126. The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer

Title: The Conservationist

Author: Nadine Gordimer

Genre: Fiction/Race

Publishers: Penguin Books

Pages: 267

Year of First Publication: 1974

Country: South Africa

Mehring is rich, divorced and somewhat frustrated and, though he has a lot of highly-placed friends, he feels alienated. He also deals in pig-iron, so he doesn't classify himself as part of the oppressors regarding the use of cheap black labour in the mines. But Mehring has a farm as most rich South Africans do. In the context and setting of the story, rich is synonymous to white. Though Mehring has a farm, he does not run it for profit. He sees the farm as a place to escape to from the city and he knows nothing about farming so that blacks like Jacobus and Solomon and others are the ones who run the farm and these individuals were living on the land before it was purchased from the previous owner.

One day, the body of a black man was found on the farm. Mehring was called and he in turn called the police but because it was a black man, no investigations were conducted and the body was buried on location without any fuss. But when farm got flooded after a heavy downpour, the body was uncovered and the locals on Mehring's farm offered him a befitting burial using materials they could gather or borrow. It is the appearance of the dead black man on his farm that got Mehring thinking of his own death and succession.

Mehring was rich but never happy. His wife had divorced him and lived in the US, speaking to him only through her lawyer, and his son is estranged from him because he wouldn't serve in the military and had perspectives about life different from his father's. Thus, Mehring's riches had fewer spenders. But he also had a peculiar thinking, a kind that has ravaged modern thoughts, that he could obtain everything he wants with his money, including women, sex and love. However, seeing the way the poor black folks live on his farm - and he was considered a conservationist at least by the author because he would not allow anyone to take any wild animal from the farm including eggs laid by the guinea fowls - Mehring began thinking of whom the land he farms really belong to. He also felt lonely so that at one point he had to spend his New Year with the black workers on his farm. He knew that the locals were there before the first purchase, before his predecessor and will be there when he was gone. The land will not be truly his even though he had some papers showing that he had purchased and paid for it. The people's claim to it was ancestral and their attachment to it was not cultivated but connatural. 

There'll be dissatisfaction because they were here when he came, they were squatting God knows how long before he bought the place and they'll expect to have their grandchildren squatting long after he's gone. [202]

These were the kinds of thoughts and ruminations, mixed with his own mortality and death, that plagued Mehring in his daily rounds even as he travelled from Japan to South America to Jamaica and back to South Africa and to his farm, making him look like one who was less satisfied with his life than the poor folks were with their poverty. What opened up these wounds was when his workers, especially Jacobus, talk of how his son - Terry - would take over from him after he had finished his school.

With the floods, storms and the destruction of Mehring's farm, Nadine Gordimer's The Conservationist could be considered a metaphor and interpreted as the conditions that blacks found themselves in. It could also be considered as a premonition of what was to come. For instance, when the storm came, a tiny ditch carrying trickles of water, in normal rainy weather, accumulated so much water as to carry away cars driven two white South Africans:

But who could ever have imagined that the trickle of water that sometimes dried up altogether for months on end so that that gully was nothing more than a culvert full of khaki-weed and beer cartons thrown in by the blacks, the trickle of water that in normally rainy weather was never more than a gout from the big round concrete pipe that contained it under the road, could become a force to carry away a car and its occupants. [235]

In some way, these gathering floods, which forced Mehring to finally abandon his farm and emigrate to 'one of those countries white people go to', could be taken to be the political force that was gathering in apartheid South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. With this kind of interpretation one will summarise as: the police (white) bearing the authority of the government (white) only covered the dead stranger (black) on a land inhabited by blacks but paid for by whites; but after the floods (political upheavals) the body came up and Mehring (settlers) ran away to wherever he came from in the first place and the people buried their dead because he was one of them in colour and spirit and took over their land. 

Using a mix of narrative formats and deliveries, Gordimer told the story from within the mind of Mehring so that we get to know his fears, even when he was only mentally projecting or playing around with it, and his person. In effect Mehring opened up his consciousness, or the author made him to, to the reader without restriction and this is what makes the book not only an interesting read but also a difficult and discomfiting to get around, at one point reading the 'I', at another 'You', at other places the omniscient takes over. The denser and seemingly impregnable nature makes the reader uncomfortable mentally and physically, as if one is crumpling under a burden and which he cannot also set aside.

The Conservationist was a joint winner of the 1974 Man-Booker Prize.

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Brief Bio: Nadine Gordimer (born 20, November 1923) is a South African writer and political activist. She is the daughter of Isidore and Nan Gordimer. She has lived all her life, and continues to live, in South Africa. Gordimer's writing has long dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organisation was banned. She has recently been active in HIV/AIDS causes. 

As a writer she was awarded the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature when she was recognised as a woman 'who through her magnificent epic writing has - the words of Alfred Nobel - been of very great benefit to humanity'. Her principal works include A Guest of Honour, The Conservationist, Burger's Daughter, July's People, A sport of Nature, My Son's Story, None to Accompany Me, Jump, Why Haven't you Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972, The Essential Gesture, On Mines and The Black Interpreters. (Sources: Wikipedia & Nobel Prize)

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Read for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge

Tomas Tranströmer of Sweden wins Nobel Laureate in Literature

Swedish author Tomas Tranströmer has been announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. According to the Nobel website, Tomas Tranströmer was awarded because 

because, through his condensed, translucent images, he gives us fresh access to reality. Read more here. 

Born on April 15, 1931, Tranströmer is a "Swedish writer, poet and translator, whose poetry has been deeply influential in Sweden, as well as around the world." (Wikipedia)

His probability of winning the award was perfectly predicted by ladbrokes, who pegged him at 4/1 odds winning over Bob Dylan at 5/1. He is considered as a hometown favourite. According to the announcement, Tranströmer was a full-time psychologists who found time to write.

With some of his books having been translated into English, I expect some of you might have read him. Anyone?
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Earlier there was a hoax from a similarly designed site that Dobrica Cosic has won. This post has been removed.

110. Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka

Title: Death and the King's Horseman

Author: Wole Soyinka

Genre: Play/Tragedy

Publishers: Spectrum Books Limited

Pages: 77

Year of First Publication: 1975

Country: Nigeria

For  Amy's Nigeria Independence Day Reading/Reviewing Project and for the Top 100 Books Reading Challenge.

Death and the King's Horseman is one of Soyinka's best known plays. Voted as one of Africa's Best Books of the Twentieth Century, it has been more admired than it has been performed, according to a 2009 Guardian article. This play, according to the Author's Note, 'is based on real events which took place in Oyo, ancient Yoruba city of Nigeria, in 1946', though certain changes have been made in 'matters of detail, sequence and ... characterisation [and the setting taking back] two or three years... for minor reasons of dramaturgy.' An important note, before present readers make the same mistake, sounded by the author was that this work should not been seen as a 'clash of cultures', which is 'a prejudicial label which, quite apart from its frequent misapplication, presupposes a potential equality in every given situation of the alien culture and the indigenous, on the actual soil of the latter.'

The Elesin Oba, the King's Horseman, by tradition, has to follow the King, upon the latter's death, to the afterlife. And this must be done willingly and at a particular time, using the moon as a guide. Failure on the part of the Elesin Oba to follow the King would spell utter disgrace and shame for him and his family and upon his death is bound to live a degraded life in the hereafter. Meanwhile for the larger community, Elesin Oba's failure means showers of catastrophic events perpetrated by the King's spirit, which unable to cross into the afterlife, would wander amongst the people, torment them and cause cosmic disorder. 

Death and the King's Horseman begins with the Elesin Oba, amidst drumming and dancing, walking through the market, on expensive clothes of damask and alari spread on the ground by the market women, as he prepares to leave the earth after the death of the King. The Elesin Oba has come to understand the meaning of this step and has willingly accepted his fate. He knows that greater is his reward if this deed of ritual suicide is carried through. His praise-singer eggs him on, reminding him through metaphors, fables, and riddles, the reward of this step and why it must be done.  The Elesin Oba, as a final request and perhaps a fortuitous gratification one, on seeing a young woman walked into a market stall, asks the girl be given to him. But because 'only the curses of the departed are to be feared. [And] [t]he claims of one whose foot is on the threshold of their abode surpasses even the claims of blood [for which] It is impiety even to place hindrances in their ways', Iyaloja granted the Elesin Oba his final wish, even though the girl is betrothed to her son. However, before handing her over to the Elesin Iyaloja warns him

The living must eat and drink. When the moment comes, don't turn the food to rodents' droppings in their mouth. Don't let them taste the ashes of the world when they step out at dawn to breathe the morning dew.

IYALOJA: You wish to travel light. Well, the earth is yours. But be sure the seed you leave in it attracts no curse.

And to these the Elesin expresses shock at how the 'Mother of the Market' 'mistake [his] person. And that when he is gone they should let 'the fingers of [his] bride seal [his] eyelids with earth and wash [his] body'. 

The news of the ritual suicide reached the British Colonial District Officer, Simon Pilkings, who sent his men to arrest the Elesin, deeming the act as barbaric and counter to the law. Thus, the Elesin who had promised the women that nothing would hold him back when the time comes found himself in custody at the DO's house where his wish could not be fulfilled. Iyloja blamed the Elesin Oba, for loving the earth too much, and Pilkings, for misunderstanding the traditions of the people. Iyaloja to Elesin:

You have betrayed us. We fed your sweetmeats such as we hoped awaited you on the other side. But you said No, I must eat the world's left-overs. We said you were the hunter who brought the quarry down; to you belonged the vital portions of the game. No, you said, I am the hunter's dog and I shall eat the entrails of the game and the faeces of the hunter.... IYALOJA: We called you leader and oh, how you led us on. What we have no intention of eating should not be held to the nose.

To District Officer Pilkings, Iyaloja says

Child, I have not come to help your understanding. (Points to ELESIN) This is the man whose weakened understanding holds us in bondage to you. ... 

Elesin's son who had come home, from his study abroad, to bury his father when he heard of the King's demise 'proved the father..'. To avoid the shame of the father and avert any calamity that would befall the people as a results of his fatehr's failure to perform the ritual, Olunde took his father's place and committed ritual suicide. The King's body with Olunde, the son who became the father, was brought to Elesin for a final ritual to be performed; however, seeing his son by the King, Elesin also committed suicide. But Elesin's death has become useless and 'his son will feast on the meat and throw him bones.' Refusing to go at his appointed time he is bound to live a lowlife in the afterlife.

All through the texts the reader discovers that whereas the people and Elesin understood the essence of what he has to do, Simon and Jane Pilkings did not. For instance, Olunde argued that it is not different from the war being waged by the British and that their greatest art 'is the art of survival.' Yet they have not the humility to let other's survive. Shocked Jane asked 'through ritual suicide?' and Olunde responded:

Is that worse than mass suicide? Mrs Pilkings, what do you call what those young men sent to do by their generals in this war? Of course you have also mastered the art of calling things by names which don't remotely describe them. ...

OLUNDE: Mrs Pilkings, whatever we do, never suggest that a thing is the opposite of what it really is. In your newsreel I heard defeats, thorough, murderous defeats described as strategic victories. No wait, it wasn't just on your newsreels. Don't forget I was attached to hospitals all the time. Hordes of your wounded passed through these wards. I spoke to them. I spent evenings by their bedside while they spoke terrible truths of the realities of that war. I know now how history is made.

Through the arguments between Olunde and Jane Pilkings and between Iyaloja and Simon Pilkings, Soyinka showed how much similarity exists between these two cultures and their attendant religions. It is all a matter of how you look at it and from where you stand when looking.

Soyinka's plays are often times difficult to explain, for though on the surface they may seem easy to grasp, beneath them would be simmering something powerful. Thus, I would recommend that, if possible, one reads this piece himself/herself.

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Brief Bio: Read about the author and his body of works here.

ImageNations Rating: 6.0/6.0

Wole Soyinka is 77 Today!

Africa's first Nobelist, Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka - commonly referred to as Wole Soyinka, is celebrating his 77th birthday today. According to Cassava Republic, a list of literary events have been planned to celebrate this great personality.

In Abuja, the Arojah Royal Theatre will be hosting a series of readings from Soyinka's plays and poems, as well as talks around the theme "My Favourite Wole Soyinka Book". [courtesy: Cassava Republic]

Over here at ImageNations - and this is something we would be looking out for, henceforth - I bring you links to Soyinka's books that have been reviewed here:

• The first is his memoir You Must Set Forth at Dawn reviewed on August 25, 2010.
• The next is his play The Lion and the Jewel reviewed on November 22, 2010.

I also treat you to Soyinka's famous poem Telephone Conversation, wherein he treats racism with humour and sarcasm.

            Telephone Conversation

            The price seemed reasonable, location
            Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
            Off premises. Nothing remained
            But self-confession. “Madam,” I warned,
5         “I hate a wasted journey—I am African.”
            Silence. Silenced transmission of
            Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
            Lipstick coated, long gold-rolled
            Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was, foully. 
10         “HOW DARK?” . . . I had not misheard . . . “ARE YOU LIGHT
            OR VERY DARK?” Button B. Button A. Stench
            Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
            Red booth. Red pillar-box. Red double-tiered
            Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed
15         By ill-mannered silence, surrender
            Pushed dumbfoundment to beg simplification.
            Considerate she was, varying the emphasis— 
            “ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT?” Revelation came.
            “You mean—like plain or milk chocolate?”
20         Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
            Impersonality. Rapidly, wavelength adjusted,
            I chose. “West African sepia”—and as an afterthought,
            “Down in my passport.” Silence for spectroscopic
            Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
25         Hard on the mouthpiece. “WHAT’S THAT?” conceding,
            “DON’T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.” “Like brunette.” 
            “THAT’S DARK, ISN’T IT?” “Not altogether.
            Facially, I am brunette, but madam, you should see
            The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
30         Are a peroxide blonde. Friction, caused—
            Foolishly, madam—by sitting down, has turned
            My bottom raven black—One moment madam!”—sensing
            Her receiver rearing on the thunderclap
            About my ears—“Madam,” I pleaded, “wouldn’t you rather
35         See for yourself?”
[Source]

Happy 77th birthday Soyinka... Ogun, the god of Iron, bless your path and lengthened your days on this earth, that whilst you leave you would still be with us.

73. Beloved by Toni Morrison

In Beloved (1987) Toni Morrison expanded the possibilities of the fiction genre from that which she created in Song of Solomon. She redefined the boundaries, broadening the horizon so as to write a story of stellar attribute with depth, passion, and a sensibility no other writer can express except Morrison. It is as if the words, scenes, sentences, speech and sense-making were being drawn from a well she only could see the bottom.

In this novel, different writing styles merged, swirled and that which came forth was of a uniform consistency that bespeak a master artist. For instead of the different writing styles veering the reader off the course, jarring his mind, throwing him here and there till he dizzied, they supported each other, strengthened the storyline and conveyed the essence of the write to the reader.

As a mix of omniscient narratives, point-of-view narratives from different characters and first person narratives, with the pendulum swinging between the past and the present - flashbacks was used to carry the story - Beloved tells of a woman, Sethe, who at the point of being recaptured into slavery by the very man - Schoolteacher - and to the very place - Sweet Home - she had escaped from at a time when slavery has been somewhat abolished, killed her already-crawling daughter to avoid capture and prevent her going through what she had gone through. Released from prison custody, through the efforts of the Bodwins, Sethe and her other daughter Denver, erected a tombstone on the grave of the already-crawling daughter with the inscription Beloved, for she had not enough money to pay the engraver to write fully the first two words the preacher had almost always used at church 'Dearly Beloved' and the daughter had not a name.

Considered as weird, Sethe withdrew from society and society also withdrew from her. For whereas Sethe considered whatever she did as love, the black community deemed it strange and wrong. Deserted by her two sons - Howard and Buglar - Sethe lived a hermit life with Denver until Paul D, a man she grew up with at Sweet Home, a man she thinks she knows, a man who is the half-brother of her husband - Halle - arrived at 124. Paul D reawakened the life in her, sacked Beloved's ghost that was haunting the house and had made Denver friendless. Everything was working until Stamp Paid, the man who had helped Sethe cross the river whilst escaping from Sweet Home to Baby Suggs (Halle's mother) at 124, showed and read to Paul D, the news article about the murder. And Paul D also left 124 but not until Beloved had appeared in flesh, perhaps to exact her retribution on the woman who kept her on the other side with 'nothing to breathe down there and no room to move in.' or perhaps to reclaim her love.

This is a strangely moving story that tells of the history of African Americans in the period just after the abolishment of slavery. It uses the life of one individual and her love to represent, not entirely but to some appreciable extent, the height and depth of suffering these class of Americans went through. It does not try to elicit pity from the reader. It is presented as it is for Sethe never pitied herself.

One could feel a lot going on in this novel. Some events, like the rape of Sethe, which was described as the taking away of her milk, the beatings she received at the hands of Schoolteacher that was described as chokeberry in blossoms by Paul D, were only talked about but never mentioned directly and this style of writing teases the reader to reason, forces him to imagine what's going on. In effect the reader becomes an extension of the novel.

Just as it is in Song of Solomon, in Beloved realism and surrealism merge at a point that is difficult to define or stake out. That the reader does not know if what the character is seeing is real or not an example being the beautiful conversation between Denver and Beloved:

"Why do you call yourself Beloved?"

Beloved closed her yes. "In the dark my name is Beloved."

Denver scooted a little closer. "What's it like over there, where you were before? Can you tell me?"

"Dark," said Beloved. "I'm small in that place. I'm like this here." She raised her head off the bed, lay down on her side and curled up.

Denver covered her lips with her fingers. "Were you cold?"

Beloved curled tighter and shook her head. "Hot. Nothing to breathe down there and no room to move in."

"You see anybody?"

"Heaps. A lot of people is down there. Some is dead." (Page 75)

Again, did the entourage who set forth for 124 to relieve Sethe from the bewitchment they thought she was under see Beloved? Was she real to them? Did she actually fly off? And this reminds of Macon Dead in Song of Solomon.

This is a must read from the Nobelist. It could easily be a text book for an advanced course in writing. I deeply enjoyed this novel. To end this I would quote a piece of what Sethe thought of Beloved:

Beloved, she my daughter. She mine. See. She come back to me of her own free will and I don't have to explain before because it had to be done quick. Quick. She had to be safe and I put her where she would be. But my love was tough and she back now. I knew she would be. Paul D ran her off so she had no choice but to come back to me in the flesh. I bet you Baby Suggs, on the other side, helped. (Page 200)

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For the Top 100 Books Challenge 

54a. Contemporary African Short Stories, A Review

Title: Contemporary African Short Stories

Authors: Various

Editors: Chinua Achebe and C.L. Innes

Genre: Short Story Collection

Publishers: Heinemann (African Writers Series)

Pages: 196

ISBN: 978-0-435-90566-8

Year of Publication:1992

Country: Various

The Contemporary African Short Stories anthology brings together writers from various parts of Africa, each carrying his or her own writing style. From the magical realism crossed with fantasy of Ben Okri, Kojo Laing, and Mia Couto to the political realism of Nadine Gordimer, Lindiwe Mabuza, Chinua Achebe and C.L. Innes have put together stories from the four corners of the continent that will

give enjoyment to the general reader as well as students and teachers of African writing, [...] that it will encourage them to explore a literature which continues to develop and flourish. (Introduction, page 6)

Also covered are issues of despotism and societal breakdown. Though political issues are raised, they are not discussed in vacuum but through the eyes of the people as in Steve Chimombo's The Rubbish Dump, Daniel Mandishona's A Wasted Land,  Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi's Government by Magic Spell and Kyalo Mativo's On the Market Day. Another significant issue about this collection is the strong representation of the female as a character and also as a voice such in Adewale Maja-Pearce's The Hotel, Assia Djebar's The Foreigner, Sister of the Foreign Woman.

I have found that short stories collection provides the quickest way of grasping an author's writing style (not always though) - if the collection is singly authored - or the writing environment of a group of people - if the anthology is multi-authored and geographically categorised, just as this one was. Such collections do not lend themselves easily to review and reviewing them as one book causes each story to lose its essence, like classing in statistics.

Consequently, this review has been structured according to the editors' geographical categorisation. It is my hope that doing this would allow each story to be adequately represented. And it would be long, I am sorry.

SOUTHERN AFRICA

Most of the South African stories [...] developed the realist mode [...], portraying in harsh detail the lives of the black proletariat in the shanty towns and urban ghettos. (Page 3)

However, there were more to this than pure rage against racism or apartheid as it existed in South Africa, there is the humanist view of issues therein raised.

The Prophetess by Njabulo S. Ndebele (South Africa)

Njabulo Ndebele

The Prophetess is a story told from the point of view of a young boy, probably ten, who has been sent by his mother to the fearful and famous Prophetess for Holy Water. The story describes the 'journey', albeit walking, the boy made to the prophetess' house and the mental torture he went through. As is the wont of most short stories, the entire story covers the period he got to the house and back. Yet, within this we get to know how and why the prophetess is fearful and famous so that even when the prophetess coughs the boy expects something to happen. His fear increasing with every action the prophetess made in the darkness of her room,

[...] the boy wondered: if she coughed too long, what would happen? Would something come out? A lung? [...] Did anything come out of her floor? The cough subsided. (Page 12)

relaxing only when he realised that the prophetess knows his mother. 

However, from this story we also get to see the growing delinquents as black parents, unable to provide for their children, lose them to the street, where all sorts of behaviours are picked. Then there is the question of faith. Did the boy's mother survived because of the prophet or because of the faith she had in the holy water even though we discover that the bottle broke along the way? 

Amnesty by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa)

Nadine Gordimer

Amnesty tells the story of a South African black Unionist who was arrested for inciting riots among workers.

Narrated by his fiancée, the story portrayed the deep racial division that represented South Africa under apartheid regime. The man had left home to work for a construction company involved in building skyscrapers around the country and had joined the union. The hope was that the dowry would be paid so that in three years they could get married but when the three years came, he found himself in prison. The woman's voice was sharp and revealing. It showed how oppressed the people of South Africa were and how women were doubly affected: emotionally and physically, whenever their loved ones were carted off to prisons and the upkeep of the family rested solely on them. In this story it was during the trial that their daughter was. This is an honest unsentimental story told not to elicit pity but to present the lives of a people.

I couldn't go often to the court because by that time I had passed my Standard 8 and I was working in the farm school. Also my parents were short of money. [...] My father and the other brother work here for the Boer, and the pay is very small, we have two goats, a few cows we're allowed to graze, and a patch of land where my mother can grow vegetables. No cash from that. (Page 25/26)

The emotional pressure escalated when after two years of his six years sentence the woman saved enough money to cover the trip to the prison island to visit and back. However, she was to discover that even in prison the government had control when he were bared from taking the ferry because they had not permit.

We didn't have a permit. We didn't know that before you come to Cape Town, before you come to the ferry for the Island, you have to have a police permit to visit a prisoner on the Island. (Page 27)

So that their love was only sustained through letters which they both knew were read by police authorities.

Then he was released after five years. And the man got more involved in the fight and the woman grew more sad, scared of the consequence if it happens again, scared of what to tell their daughter, scared that perhaps the family would disintegrate, scared that their daughter would lose her father. 

Wake... by Lindiwe Mabuza (South Africa)

Lindiwe Mabuza

Note that Lindiwe was the ANC representative in Stockholm and Washington. Currently, she is South Africa's high commissioner to the United Kingdom. Her story was the most difficult story I read in this collection. It merges several voices and writing style. According to the editors Wake draws 

on a variety of techniques and writing style - realist description, dream, dialogue, drama, stream of consciousness, traditional and contemporary songs of children and adults, and political statement. (Page 4)

And I cannot agree less with the editors. However, in summary it tells the story of an eight year old girl who lost her friend. There are places where the narration shifts from the girl's point of view to the dead girl's father. The story is about a girl who had died during the 1976 Soweto Uprising where black students demonstrated against the use of Afrikaans in schools. This is how the narrator captured the cause of the demonstration that subsequently led to the death of several students:

There was no drama to the eight hundred deaths. No mystery either! Only the quantity and nature of violence. The fascist government wanted Africans to think, breathe, evaluate and conceptualise in Afrikaans. 'Only dogs and slaves are defined by their masters,' said Frederick Douglass. The students said no! to indoctrination and demonstrated. The police shot them.The fascists of South Africa said shoot 'at any cost'. Absolutely no drama to hot pursuit and murder, in cold blood. (Page 36)

And later the fascist government was to institute a 'no mass funeral for victims of Soweto riots', thus controlling the people even in death. The narrators' frustration was directed at anything including the earth which seemed to be exacting from them the prize for the gold it has provided them, while leaving the ones who were actually wearing the ornaments, the wealthy white apartheidists.

In the end I would say this is a powerful story. It is poetic in some parts, lamentful in others and plain anger in most parts. Yet there were elements of hope as seen through the girls eyes when he saw his dead friend resurrect.

A Wasted Land by Daniel Mandishona (Zimbabwe)

Daniel Mandishoba

A Wasted Land is an exploration into the fallouts of the fight for independence in Rhodesia, (or Zimbabwe). In this short story, Bernard - the narrator - questions whether the war between the nationalists and the government was worth it when the result was already known. The war had led to

row upon row of empty shelves as business slackened considerably. There was no bread, sugar, eggs, soap, salt, milk, butter. In fact, there was nothing. (Page 63)

And Bernard had become disillusioned about the war, having lost an uncle who had left the country after being expelled from the university for political activities only to return in strait, a mad man, who was later to commit suicide. 

On the day of burial, after debt had virtually brought the family to a standstill, he was to lose his father through similar circumstance as his uncle Nicholas. And this is where Bernard's argument takes its root. He decried the war and disregarded the nationalists view 

... of dismantling by proletarian revolution a political system that had been in place for over a century. (Page 61)

According to Bernard

The nationalist politicians and the government were like parasite and its host animal who need each other because of the mutual benefit of an otherwise harmful co-existence. (Page 61)

And even at that period he saw the promise by the nationalist as

a tainted utopia, a paradise of emptiness. (Page 61)

Finally, the war left Bernard's family naked, with nothing other than the clothes they were wearing. And who would love a war that did this to him and his family. Most often in such wars, the angle everyone looks at is the one provided by the fighters and as always it is a political view shaped and skewed by the would-be beneficiaries. But in this story Mandishona, through the eyes of Bernard, sees it differently. He isn't talking about the politics, about the governments and their oppressive regime nor the nationalists and their Utopian ideals, he is concerned about the humans, his relations, who are dying endlessly for this cause, which they are not guaranteed to bring hope or change to their lives.

The Birds of God by Mia Couto (Mozambique)

Mia Couto

Mia Couto's The Birds of God mixes magical realism with fantasy. A poor fisherman had gone to the river to fish. He sees a bird and wished the bird was in his canoe, then the bird was in his canoe almost dying. He realised that this was not a bird he would want to feed on and decided to let it go. But this the bird won't go. He took the bird home, feeding it with the fish he would feed his wife and children. The poor bird became lonely and the fisherman wished for another bird and was given. These two birds took most of the food away from the family and the wife got annoyed. Yet the man sees this as a test of goodwill from God. He thought that

It was his task to show that men could still be good. Yes, that the true goodness cannot be measured in times of abundance but when hunger dances in the bodies of men. (Page 69)

When the birds hatched and more food was diverted from household consumption to feed them, his wife left him. And everybody said he was mad. So deep was his love for the birds that when he came home from fishing one day - because he foresaw a problem at home - to find that they had burnt to ashes he wished himself dead and Enersto, the man, died.

This story marks the developmental path of African writing is taking. Writers are now exploring whatever they want, mixing traditional culture with fantasy and others and this has become Couto's trade mark.

Next is Central Africa.

ImageNations Rating: 5.0 out of 6.0

47-49. Non-African Books I have Read this Year II

Once a while I bring to my readers non-African books I have read. Since these are non-African books, this post is not a review. However, it helps me judge my progress with the 100 books to be read and share thoughts on this book where possible. The first was posted exactly two months ago. 

96. The Castle by Franz Kafka

So finally I read this dystopian novel. Kafka takes us on a journey that bothers the mind. I was so tired after I read this book that I didn't think I would read Kafka again this year. I read this because almost every literary/book person has read it and besides I have read The Trial, which is on my TBR 100. There is a surveyor who wants to get into the Castle and the book tells of all the impediments and troubles he went through and still couldn't get there. The book as I see it as about the present life. How many of us are able to achieve our dreams. They mostly remain as dreams. And even those that realise theirs soon dreams another. Do we sometimes bring our troubles on us? Are we the cause of some of our problems? Is everything determined? I think in Kafka's notes, determinism is the key to every action and not randomness. For though events in the book seemed to happen randomly, they are determined. For instance, the 'Mayor' of the village knew K. would come and visit him. When K. first called the Castle the person who received it knew that he would call and knew he was coming into the village. I enjoyed reading this, that is if you took out the mental torture the book took me through.

97. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

Oh! what a book. Anyone who hasn't read it should. This book traces the Dead family from the days of slavery to the period of emancipation. Macon Dead, so called because of an error during the registration of freed slaves, has a farm which his white neighbours were jealous of. They killed him. His wife gave birth to a daughter when she died. This daughter has certain idiosyncrasies that makes her unique. Lovely book. In this book realism and surrealism is difficult to extricate from each other. Morrison was able to make the search and quest for freedom so real yet achieved through such surrealistic means that the reader begins to wonder which is which. The story was set within the period when slavery has just been abolished and blacks were exercising their freedom in a strangulated way. I read this book because I have Toni's Beloved on the TBR 100; and she is also a Nobelist, winning the award in 1993. Song of Solomon is her third novel published in 1977.

98. Lord of the Flies by William Golding 

This book is on my TBR 100. The only book amongst the three that is actually on the list. The copy I read is a poorly printed one. I loved this story. I see it as a continuation of Atwood's Oryx and Crake with Ralph, Jack, Maurice and co being children of Crake. In this classic novel, we learn of the nature of man, the savagery that we are capable of inflicting on another and the length we would go to have control over the other. We also see that politics and religion are a natural part of us for when the children became afraid of the island they left the head of any pig, they killed, on a stake for this 'thing'. On the political front, even though Ralph was popularly voted to be the Chief we saw how Jack, wanting to suppress and oppress the others, stole the Chief title from Ralph, formed his own tribe and began his savagery killing his own friends, people who were his friends and doing these because he wants to express his fearlessness or bravery to his subjects. Later, we realise that it is possible that they whole event was staged or probably an experiment. This is a true classic. Speaks on different levels.

46. The Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka

 Title: The Lion and the Jewel
Author: Wole Soyinka
Genre: Play
Publishers: Oxford University Press
Pages: 64

Year of Publication: 1963

Country: Nigeria

Comedic. In the Lion and the Jewel, Wole Soyinka tells a funny story - almost in style of the cunning Ananse folklores told in Ghana - involving four 'main' characters. Sidi is the Jewel: the village's belle whose beauty has been captured by a photographer and published in a magazine. As a result she sees herself as above anyone in the village including Bale Baroka, the Lion of Ilunjinle. Bale Baroka, is the Lion of Ilunjinle and its chief. He has several wives and is courting the love of Sidi, the village's Belle (the Jewel). Lakunle is a young (of twenty three years) bombastic teacher in the village who is bent on bestowing Western culture onto the people of Ilunjinle. In the meantime his priority is to stop the payment of dowry. When in school he wears an old threadbare un-ironed English coat with tie and a waistcoat. And he also loves Sidi. The final major character is Sadiku, the Lion's head wife. She became the head wife because she was the last wife of the previous chief who was succeeded by Baroka, the Lion and as tradition demands, she becomes the head wife of the new chief.

The story opens with Lakunle expressing his love for Sidi and denouncing strongly the payment of dowry. Lakunle describes the custom of dowry payment as

A savage custom, barbaric, out-dated,/Rejected, denounced, accursed,/Excommunicated, archaic, degrading,/Humiliating, unspeakable, redundant./Retrogressive, remarkable, unpalatable ... An ignoble custom, infamous, ignominious... (page 7) 

However, a young girl whose dowry was not paid is seen as she having forced to sell her shame becuase she was not a virgin.

Bale Baroka, the Lion, asked his head wife, whose duty it is to woo any woman the Bale wants for him, to tell Sidi to come for dinner one evening and to express his love for her, on his behalf. This the woman did. However, Sidi who has become famous and so having put on airs, told the woman the Baroka is too old and not fit enough to be her wife.

You waste your breath./Why did Baroka not request my hand/Before the stranger/Brought his book of images?/Why did the Lion not bestow his gift/Before my face was lauded to the world?/Can you not see? Because he sees my worth/Increased and multiplied above his own;/ ... (Sidi, Page 21)

Be just, Sadiku,/compare my image and your lord's -/An age of difference!/See how the water glistens on my face/Like the dew-moistened leaves on a Harmattan morning/But he - his face is like a leather piece/Torn rudely from the saddle of his horse ... /Sadiku, I am young and brimming; he is spent./I am the twinkle of a jewel/But he is the hind-quarters of a lion! (Sidi, Page 22/23)

And this set the stage for the Lion's cunning. Sadiku herself sent Sidi's message to Baroka and he in turn sounded surprised at his own request and told Sadiku of how he is no more a man:

Yes, faithful one, I say it is well./The scorn, the laughter and the jeers/Would have been bitter./Had she consented and my purpose failed,/I would have sunk with shame. ... The time has come when I can fool myself/No more. I am no man, Sadiku. My manhood/Ended near a week ago.

Sadiku, upon hearing this became happy and set out to celebrate though she had promised not to say a word to anyone. In her celebration, through songs, she told Sidi what has happened to the Baroka and how great women are. Sidi then asked Sadiku to help her taunt the weakness that has befallen the Lion by pretending that it was all a mistake when she rejected the Baroka's proposals. However, later we would read that Sidi became the Lion's wife.

Wole Soyinka

Though the storyline is linear as it is in most plays, Soyinka uses the character of Lakunle to greater effect. He mocks the rapid embracement of vapid Western culture through Lakunle, who, using 'big' words, damned all traditional practices. We see that though he was a young man and Sidi loved him, he was never able to take advantage of what was presented him. Sidi was prepared to marry him any day anywhere yet his abhorrence of the payment of dowry was the cause of his loss. So that the Lion, using his wisdom (call it cunning), won the Jewel. Lakunle, however, berated Sidi strongly against her not covering certain parts of her body and her carrying things on her head, which Lakunle claimed, would spoil her spine. He even went ahead to call her 'weaker sex' and 'small mind'. And with these characteristics of Lakunle, he became almost like a caricature with no firm belief.

This is an interesting story written in poetic format: structure, language and delivery.

This being the second African play I have read, I have come to enjoy the genre. This is a book I would recommend to all. I cannot compare it with any of Soyinka's plays (this being the first), however, it is similar in 'effect' to Ola Rotimi's Our Husband has Gone Mad.

Know Your Laureate of African Origin Part V - J. M. Coetzee

J.M. Coetzee

This is the concluding part of a series began in the last week of September. John Maxwell Coetzee is the last African and second South African to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Currently J.M. Coetzee is a citizen of Australia.

Born in Cape Town on February 9, 1940, Coetzee attended St. Joseph's College and later studied Mathematics and English at the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1960 and 1961 with Bachelor of Arts with Honours and  Honours in Mathematics respectively.

Coetzee worked as a computer programmer at IBM from 1962 to 1965. He later worked for the International Computers Limited in Bracknell, Berkshire. During this period he was awarded with a Master of Arts degree from the University of Cape Town for a dissertation on the novels of Ford Max Ford. He later received a PhD in Linguistics in 1969 from the University of Texas with thesis topic on the computer stylistic analysis of the works of Samuel Beckett. He taught English and Literature at the University of New York before he was arrested for criminal trespass together with 45 other faculty members who had occupied the university's Hall. He returned to University of Cape Town where he taught English and Literature and in 1963 promoted to Professor of General Literature.

Coetzee spoke against the limitations of art in South African society under the apartheid regime, calling on the regime to abandon its apartheid policy. Some scholars and readers claim that his Booker-winning novel Disgrace allegorises the South African Truth and Reconciliation Council.

Coetzee has won many awards including being a three times winner of the CNA Prize. His novel Waiting for the Barbarians was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Age of Iron was awarded the Sunday Express Book of the Year award. The Master of Petersburg was awarded the Irish Times International Fiction Prize in 1995. He also won the French Prix Femina Etranger, the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and the 1987 Jerusalem Prize for Fiction of the Individual in Society. He was the first author to have won the Booker on two different occasions for Life and Times of Michael K in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999. He was shortlisted in 2009 for Summertime  and longlisted in 2003 for Elizabeth Costello and in 2005 for Slow Man.

On October 2, 2003, John Maxwell Coetzee won the Nobel laureate for his

...well-crafted composition, pregnant dialogue and analytical brilliance

Bibliography

Coetzee's published work consists of fiction, fictionalised autobiographies and non-fiction.

Fiction

•  Dusklands (1974)
• In the Heart of the Country (1977)
• Waiting for the Barbarians (1980)
• Life and Times of Michael K (1983)
• Foe (1986)
• Age of Iron (1990)
• The Master of Petersburg (1994)
• The Lives of Animals (1999)
• Disgrace (1999)
• Elizabeth Costello (2003)
• Slow Man (2005)
• Diary of a Bad Year (2007)

Fictionalised Autobiography

• Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life (1997)
• Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II (2002)
• Summertime: Scenes from Provincial Life (2009)

Non-Fiction

• White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (1988)
• Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews (1992)
• Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (1996)
• Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986-1999 (2002)
• Inner Workings: Literary Essays, 2000-2005 (2007)

Read about J.M.Coetzee here and there...

Know Your Laureate of African Origin Part IV - Nadine Gordimer

Nadine Gordimer

This week's Know Your Laureate of African Origin presents the only female Nobel of African Origin, Nadine Gordimer.

Nadine Gordimer was born on 20th November 1923 around Springs, Gauteng, an East Rand Mining town outside Johannesburg. Her parents, Isidore and Nan Gordimer, were Jewish Immigrants and it was them who shaped her earlier views and interests in racial and economic inequality in South Africa.

This views were spurred on by the arrest of her friend, Bettie du Toit, was arrested in 1960 and the Sharpeville Massacre. Being an active critic of the apartheid government of South Africa saw her works being censored. For instance, The Late Bourgeois World was banned in 1976 for a decade; A World of Strangers was banned for twelve years. Other works received lesser duration ban such as Burger's Daughter was banned for one month. July's People  was also banned under apartheid, and faced censorship under post-apartheid government as well: In 2001, a provincial education department temporarily removed this novel from the school reading list, along with works by other anti-apartheid writers.

Gordimer's first published work was a short story for children The Quest for Seen Gold, which appeared in the Children's Sunday Express in 1937, when she was 14 years old; Come Again Tomorrow, another children's story appeared in Forum around the same time. At 16, she had her first adult fiction published.

Gordimer has won many awards such as the Central News Agency (CNA) Literary award in 1974, 1975, 1980 and 1991. In 1974, she won the Booker Prize with The Conservationist. She holds at least 15 honorary degrees from several universities including Leuven University (Belgium), University of York (England), Cambridge University (England), universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand (South Africa).

In 1991, she won the Nobel Laureate in Literature.

Gordimer has been active in the HIV/AIDS movement. In 2004, she organised about 20 major writers to contribute short fiction for Telling Tales, a fundraising book for South Africa's Treatment Action Campaign.

Bibliography

Novels:

• The Lying Days (1953)
• A World of Strangers (1958)
• Occasion for Loving (1963)
• The Late Bourgeois World (1966)
• A Guest of Honour (1970)
• The Conservationist (1974)
• Burger's Daughter (1979)
• July's People (1981)
• A Sport of Nature (1987)
• My Son's Story (1990)
• None to Accompany Me (1994)
• The House Gun (1998)
• The Pickup (2001)
• Get a Life (2005)

Short fiction collections

• Face to Face (1949)
• Town and Country Lovers
• The Soft Voice of the Serpent (1952)
• Six Feet of the Country (1956)
• Friday's Footprint (1960)
• Not for Publication (1965)
• Livingstone's Comparisons (1970)
• Selected Stories (1975)
• No Place Like: Selected Stories (1978)
• A Soldier's Embrace (1980)
• Something Out There (1984)
• Correspondence Course and other Stories (1984)
• The Moment Before the Gun Went Off (1988)
• One Upon a Time (1989)
• Jump: And Other Stories (1991)
• Why Haven't You Written: Selected Stories 1950-1972 (1992)
• Something for the Time Being 1950-1972 (1992)
• Loot: And other Stories (2003)
• Beethoven was One-Sixteenth Black (2007)

Plays

• The First Circle (1949) pub. in Six One-Act Plays

Essay Collections

• The Essential Gesture: Writing, Politics and Places (1988)
• The Black Interpreters (1973)
• Writing and Being: The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (1995)

Other Works

• On the Mines (1973)
• Lifetimes Under Apartheid (1986)
• "Choosing for Justice: Allan Boesak" (1983) (documentary with Hugo Cassirer)
• "Berlin and Johannesburg: The Wall and the Colour Bar" (documentary with Hugo Cassirer)

Edited Works

• Telling Tales (2004)
• Telling Times: Writing and Living, 1950-2008

Read about Gordimer here and there.

Know Your Laureate of African Origin Part III - Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz

Last week, on the 7th October 2010, lovers of African Literature kept their fingers crossed waiting for the Nobel committee to announce their choice of the laureate for 2010. Ngugi wa Thiong'o, whose latest novel, The Wizard of the Crow, caused the Arap Moi government to go in search of its main character, and when upon finding that it is a creation of the author caused him (the government of Kenya) to publicly burn a thousand copies of his book, was tipped to win the award. The odds were in his favour. And knowing the penchant for the Nobel's committee to always 'dodge' mainstream predictions, I waited with skepticism. Yet, I prayed silently to a god unknown for this great man, who has forsaken all financial enticements to write in his native Gikuyu to win the award. And the Nobel committee never disappointed, they only disappointed me. But for Ngugi to have been an odds favourite to win speaks volumes of the man's contribution to literature and the development of his mother tongue at the expense of financial gain. And so Mario Llosa Vargas won and I have not as yet heard of a single complaint or drama, as was talked about when Herta Muller won last year. Had Ngugi won, he would have been the sixth Nobelist strictly from Africa. Strictly because Albert Camus is linked to Algeria, sometimes.

We continue with the weekly highlight of African Nobelists in Literature. Two years after Soyinka's Nobel award, another African from the North, Egypt, won in 1988. 

Naguib Mahfouz, (11 December 1911 - 30 August 2006) started writing at the of 17, publishing his first novel five years later in 1933. Naguib wrote prolifically, writing ten more books, before the Egyptian revolution in 1952 where he took a short leave of writing. Even then, in 1953 he published one novel and in 1957 published what has been referred to as the Cairo Trilogy - Between-the-Palace, Palace of Longing and Sugarhouse. These books which marked the second phase of his writing career was marked with political innuendos using symbolisms and allegory. 

As an Egyptian writer, Naguib Mahfouz is considered, along with Tawfiq, el-Hakim, as the first of contemporary writers of Arabic Literature to explore themes of existentialism. He published over 50 novels, 350 short stories, dozens movie scripts and five plays over a career spanning over 70 years. At the time of his death, and four years on, he is the only Arabic-language writer to have won the Nobel Laureate in Literature.

Some of his works:

• Old Egypt (1932)
• Whisper of Madness (1938)
• Mockery of the Fates (1939)
• Rhadopis of Nubia (1943)
• The Struggle of Thebes (1944)
• Modern Cairo (1945)
• Khan El-Kahlili (1945)
• Midaq Alley (1947)
• The Mirage (1948)
• The Beginning and The End (1950)
• Cairo Trilogy (1956-57)
• Palace Walk (1956)
• Palace of Desire (1957)
• Sugar Street (1957)
• Children of Gebelawi (1959)
• The Thief and the Dogs (1961)
• Quail and Autumn (1962)
• God's World (1962)
• The Search (1964)
• Zaabalawi (1963)
• The Search (1964)
• The Beggar (1965)
• Adrift on the Nile (1966)
• Miramar (1967)
• The Pub of the Black Cat (1969)
• A story without a beginning or an ending (1971)
• The Honeymoon (1971)
• Mirrors (1972)
• Lover under the rain (1973)
• The Crime (1973)
• al-Karnak (1974)
• Respected Sir (1975)
• The Harafish (1977)
• Love above the Pyramid Plateau (1979)
• The Devil Preaches (1979)
• Love and the Veil (1980)
• Arabian Nights and Days (1981)
• Wedding Song (1981)
• One hour remains (1982)
• The Journey of Ibn Fattouma (1983)
• Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth (1985)
• The Day the Leader was Killed (1985)
• The Hunger (Al-Go'a) (1986)
• Speaking the morning and evening (1986)
• Fountain and Tomb (1988)
• Echoes of an Autobiography (1994)
• Dreams of the Rehabilitation Period (2004)
• The Seventh Heaven (2005)

Read about him here and there.

Know Your Laureate of African Origin Part II - Wole Soyinka

Profile

Blogging is going to be difficult for this season. I don't know the end of the season but its beginning I know of. Work is piling up in a certain geometric progression I cannot explain.

Less of the excuses. We continue with what was started last week concerning the profiling of the Laureates of African Literature. Today we profile Wole Soyinka, full name Akinwande Oluwole Soyinka.

Soyinka, born on 13th July 1934, is a Nigerian Writer, Poet and Playwright. After preparatory university studies in 1954 at Government College in Ibadan, he continued at the University of Leeds, where later in 1973, he took his doctorate.

Soyinka has played an active role in Nigeria's political history. In 1965, he made a broadcast demanding the cancellation of the rigged Western Nigeria Regional Elections following his seizure of the Western Nigeria Broadcasting Service studio. He was arrested, arraigned but freed on a technicality. In 1967, during the Nigerian Civil War, he was arrested by the Federal Government of General Yakubu Gowon and put in solitary confinement for his attempts at brokering peace between the warring Nigerian and Biafran parties. While in prison he wrote poetry on tissue paper which was published  in a collection titled Poems from Prison. He was released 22 months later after international attention was drawn to his unwarranted imprisonment. His experiences are recounted in his book The Man Died: Prison Notes of Wole Soyinka (1972).

As a dramatist Soyinka bases his writings on the mythology of his own tribe - the Yoruba - with Ogun, the god of iron and war, at the centre. He wrote his first plays during his time in London, The Swamp Dwellers and The Lion and the Jewel (a light comedy), which were performed at Ibadan in 1958 and 1959. Later, satirical comedies are The Trial of Brother Jero with its sequel, Jero's Metamorphosis (1973), A Dance of the Forests (1960), Kongi's Harvest (1965) and Madmen and Specialists.

Wole Soyinka, was awarded the Nobel Laureate in 1986.

Oeuvre

Plays

• The Swamp Dwellers
• The Lion and the Jewel
• The Trials of Brother Jero
• A Dance of the Forests
• The Strong Breed
• Before the Blackout
• Kongi's Harvest
• The Road
• The Bacchae of Euripides
• Madmen and Specialists
• Camwood on the Leaves
• Jero's Metamorphosis
• Death and the King's Horseman
• Opera Wonyosi
• Requiem for a Futurologist
• A Play of Giants
• A Scourge of Hyacinths (radio play)
• The Beatification of Area Boy
• King Baabu
• Etiki Revu Wetin

Novels

• The Interpreters
• Seasons of Anomie

Memoirs

• The Man Died: Prison Notes
• Ake: The Years of Childhood
• Isara: A Voyage around Essay
• Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: a Memoir 1946-1965
• You Must Set Forth at Dawn

Poetry Collection

• A Big Airplane Crashed into The Earth
• Idanre and other Poems
• Ogun Abibiman
• Samark and Other Markets I have known
• Abiku
• "After the Deluge"
• "Telephone Conversation"
• "Prisonnettes"

Essays

• Neo-Tarzanism: The Poetics of Pseudo-Transition
• Art, Dialogue, and Outrage: Essays on Literature and Culture
• Myth, Literature and the African World
• "From Drama and the African World View"
• The Burden of Memory, The Muse of Forgiveness
• "The Credo of Being and Nothingness"

Movies

• Culture in Transition
• Blues For a Prodigal

Read about Soyinka here and there.

___________________

Note: I just saw that Chinua Achebe is 45/1 of winning the Nobel, whilst Ngugi wa Thiong'o is 6/1. 

Likely Laureate for 2010, Ngugi amongst them

This is just a quick one. This wouldn't be the main blog of the day. The Nobel Laureate for 2010 would soon be announced and I am happy to inform you that amongst the Atwoods, Byatts, Roths Oates, Cormacs, Pynchon, is Ngugi wa Thiong'o. No one knows yet, but at least by the mention of his name amongst the likely candidates we can only hope.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o is the author of several books including Weep Not Child, Wizard and Crow, A Grain of Wheat, Decolonising the Mind. Meet the author here. Check out the list of likely candidates here.