migrated to another land which shines more gloriously than the sun.  ( Thomas Mofolo in Chaka ) There is only one thing that has power completely, and it is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and that is love.  ( Alan Paton  in  Cry, the Beloved Country ) But when a black man gets power, when he gets money, he is a great man if he is not corrupt. ... He see...