Quotes for Friday from Nii Ayikwei Parkes' Tail of the Blue Bird

This is my contribution to Kinna's Ghana Literature Week, Nov. 14 - 20, 2011.

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If you look you will see that whatever happens the birds will sing their song. [1]

The ancestors say that the truth is short but, sεbi, when the tale is bad, then even the truth stretches like a toad run over by a car on those new roads they are are building. [2]

Ei, the elders say that news is as restless as a bird [5]

And when fear catches you, it returns you to screaming, your first language. [7]

I wanted to tell him that you do not light a fire under a fruit-bearing tree, but these young people think they invented knowledge so I ignored him. [9]

[R]emember that the monkey was eating long before the farmer was born . [9]

And I tell them that it is not just about beauty because beauty doesn't pay debts. But do they listen? [13]

He couldn't accept, as his grandfather's fellow had, that it was meant to be. His grandfather's life was not sunset, some light that went out whether you liked it or not. [32]

That is why they say that the way the crab lives by the stream makes it understand the ways of water. [66]

As the wise ones say it is not a name that changes the nature of an animal. [67]

The simple black and orange batik cloth she had wrapped over her breast was amplified halfway down her body by her hips, which swung with the casual ease of a hypnotist's pendant. [99]

It is no mystery that when something leaves your hand, grief can take its place; it is the same way that rain takes the place of clouds. What we cannot understand is how heavy the rain can be. [100]

The wise ones say that everything in this world is like sleep; it comes and goes. It is so with happiness and madness. [103]

[T]he brave man displays his courage and strength on the battlefield, not at home. [107]

[W]hen one starts on the path to evil good counsel sounds like a joke. [130]

They say nothing is other than what you see, but it is also true that nothing is other than what you don't see. [168] 

117. Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Title: Tail of the Blue Bird

Author: Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Genre: Fiction/Whodunit

Publishers: Jonathan Cape
Pages: 170

Year of First Publication: 2009

Country: Ghana

For Kinna's Ghana Literature Week

Tail of the Blue Bird by Nii Ayikwei Parkes is a whodunit of a unique kind. The story is about Kayo, a young forensic scientist who has arrived home after studies abroad to contribute to the development of his country. Having settled in, he realised that making it in this country is less a matter of what you have in your head than it is about knowing the right people and pressing the right buttons or greasing the right palms. Initially, with is profession as a forensic pathologist, he had applied to work for the police but was turned down. According to the police, a forensic pathologist is not their priority as current methods of 'interrogation' has worked and served them perfectly. Having resigned himself to working for the thrifty Mr Acquah, Kayo felt disappointed and underused. However, when a minister's girlfriend - visiting Sonokrom - came across an amorphous organic substance she suspected to be a leftover from a murder scene and after an initial attempt by nine police men and a pathologist to crack the case failed, a power-hungry police officer - whose eyes is on the position of the Inspector General of Police (the highest position attainable in the service, earned by political appointment only) began the search for Kayo. When the initial call to rope in Kayo to carry out his forensic investigation proved difficult because Mr Acquah wanted to charge of the said services even though it was not in his line of business, the police calmed him down with a secret of his. The way was then paved for Donkor, who sent his men to bring in Kayo. Blackmailed, coerced, threatened and tasked to bring in a CSI-style report on the case, Kayo set to work but the obstacles, the findings, the sheer weight of (mis)evidence and stories proved too much for science to unravel. Here is a science versus tradition case. Will Kayo's science save him or will tradition have its way? This is a multifaceted story with multiple dimensions and endings. 

Unlike the many African books I have read where authors provide glossary of words at the end of the book or where definitions of vernacular words and jargon are provided just after their use, Nii refrained from explaining, defining, expatiating all the vernacular words or jargon he used, leaving it to the interpretation of the non-Twi speaker. This style of his gave the impression, right or otherwise, that the book was written for the Ghanaian and made accessible to the world. My admiration of this also stems from the fact that when Kafka writes he writes not for Africans though his works are accessible. And even non-understanding of these words will not take the meaning away from the reader.

The story begins with Yaw Poku telling the story of his life. The language here is different. The English feels like it has been directly transliterated from Twi, especially when one reads 'We were at our somewhere when she came ...' and it is interspersed with a lot of Twi words. Even the chapters are labelled after the days of the week in Twi. This part of the narrative also had a lot of proverbs and reflects the way language and words are used in everyday Ghanaian life. To the Ghanaian and perhaps African, proverbs and analogies play an important role in language and communication; so that, instead of answering a question, an adept communicator will tell a parallel story - as Yaw Poku did - and the listener was expected to understand and find his own answers.

The second narrative or writing style is a point-of-view. Here Nii wrote from Kayo's point of view, following him with his camera zooming in and out, presenting his fears, his aspirations, his seeming failure and more. The language here is very different, though it shares with the first person narrative (Poku's narrative) a kind of fluidity in its read.  Being the main protagonist of the story, this writing style allowed us to explore the individual, Kayo, in a way that a first person narrative, which in itself could not be trusted, might not do. Here there is less use of Twi words too.

However, in tune with the happenings in the country, Nii Ayikwei Parkes was able to employ several of the major characteristics of contemporary culture such as songs in the realm of Hip Life - a new generation music genre that fuses West African Highlife beats with Hip Hop or Rap. Such traces of contemporary life brought the story alive making the Ghanaian reader identify with the unfolding events even if he has to suspend belief for awhile in order to swallow the final scenes of the story. More importantly, descriptions of landscapes, institutions, behaviours, and reactions were so exact and spot-on that at some point I thought I knew exactly where Sonokrom is, especially for those of us who have stayed at Tafo before. This feeling was enlivened when Sunrise FM, a Koforidua radio station, was mentioned.

Nii Ayikwei Parkes has written a book that, like Morrison's Beloved or the more conspicuously Song of Solomon, expands the borders of what is allowable, in African novels. He shows that even in a hut-and-thatch setting, which early in the story made me fear that this might be one of those calabash stories, there could be science and that the African character is not all poor and hungry but also has scientific tendencies, something a lot of contemporary writers are shying away from or are failing to point out. Yet like Ben Okri, though comparatively Nii's use of the surreal is mild, Nii has created a sub-genre that is solely his; for how many times will one encounter a forensic pathologist working in a village where traditions are upheld and having been rendered incapable acquiesce to it?

Again, both sides of the narrative bemoans loss and inefficiency. Whereas in Yaw Poku's world it is the the surge in rural-urban migrating depleting the village of its human resource such that its culture is dying off and traditional occupations like farming, herbal medicine and hunting are left without practitioners, in Kayo's world it is the corruption of the individual and institutions that is bemoaned. Yet there is a kind of symbiosis regarding the causes of the problem with the urban corruption and inefficiency drawing people from the rural areas.

One dimension of Nii's writing I loved most is his ability to involve the reader by not releasing all facts at a go. Sometimes sections begin as if the reader had been privy to some information required to understand what was currently being said. This implied or implicit sharing information makes the reader work his way into the heart of the story and becomes part of it and not necessarily a passive recipient of unfolding events. 

I purchased this book exactly a year ago and kept it for this moment. I have enjoyed this book very much and I therefore recommend it unreservedly. It is that book that should be read. Nii Ayikwei Parkes gives me hope that there is hope in Ghana's next generation of writers.

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About the author: Early this year, precisely on March 22, I interviewed Nii Ayiwkei Parkes on ImageNations. Kindly click here for the said interview.

Conversation with Nii Ayikwei Parkes, Author of Tail of the Blue Bird

Nii Ayikwei Parkes writes poetry, prose and articles. He is a former Poet-in-Residence at the Poetry Cafe and author of three poetry chapbooks: eyes of a boy, lips of a man (1999); M is for Madrigal (2004), and Shorter (2005). His poems have appeared in several anthologies. His latest novel Tail of the Blue Bird (2009) was nominated for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for First Best Book for the Europe and Asia Region Category (perhaps because he lives in Britain. Don't worry he's a Ghanaian). Parkes main areas of exploration as a writer are reinterpretation of language, micro-cultural conflicts and power. He's been influenced by several African writers including Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kwesi Brew, Christopher Okigbo, Ama Ata Aidoo, Mariam Ba, Meshack Asare, Atukwei Okai, Ola Rotimi and others. He sees a future in writers and performers such as Mamle Kabu, Mutombo Da Poet, Elizabeth-Irene Baetie, Nana Ekua Brew-Hammond, Ayesha Haruna Atta, Lesley Loko, and others. 

Parkes took some time off to talk to ImageNations on issues ranging from poetry, prose to his views on the literary scene. Below is the interview.

How would you describe yourself to those who do not know you (education, career and anything in between)?

I'm a North Kaneshie boy, I honed my early writing at Ann's Preparatory School, then wrote love poems for love-struck boys in Achimota School, taught Physics and Biology in Tolon Kumbungu for National Service, left to study in the UK, returned to work in Ghana, then left again to 'become a writer'. I've had many accolades, but none have made me prouder than the ACRAG award I got in Ghana in 2007.

You won an Art Council Award for the novel The Cost of Red Eyes in October 2003. How was publicity like, because I never heard of this story? Was it your first novel? How many novels do you have as of now?

It's a novel that has not yet been released because when I met my agent, he felt that Tail of the Blue Bird was a stronger novel so we went with that first. I suspect I may release it much later, like Walter Mosley did with his first novel, Gone Fishin'.

Your recent novel Tail of the Blue Bird was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, Best First Book Category, for South Asia and Europe Region, to represent Britain. We would have loved to have seen it on our shortlist, what happened?

Well, the thing that you are never told in publishing is that your publisher enters you for these awards and decided which category to include you in; I qualified for both Africa and Europe because I was born in the UK and I guess my publisher thought I stood a better chance in the South Asia and Europe Region. I hold my hands up; I can't explain it, nothing to do with me.

Whodunit is a genre with fewer authors in Ghana. Some Ghanaian book bloggers and I have talked about it. I can only mention Kwei Quartey with his inspector Dawson series. What led to the writing of this novel and why this genre?

I didn't exactly set out to write a whodunit and, technically, the book isn't a whodunit; the question in my book is more of a how? than a who? but the benefit of writing in the structure of a crime novel is that it creates tension, a book like Umberto Eco's In the Name of the Rose, uses almost the same device.

What’s theme of Tail of the Blue Bird?

It's an exploration of power – power and violence and retribution and consequence and self-regulation; the power of state justice versus local justice, the community versus the individual, of the scientific versus the superstitious, of writing versus oral storytelling, the power of ignorance and innocence. It's a theme that gets deeper as you try to escape it.

Both Hisham Matar and Helon Habila described this novel as ‘poetic’ and as borne out of a ‘poet’s sensibility’ respectively. How attached to poetry are you? Will you say that poetry ticks you the most, relative to all the other genres you write in?

Poetry is my first love. I heard it in conversations as I was growing up; I think coming to Ghana as a child when, even though I spoke Ga, English was the language I heard most of the time, really had an impact. I developed a fascination with the Ga language and its rich imagery. I would eavesdrop mercilessly (and sometimes be beaten mercilessly for my merciless acts) and hear in all those conversations little threads of poetic clarity. Poetry is the music of speech, the illogical logic of nature, the name for the unnameable, so, yes, poetry is, relative to all other genres, my preferred dancing partner. It doesn't step on my toes.

You have won several awards. However, one that I followed or tried to and even blogged about it was the nomination of your poem ballast: a remix for the Michael Marks Award. What happened, because I never heard anything again, not even from their site?

I didn't win the award, but the ballast poems became an entire section in my new book of poems, The Makings of You, so for me it's a win.

Your poetry anthology Shorter published in 2005 is geared towards raising funds for a writer’s fund in Ghana. Could you please tell us something about this fund and how other individuals could help? What are the objective, vision and goal of this writer’s fund?

I just answered this question for One Ghana, One Voice, so I'll give you pretty much the same answer. Although The Writers Fund is on a small hiatus while I build a bespoke website for it, my passion for it remains the same. My goals for the project relate to the huge gap in the production of writing from Ghana since the 60s and 70s and my belief that that dearth relates to the lack of resources to support writing and reading. Our goals are: To serve and encourage excellence in creative writing in all the languages used in Ghana; To raise public awareness of the pivotal role of literature in shaping, preserving and developing a society’s identity and cultural life; To lobby educational institutions at home and abroad to secure residencies, scholarships and research opportunities for Ghanaian writers; To work to ensure that Ghanaian writing is well represented in the curriculum in schools and universities both at home and abroad; Support the initiatives of the Ghana Association of Writers. Anyone who has ideas is very welcome to contact me and initiate the exploration of those ideas. One of the things that drives me is the notion that our literary reading - both academic and personal - is in general so many years behind that we haven't tuned in to what we can do with language, how (learning from the Latin American writers, for example) we can bring our unique approach to how the English language is used etc. As a result, I am really keen to set up libraries all over the place and anyone who knows how we can get our hands on free shipping containers to use as the framework for building these libraries would be a very welcome contact at the moment. I have had some preliminary discussions with architects about how to customise containers using locally sourced material to create library spaces that are fascinating and conducive to reading/learning.

You have stated that you read mainly works from Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Gambia while growing up. Who are your favourite authors then and now and which of them have influenced your art form?

Mariama Bâ, Meshack Asare, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Kwesi Brew, Christopher Okigbo, Ama Ata Aidoo, Ola Rotimi, Atukwei Okai. I'm sure there are influences within my work, but I haven't consciously sought influences. What I will say is that Atukwei Okai, by acting as a mentor to me when I had doubts about whether to become a writer, has been the most influential in actual terms.

You have stated that your main areas of exploration as a writer are reinterpretation of language, micro-cultural conflicts and power. What do you mean by this and how do you face these broad subject matters in your writings?

Well, if you look at what Ngugi says in Decolonising the Mind, you realise that our use of English is in a way a form of masochism, but as we already have the language, we have to think of ways to strip it of its weapons, its means of expression that devalue who we are, who we were – that is one of the frontiers of the reinterpretation of language. With micro-cultural conflicts, I simply mean that I am very interested in the tiniest shifts in psyche, for example how a walk through Agbogloshie market will differ for me and my younger brother simply because, even though we grew up in the same house, he may understand Hausa and I don't – or I may know 50 words of Dagarti and he doesn't, making us react very differently to what the random collection of people that make the market buzz with its mysterious energy might be screaming. I think I have spoken about power in the context of Tail of the Blue Bird (which actually contains all the elements listed in your question – the italicisation of non-Akan origin words in the hunter's voice, the differences in attitudes between Kayo and his friends/parents, and the plight of the police in Sonokrom, for example.)

Though you have lived in Britain for many years, you describe yourself as a Ghanaian. Not lost yet, I think. So how do you see the literary landscape in Ghana? Is there hope or it is in total descent?

Where there is life, there is hope. Don't forget we have stars developing right under your noses – the Mamle Kabus, Mutombo Da Poets, Elizabeth-Irene Baities – as well as a very good crop of Ghanaian writers abroad who are keeping their connections with home very tight. Writers like Lesley Lokko, Mohammed Naseehu Ali, Ayesha Haruna Atta, Nana Ekua Brew Hammond, Dzifa Benson – it's a long, long, list.

Thanks for your time, but before we go any last words to writers? And please tell us where we can get your books to buy in Ghana. People do ask me of this.

For writers, write crooked. For buyers, check SyTris books – they really support me and they try to always have my books in stock.

ImageNations would be bringing you a review of his novel Tail of the Blue Bird during the Ghana Literature Week.

Today's Stories: Nana Awere Damoah and Nii Ayi Parkes

 Nana Awere Damoah

Nana Awere Damoah, the author of Excursions in My Mind, has published his latest book titled 'Through the Gates of Thought'. This book is a collection of stories, aphorisms, poetry and articles. Nana's literary exploit has taken him far and wide and his story 'Truth Floats' also appeared in the maiden edition of StoryTime's anthology African Roar. 

Nana receives his education in both Ghana and the UK. He is a chemical engineer at Unilever and still finds time to write. He is a family man whose closeness to his family led him to dedicate a whole blog just for his children. Through the Gates of Thought promises to be an interesting read. I would be interviewing the engineer, father, writer, author and man of virtues soon on this blog.

This new book is available on the world wide web through amazon.com click here to purchase...

Nii Ayikwei Parkes

Nii Ayikwei Parkes's poem ballast: a remix is one of the six shortlisted poems from over 150 entries gunning for The Michael Marks Awards for Poetry Pamphlets. 

According to NAP he comes from Ghana and writes poetry, short stories, articles, songs and, sometimes, rap for all ages. 

In its second year the award celebrates the importance of the pamphlet form in introducing new poetry to readers in the internet age. Read about the award here.