Covert Operations at Agbogbloshiestan*

the ballot-man, moulting

into a bullet-man, belts

through cockroached tunnels

(in a bullet-proof Limo)

seeking out those animals

that would eat their intestines

to calm growling bellies

those whose hunger

is only sated when another’s

blood spills on mouldy minds

to these animals are offered

alcohol laced laxatives

and: guns, cutlasses, and a list

___________________________

*Agbogbloshie is a large market in Accra, Ghana.

Proverb Monday, #29

Proverb: Yεnim sε Kɔrmante bεbere a, anka y'antete no abunu ansεe no.
Meaning: If we knew that Kɔrmante would become "ripe", we would not have eaten it green.
Context: The oath of Kɔrmante is one of the most serious in Asante. The Asante army toiled hard to beat the Kɔrmante people but finally found them submissive. Hence: if you had known that something would end up being easy, you would not have put so much effort into it.

No. 4363 in Bu me Bε by Peggy Appiah et al.

June in Review, Projections for July, and Reflections of the First Half of 2011

June came and passed me by so suddenly that as I turned to look at its tail in the bend, I saw I had only three books behind me in addition to zero interviews. The fascinating thing about June and its departure is that it also marks the end of the first half of the journey towards December. That's, in someway, July is like January - promising a new beginning and providing a new canvass for the making of resolutions.

Now back to the quick-feet June. The slough of books I left behind were:

1.  Shadows by Chenjerai Hove
2. A Sense of Savannah: Tales of a Friendly Walk through Northern Ghana by Kofi Akpabli
3. The Gods are not to Blame by Ola Rotimi

In addition to these reads, I also reviewed two books which were read in May:

1. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
2. Every Man is a Race by Mia Couto

Though June was a lazy-drone, churning out a paltry sum of 311 pages - less than the lower boundary of a chunkster - it was the month in which this blog recorded its highest number of hits. Again, there were not many literary activities to attend - except last Wednesdays' (June 29, 2011) Book Reading by Manu Herbstein, author of Ama: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, at the Goethe Institute. And like a prophet of doom I predicted my own failure in May's review:

June would might also be dull as the data collected would need to be inputed and analysed. However, once I am in Accra I would be here more frequently than when I was away. I would be reviewing the two books I have already read. Currently, I am reading Shadows by Chenjerai Hove and enjoying it. (May in Review, Projections for June)

In July I hope things would pick up, though I would have to combine reading with searching for a job and performing some data analyses. However, I don't expect this dip in reading to continue forever. Definitely not.

Reflections for the First Half of the Year

On the whole, the first half of 2011 has been fruitful. Already I have almost equalled the total number of books I read  in the whole of 2010. I have read 29 books (as against 30 in 2010). The current total number of pages read stands at 5,926 (7,914 in 2010) and averages 988 pages per month (for the six months), or almost one Proust (Remembrance of Things Past) per month. At this rate, if things generally improve I hope to read more than a half-century of books.

In terms of translation (for more on these visit Winstondad) I have also read 9 translations this year (compared to 3 in 2010). I can proudly tell Amy of Amy Reads and Kinna of Kinna Reads that, 13 of the 29 books I have read so far were authored by women (compared to 8 in 2010). Finally, because I set out to read from many different African countries, I found myself enjoying, for the very first time, some Lusophonic writers such as Mia Couto, Lilia Momple, Pepetela and Jose Eduardo Agualusa.

Though these figures do not actually represent one who calls himself a reader, it does give me hope that 'it can only get better'. On personal writing fronts, I had some of my poems appearing at Sentinel Nigeria, Munyori Journal, Africa Knowledge Project (or JENda!), Writers Project of Ghana (WPG) and Dust Magazine. The poetry anthology Look Where You have Gone to Sit, also featured one of my poems.

ImageNations is focused on Promoting African Literature and it is our (my blog and I) belief that we shall become a locus for all those interested in promoting literature on the continent.

Quotes for Friday from Kwame Nkrumah

To mark Ghana's Republic Day, which falls today, I present to you several quotes from the first president of Ghana, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Voted as the African of the Century, Nkrumah wrote several books espousing patriotism, communalism, nationhood, and more. He believed in the black man and believed he alone has the right to decide his own destiny. Several years after his demise, we are still struggling with the very issue he raised that led to his overthrow in a supposed CIA-sponsored coup. Today, we are now beginning to fathom, to dissect, with little success and at several places with utter failure the imports of what this man was saying.

"Common territory, language and culture may in fact be present in a nation, but the existence of a nation does not necessarily imply the presence of all three. Common territory and language alone may form the basis of a nation. Similarly, common territory plus common culture may be the basis. In some cases, only one of the three applies. A state may exist on a multi-national basis. The community of economic life is the major feature within a nation, and it is the economy which holds together the people living in a territory. It is on this basis that the new Africans recognise themselves as potentially one nation, whose domination is the entire African continent." Class Struggle in Africa"

"In the very early days of the Christian era, long before England had assumed any importance, long even before her people had united into a nation, our ancestors had attained a great empire, which lasted until the eleventh century, when it fell before the attacks of the Moors of the North. At its height that empire stretched from Timbuktu to Bamako, and even as far as to the Atlantic. It is said that lawyers and scholars were much respected in that empire and that the inhabitants of Ghana wore garments of wool, cotton, silk and velvet. There was trade in copper, gold and textile fabrics, and jewels and weapons of gold and silver were carried." Autobiography

"Besides, political independence, though worth while in itself, is still only a means to the fuller redemption and realization of a people. When independence has been gained, positive action requires a new orientation away from the sheer destruction of colonialism and towards national reconstruction It is indeed in this address to national reconstruction that positive action faces its gravest dangers. The cajolement, the wheedlings, the seductions and the Trojan horses of neocolonialism must be stoutly resisted, for neocolonialism is a latter-day harpy, a monster which entices its victims with sweet music. In order to be able to carry out this resistance to neo-colonialism at every point, Positive action requires to be armed with an ideology, an ideology which, vitalizing it, and operating through a mass party with a regenerative concept of the world and life, forge for it a strong continuing link with our past and offer to it an assured bond with our future. Under the searchlight of an ideology, every fact affecting the life of a people can be assessed and judged, and neo-colonialism's detrimental aspirations and sleights of hand will constantly stand. In order that this ideology should be comprehensive, in order that it should light up every aspect of the life of our people, in order that it should affect the total interest of our society, establishing a continuity with our past, it must be socialist in form and in content and be embraced by a mass party."Consciencism - Philosophy and Ideology for De-Colonisation

"If imperialists are faced with so many external and domestic difficulties, how then can they afford to step up their aggression in Africa? To answer this question, it is necessary to examine the internal factors which make our continent so vulnerable to attack, and particularly to look closely at the whole question of African unity. For this lies at the core of our problem. There are three conflicting conceptions of African unity which explain to a large extent, the present critical situation in Africa:"

"1. The mutual protection theory: that the OAU serves as a kind of insurance against any change in the status quo, membership providing a protection for heads of state and government against all forms of political action aimed at their overthrow. Since most of the leaders who adhere to this idea owe their position to imperialists and their agents, it is not surprising that this is the viewpoint which really serves the interests of imperialism. For the puppet states are being used both for short-term purposes of exploitation and as springboards of subversion against progressive African states."

"2. The functional conception: that African unity should be purely a matter of economic co-operation. Those who hold this view overlook the vital fact that African regional economic organizations will remain weak and subject to the same neo-colonialist pressures and domination, as long as they lack overall political cohesion. Without political unity, African states can never commit themselves to full economic integration, which is the only productive form of integration able to develop our great resources fully for the well-being of the African people as a whole. Furthermore, the lack of political unity places inter-African economic institutions at the mercy of powerful, foreign commercial interests, and sooner or later these will use such institutions as funnels through which to pour money for the continued exploitation of Africa."

"3. The political union conception: that a union government should be in charge of economic development, defence and foreign policy, while other government functions would continue to be discharged by the existing states grouped, in federal fashion, within a gigantic central political organization. Clearly, this is the strongest position Africa could adopt in its struggle against modern imperialism."

85. The Gods are not to Blame by Ola Rotimi

Title: The Gods are not to Blame

Author: Ola Rotimi

Genre: Play/Tragedy

Publishers: University Press PLC

Pages: 72

Year of First Performance: 1968

Place of First Performance: Ife Festival of Arts, Nigeria

Year of First Publication: 1971 (this edition, 1990)

Country: Nigeria

In this play, Sophocle's Oedipus Rex, is given a Nigerian treatment and having not read Sophocle's, I really enjoyed Ola Rotimi's rendition. The gods are not to blame is a play that questions destiny: are we in control of our destiny or we are the product of our destiny? Can we escape it? At the end of the play, the question is still not answered as an individual can argue both for or against this theme.

The play opens with someone narrating the events surrounding the birth of King Adetusa's first son. Queen Ojuola, King Adetusa's wife, has just delivered her first son and the soothsayer has been summoned to foretell the future of this newly born son. The soothsayer, Baba Fakunle, announced that:

This boy, he will kill his own father and then marry his own mother!

To avert this taboo from materialising, the baby was sent to the evil grove and offered as a sacrifice to the gods. 

The first Scene of the first Act opens thirty-two after, when King Adetusa has been succeeded by King Odewale after a series of battles and conflicts with neighbouring villages and Kutuje has become somewhat peaceful but for the sudden deaths and sicknesses that have befallen the people of Kutuje. Having nowhere to go and not knowing what to do, the people brought their grievances, their problems, to bear before King Odewale. 

Yesterday, my twins died - both of them. My third child ... [unstrapping the baby on her back.] here, feel her, feel how hot she is ... come feel.

However, since the King himself has not been spared the sickness because 'sickness like rain falls on every roof', he has sent Aderopo to the oracle of Ifa at the shrine of Orunmila to seek the cause of their tribulations. Returning home, Aderopo - fearful for the results he was carrying - decided to tell the chief, in private, the response the oracle has given him. Haughty and temperamental as he is, King Odewale demanded to receive the information right in front of his people, to the hearing of everyone, mocking Aderopo in the process. After several cajoling, mocking, insulting, and pleading, Aderopo told them what the oracle had said:

Very well. Ifa oracle says the curse, your highness, is on a man...

A full-grown man...

The man has killed another man...

King Adetusa - my own father, the King who ruled this land before you....

 Having been told this, King Odewale set out how the murderer would be punished

Before Ogun the god of Iron, I stand on oath. Witness now all you present that before the feast of Ogun, which starts at sunrise, I, Odewale, the son of Ogundele, shall search and fully lay open before your very eyes the murderer of King Adetusa. And having seized that murderer, I swear by this sacred arm of Ogun, that I shall straightway bring him to the agony of death. First he shall be exposed to the eyes of the world and put to shame - the beginning of living death. Next, he shall be put into lasting darkness, his eyes tortured in their living sockets until their blood and rheum swell forth to fill the hollow of crushed eyeballs. And then, final agony: we shall cut him from his roots. Expelled from this land of his birth, he shall roam in darkness in the land of nowhere, and there die unmourned by men who know him, and buried by vultures who know him not... (Page 24)

Thus, like biblical David, King Odewale narrated his punishment even before the culprit was found and he did so, in anger and arrogance, swearing before the townspeople and the gods they serve. Baba Fakunle was called forth to deconstruct the message he gave to Aderopo. Approaching the palace, Baba Fakunle, the soothsayer, refused to move farther claiming 

... I smelled the truth as I came to this land. The truth smelled stronger and stronger as I came into this place. Now it is choking me...choking me. I say. Boy! Lead on home away from here.(26/27)

Again, the anger and arrogance of King Odewale would not allow the soothsayer depart to his village until the truth is squeezed out of him. Several verbal struggles ensued with attempts of morphing into physical persuasions until the soothsayer blurted it out:

The truth that you are the cursed murderer that you seek.

King Odewale took this as an insult even as the soothsayer went on to call him a 'bedsharer'. Before Baba Fakunle finally departed he told King Odewale that it was his 'hot temper, like a disease from birth, .... that has brought you trouble' and that

King Odewale, King of Kutuje, go sit in private and think deep before darkness covers you up ... think ... think ... think!

Instead the King saw this as a plot to get him out of the land because he was an Ijekun man ruling the people of Kutuje. He accused Aderopo - son of King Adetusa - as behind this plot, together with some of the chiefs and his own bodyguards. Here the 'blindness' that mostly follow leaders came into play. As the play unfolds King Odewale made several statements - unconsciously though - that affirmed what Baba Fakunle had said, calling Aderopo, his brother and inviting him to also come and sleep with his mother. Again, like Macbeth, the King became almost demented began accusing everyone of plotting against him.

Then a series of events occurred. His best friend Alaka suddenly appeared in his palace in search of his long-lost friend. Through conversations, and again, through his quick temperament, Odewale nearly killed his friend when the issue of his birth came up, for Alaka had called him a bastard in front of the townspeople. Again, Alaka promised to tell Odewale how he came to be in Ijekun in private, but again Odewale refused, setting  the stage for the denouement.

Though Baba Fakunle linked King Odewale's 'hot temper' to his curse, was it really that? Or was it his attitude against insult and falsities? Or even his unbending attitude towards unfairness? I would prefer the last two and not the first.

The play could be interpreted in several ways. For instance, King Odewale's message to the people when they approached him for the solution to their problem is almost  like a social commentary on the political scene of Nigeria or most countries for that matter, or even on human nature. He asked them what they have done for themselves in order to mitigate the effect of the sickness instead of rushing to him. He says:

But what have you done about it, I ask. You there - Mama Ibeji - what id you do to save your twins from dying? ... each one of you lies down in his own small hut and does nothing. ... Well, let me tell you, brothers and sisters, the ruin of the land and its people begins in their homes. (Page 12)

This is a beautiful play and even though one could tell how it would end, it is how the events unfolded that makes it beautiful and worth the read. The adaptation of English by Nigerians and making it their own is clearly seen. Interspersed with proverbs the dialogues are natural and roll off the tongue leaving taste of satisfaction on the reader's tongue. It is recommended to all who love good plays. If you have never read a play, give this a try.

______________________

Brief Bio: Emanuel Gladstone Olawale Rotimi (1938 – 2000) (AKA. Ola Rotimi) was born April 13th 1938, in Sapele, Nigeria, to Samuel Gladstone Enitan Rotimi and Dorcas Adolae Oruene Addo. Ola Rotimi became one of contemporary Africa's leading playwrights and theater directors. He obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Boston University, and the Master of Fine Arts from Yale, where he earned the distinction of being a Rockefeller Foundation scholar in Playwriting and Dramatic Literature. His graduate project-play was declared “Yale University's Student Play of the Year." 

His publications include six full-length plays (two of them award-winning), and a number of scholarly articles on Theater and Drama. He is featured in such reputable international records as: the Encyclopedia Britanica, the Encyclopedia of World Authors, Cambridge Guide to World Theater, and the International Authors and Writers Who's Who. (Source)

____________________
Read my review of his Our Husband Has Gone Mad Again

84. A Sense of Savannah: Tales of a Friendly Walk through Northern Ghana by Kofi Akpabli

Title: A Sense of Savannah: Tales of a Friendly Walk through Northern Ghana

Author: Kofi Akpabli

Publishers: TREC

Genre: Travelogue

Year of Publication: 2011

Pages: 150

Country: Ghana

At a time when local tourism has been reduced to annual school excursions to manufacturing plants in Accra and Tema, Kofi Akpabli has opened to the general Ghanaian public and the world at large the beauty locked within a place that's hardly ever travelled to by most Ghanaians, the northern regions comprising Northern Region, Upper East Region and Upper West Region. In this tour-guide cum travelogue, Kofi Akpabli documents his personal experience of travelling to these seemingly remote places in Ghana, mixing his experience with facts. The results of which is a well-crafted book that points to beautiful tourist destinations and the excellent human relations exuded by the people he met.

In A Sense of Savannah Kofi tried to present to us a different narrative, one that those who have never travelled to these regions and whose perspective of that part of Ghana is shaped and reshaped anytime news of conflicts jumped out of their ghetto blasters. And this Kofi succeeded to such an extent that even we who are fortunate enough to have visited the area seem to revisit and live it all over again. 

Written in a humourous style, making sure that every sentence makes you 'emit loud, embarassing laughs' Kofi takes us on a mental journey through northern Ghana so that from his clear and imagistic narrative we forget that it is only a mental journey and that we are where we were when the book was opened for reading. From "Way West to Wechiau" to "A Pilgrimage to Paga" we travel with Kofi as he explores the beautiful landscapes of the region. In the former he tells us the class of animals hippos belong to and why they 'sweat' oil. He also never forgot to mention of the birds whose songs he heard on the serene Black Volta, whilst pointing out how those imaginary international boundaries/borders dissolve into nothingness when you live in these places; how the locals have come to live in close proximity with these 4,000kg 'wild' animals and yet have not feasted on them; how he was afraid and his reaction when he saw a family of hippos.

...the hippo is among the most dangerous and aggressive of all animals. It is considered Africa's most dangerous. When you put a bullet through it, for instance, you must be prepared to chase miles after it before you can get its body (that is, if it falls at all). As a hippo's anger grows it keeps 'yawning' and then, shows its big teeth. A hippo's jaws are capable of biting a 10-foot crocodile into two. Any question?

It is facts such as these mixed with the author's personal experience of the animals and the place he visited that makes A Sense of Savannah a very unique book worth having.

Unlike those Naipaulic and Conradic tales and those commercialised tales and stories told about Africa where all that's narrated are the Safari with its wild lions and elephants and how the writer almost fell into a ditch but for his or her determination to survive would have been chewed by a lion, Kofi in this travelogue cum tour-book described the warmness of the people of the north. He never entered there with a prejudiced mind. He entered there with a mind so open that he saw the little things that makes the north tick, like market days which fall on Sundays called 'Sunday High'. So that we celebrate Christmas with the people in "Christmas in Hamile" and Valentine in "A Savannah Valentine". In "Bawku the Beautiful" the author writes as a prologue to the chapter:

The indifference of New York

The business savvy of Kumasi

The ethnic diversity of Nima

Bawku, Beauty is thy name 

Invitation to pito - locally brewed beer - drinking was abundant and with the right attitude friends are easily made. The successes of the people and their challenges are presented in equal measure. In "Sirigu Success Story" we meet a wonderful woman Madam Melanie Kasise who on reaching retirement age refused to bend to the dictates of old age but gathered the women in her community, Sirigu, to form the Sirigu Women Organisation for Pottery and Art (SWOPA). So famous is the success of this 300-women organisation that the former United Nations General Secretary, Kofi Annan, visited them, where his bust still stands today.

Making nonsense of the prejudicial, parochial, single-story narratives about Africa that have pervaded every media outlet, Kofi with this book has provided a fresh alternative narrative about these places in Ghana and, perhaps if one is quick enough to apply this to other places, in Africa as a whole. For those who love to travel or to read about places, those who seek to understand a people from the people's own perspective and not buying into the usual stereotypic narrative by those whose philosophy in life is 'if it is not like mine, it isn't worth it', if you are one of those then this book is for you. However, if you are not tired of reading the single-story of Africa, its backwaters, its mountainous problems, and the zombies who inhabit the place, if this is your ideal fantasy novel or book, then stay clear off this book. It isn't for you.

For those who would purchase this book, be very careful before you read, especially "Bolgatanga to Kumasi by GPRTU" and "Kumasi to Bolgatanga by GPRTU (State of Emergency)", for there is a caution at the back, which reads:

For fear of emitting loud, embarrassing laughs do not read this book in public

This book is available in most book-selling shops in Ghana.

_________________________

Brief Bio: Kofi Akpabli is a communication professional and a journalist whose special interests are triangled between tourism, culture and the environment. Whether he is covering a 9/11 memorial on Ground Zero in New York or discovering traditional taboos in Ghana's Upper West Region, human interest is ever his soft spot. Happily as he uncovers the intrigues of the human situation, humour never seems to leave him alone. (Source)

In April 2010 Kofi Akpabli was nominated as a finalist in the CNN/Multichoice African  Journalist Awards Programme. He won the best journalist in the Arts and Culture category with his piece The Serious Business of Soup in Ghana. He again won this award in the same category last Saturday, June 25 2011, with his article What is right with Akpeteshie. The citation following Mr. Akpabli’s award read: 

“Kofi Akpabli’s story uses the most enriching and fantastic language to explain why Akpeteshie, a local brew, is the equivalent of a liquid national heritage. Kofi not only educates and enlightens us to the history and best practices of this national beverage – but he also does it with humour and style. A worthy return winner.” (Source) 

ImageNations Rating: 5.5 out of 6.0

Proverb Monday, #28

Proverb: W'ani rebɔ na εtε si wo so a, wofa no saa ara
Meaning: If you are going blind and you find it is only a cataract, you are content
Context: If you are faced with a major disaster, any small hope helps

No. 4309 in Bu me Bε by Peggy Appiah et al.

Manu Herbstein: Guest Writer for June

The Writers Project of Ghana (WPG) is pleased to have Manu Herbstein, author of Ama: A Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, as the guest writer for June, and as usual there will be a reading at the Goethe Institute in Accra. This event, which is part of the Ghana Voices Series, will take place on Wednesday 29th June, 2011.

Manu Herbstein's novel won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in 2002. Beyond this, Manu has many other works to his credit, one of the more recent being President Michelle - Ten Days that Shook the World. The author will be reading from a variety of his works, giving a wide view of his skill and scope of writing. 

The Ghana Voices Series provides a platform to engage with writers in a friendly atmosphere. The reading will be followed by a discussion.

This programme is organised in collaboration with the Goethe Institute, Accra.

Date: Wednesday, 29th June, 2011

Time: 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm

Location: Goethe Institute, 30 Kakramadu Road, (next to NAFTI) Cantonments, Accra.

Admission is free.

Read more about it here.

M.K. Asante: Author. Filmmaker. Professor.

At 29, when most of us are struggling to set our feet firmly somewhere, M.K. Asante is already an author of three celebrated books, the latest being It's Bigger than Hip Hop, a filmmaker and a professor. This Zimbabwean gem says he was conceived at the night of a Bob Marley concert and birthed nine months later. Thus, at conception point Asante was/is a man of the arts.

This exceptional professor shows that one can be a professor and be 'hip' at the same time. The two go together. In sweatshirt, Nike 'foot' and a cap over his Rasta hairdo, Asante has given lectures in over 25 countries across the world. He says that what counts is not the material things we wear, but the intellect - that intangible thing seated in the head which has no correlation with your dressing - that counts. A first glance would lead you to judge him as a hip hop star or a fashion aficionado; but Asante says it's bigger than hip hop. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer described him as a "a rare, remarkable talent that brings to mind the great artists of the Harlem Renaissance." Asante is the recipient of the Langston Hughes Award and his latest book has been hailed by the Los Angeles times as "An empowering book that moves you to action and to question status quo America."

Note that all these were not grabbed from the classroom. He is also street-smart and have earned his fair share of rustication, dismissals and 'negative-branding' by teachers. He was told he would not amount to nothing, but ten, twelve years on, he has amounted to some so significant that his achievements are worth sharing. Asante's other books are Beautiful. And Ugly Too and Like Water Running Off My Back, winner of the Jean Corrie Prize from the Academy of American Poets.

As an acclaimed filmmaker, Asante direcated The Black Candle, a film he co-wrote with renowned poet Maya Angelou who also narrates the prize-winning film. It was through this work that Maya Angelou commented on his talents on facebook. And this is where I met Asante. He wrote and produced the film 500 Years Later, winner of five international film festival awards as well as the Breaking the Chains award from the United Nations. He also produced the multi award-winning film Motherland. Read more about him here, but first listened to this interview with CNN's African Voices.

The First Science-Fiction Novel in Shona

In Africa almost everybody is bilingual. There is a choice between speaking the colonialist language or the local language. And often we find ourselves in the middle, speaking the Pidgin Language (English, French, Portuguese) in unofficial places. In Nigeria, Pidgin English is the most common form of communication. However, some scholars have called for the use of African Languages in official settings. This call has been called populist by some and shunned by others. In fact, recently an author argued that the African Language divides. Until then, I never heard that the language of our forefathers could divide us. We all had our say on the issue.

However, few authors are taking this call to higher levels. A name that comes to mind easily is Ngugi wa Thiongo'o, who writes in Gikuyu, his mother tongue. And Masimba Musodza is also contributing to making this dream a success. Masimba Musodza, according to the Press Statement below, has written the first science-fiction novel in Shona. I first heard of Masimba when I read his short story, Yesterday's Dog, in the first edition of the African Roar anthology. That story showed the cyclic nature of man and the ever-changing roles we hold. His story was one of my favourites in the collection.

The Press Statement

UK based Zimbabwean author, Masimba Musodza, has ushered in a new era in Zimbabwean literature by publishing the definitive first science-fiction/horror novel in ChiShona and the first in that language to be available on amazon Kindle.

MunaHacha Maive Nei weaves issues of greed & corruption, sustainable development, international corporate intrigue and concerns around bio-technology. Chemicals from a research station conducting illegal experiments begin to seep in to the local ecosystem, causing mutations in the flora and fauna. When a child is attacked by a giant fish, the villagers think it is an affronted mermaid-traditional custodian of the ecology- and seek to appease it according to the prescription of folk-lore. However, the reality of what is happening soon becomes evident, a reality more terrifying than any legend or belief.

MunaHacha Maive Nei was written for the next generation of ChiShona readers, taking a language that has long contended with encroaching westernisation into the modern world of information technology and new media. It was written in the United Kingdom, a country that considers ChiShona a language widely spoken enough to have official documents and information printed in. Musodza demonstrates a remarkable flair for ChiShona and overturns the notion that it is not possible to write "complicated stuff" in a language that is often shunned by the educated back home. Influenced by Professor Ngugi wa Thiongo's Decolonising the Mind, Musodza has been an advocate for the sustained use of African languages. (see this article here) It is his hope that MunaHacha Maive Nei will generate more than academic interest. The print edition will be published in the next few weeks by Coventry-based Lion Press Ltd.

Masimba Musodza was born in Zimbabwe in 1976, and came to England in 2002. A screenwriter by profession, he published his first book in 1997, The Man who turned into a Rastafarian. He is perhaps best known in literary circles for his Dread Eye Detective Agency series. Musodza lives in the North-East England town of Middlesbrough.

click here for the link to Musodza's page on amazon Kindle

Proverb Monday #27

Proverb: Kwasea ani te a, na agorɔ agu.
Meaning: If a fool becomes clever, then the game spoils.
Context: If a person refuses to be taken advantage of anymore, you cannot do anything about it.

No. 3950 in Bu me Bε by Peggy Appiah et al.

Quotes for Friday from Chenjerai Hove's Shadows

Exile wields the hammer of darker memories. Where the victim and the victimizer embrace, who shall intervene, and clouds of rain pour down on the sky's rejects. 

Page 44

There are many homesteads which will remain intact, with children and dogs chasing after hopeless bones and fireflies. But his home will not be a home. It will be a home of graves, ancestors, shadows, broken walls leaning on tired ear.

Page 45

When the small bull grow horns, it must learn to defend itself...

Page 46

A silent man will die in the silence of his foolishness.

Page 49

[A] man who broods about his problems alone is likely to bewitch others. Talking is the medicine for troubles. 

Page 50

If this is what my foot can carry me to, I choose the buttocks which make me sit near the grave of my ancestors. The lizard with a broken tail must learn to play near the cave.

Page 50

An old death is better. Everyone dies when the years have left them behind. Everyone joins the womb of the earth on their way to the ancestors. To die the way you died, that is pain. That is the pain which eats the cracked feet of a sleeper. The sleeper tries to wake up, the rat blows some fresh air on to the wound so that the sleeper can sleep until the whole sole of the foot is a big wound.

Page 54

When the earth speaks, even the deaf hear. They listen carefully because things of the earth cannot be allowed to leave without entering the ears of all.

Page 54

[A] man who runs away from death will run into death.

Page 56

If a man overeats and then takes a spear to stab the granary which stores the food, he should not blame someone else when tomorrow his stomach starts rumbling with hunger.

Page 57

[A] man who refused to be warned only remembers the warning when his forehead is covered with wounds.

Page 79

It is the noisy bird which gets the stone from the catapult...

Page 82

An injured man must not feel pity for himself, otherwise he will live in sorrow for the rest of his life.

Page 86

The stump that hits the toes of the person walking in front of you will also hit the toe of the person walking behind. When the big finger burns, the small ones also burn.

Page 102

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Read my review of the novella here

83. Shadows by Chenjerai Hove

Title: Shadows

Author: Chenjerai Hove

Publishers: Heinemann (African Writers Series)

Genre: Novella/Pastoral/Politics

Year of Publication: 1991

Pages:111

Country: Zimbabwe

For the Africa Reading Challenge

Chenjerai Hove's Shadows is a story to read. In just 111 pages, Hove tells a story about love and death and the politics surrounding and leading to Zimbabwe's independence. Johana's father left his ancestral home to Gotami's land. There he became famous and rich, until the arrival of Marko. Johana walked with the boys and did the things they did. She herded the cattle and milked the cows. She found the classroom hostile. And she loved the boy with the civet cat in his mouth. But the boy seems to see through her; not talking to her after he had initially expressed his love for her. Then Marko came. A boy who had escaped poverty from his own land. The two saw within themselves a common destiny and fell in love, platonic initially but then with time it morphed into something emotional, something that needed to be fulfilled. And it was fulfilled. When Johana's father heard of the happenings between his daughter and Marko, the boy from far away, he disapproved it and almost killed him. Later Marko would die by his own hands and Johana too. One from a rope, the other from a poison.

Written along the line of Romeo and Juliet, Shadows weave within its pages the politics of the day. How misunderstanding broke within the camps of those who were fighting for independence. How this fight for independence and this misunderstanding lead to the death of innocent rural folks. Within this we find that Johana's father is an alienated figure, neither supporting the freedom fighters nor supporting the colonialist. However, there were places in the story where one is more likely to assume that Johana's father appreciated the white rule more than the 'unknown' fighters in the bush and their cloudy course. 

He is a master farmer, he remembers. Do people not remember how the white man who teaches the good ways of farming came to our house, spoke a lot of things many of which no one could understand? Did he not mention my name so many times that people thought I was the younger brother of the white man? Every time he opened his mouth, his tongue danced with my name on it. Who in the whole village has had the white man come to praise him in his own home? They were jealous, their eyes looking at me as I stood there next to the white man like his interpreter, nodding as if I could understand the language of the nose. (Page 43)

And there were other places where Johana's father saw the white man (the colonialist) with a different eye. This makes Johana's father a character difficult to comprehend. He was a mix of everything: apprehension, fear, love, hatred, indecision and more. Just like all of us are. In him we find a man who would protect his children and his family and yet when his actions lead to death would also take the blame and suffer for it.

Having invited death onto his homestead, Johana's father left home for the city. While in the city he was officially declared a fugitive from justice by the guerrillas for being a saboteur. The brutal killing of his sons reached him and this dissociated his awareness of himself from himself.  He was later to be killed by the very individuals who killed his sons. Like Johana's father, Hove, a critic of the Mugabe government, would also go into exile in 2001.

Described as an extended prose poem, this pastoral story written in the vein of Mia Couto is evocative and makes the reader think and ask questions. Though the narrative keeps changing from an omniscient narrator to the first person (mostly, Johanna's mother), such shifts do not distort the read. One does not find the bump that one finds in stories of switching narratives.

My only problem with this brilliant piece is a problem I have had with most stories by Africans but one I have not written about. It is the use of a refutable 'lack of knowledge' for 'mistrust'. This is not only demeaning of African native farmer but also a continuous misunderstanding of the ways of our people. Recently, a body of knowledge has become approved in Agriculture, Indigenous Technical Knowledge. This body of knowledge shows the depth and level of thinking of the African farmer. For instance, why does he/she practice mixed cropping instead of monocropping? Now we know that, in addition to the diversification of production which leads to food security should a given crop fail, there is also the gain in nutrients released by one plant and taken up by the other. A simple example is the nitrogen-releasing leguminous crops interplanted with nitrogen requiring crops like maize. Yet, we who are of our people refuse to learn of and understand their ways. In Shadows Johana's father was a farmer who rears cattle. However, when he bought a piece of land at Gotami and was asked not to take his cattle there because of tsetseflies he became worried. And mistrusted the District Commissioner who had sold the land to him. He asked himself how flies could kill cattle. My problem is that wouldn't cattle raisers know of the tsetsefly, especially if they have been doing this all their lives?  However, we find that Johana's father did not know of the tsetsefly.

However, this may be my own misinterpretation and whether it is or it is not, it takes nothing away from the beautiful and carefully woven story of Hove. Though this wasn't the Hove I was after, I knew after I completed this that I would search for Bones, his most acclaimed piece. This piece is recommended to all who love beautiful prose.

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Author's Bio: Chenjerai Hove (b. February 2, 1956), is a leading figure of post-colonial Zimbabwean literature. He's one of Zimbabwe's finest writre's now living in exile for fear of his life. Novelist and poet Chenjerai Hove gained international fame in 1988 with his novel Bones. In recent years, his work (which revolves around the theme of the spiritual importance of land in African cultures) has gained a new significance in the light of the social crisis unfolding in his native Zimbabwe. In 2001, Hove left his country of birth amid the escalating violence triggered by the government of Robert Mugabe. He now leads a migrant's life in the West and is an outspoken critic of the Mugabe regime.(Source)


ImageNations' Rating: 5.5 out of 6.0

Proverb Monday

Proverb: Wo ne ɔberεmpɔn na εda a, anka wobε ɔsi apini anadwo
Translation: If you were to sleep with a paramount chief, you would hear that he sighs in the night.
Usage: Even the great have their troubles and anxieties

No. 6570 in Bu me Bε by Peggy Appiah et al.

Winner of the 2011 Orange Prize

The 2011 Orange Prize for Fiction has been announced. Though ImageNations was supporting Aminatta Forna with her The Memory of Love to win, things went in the way of the Serbian/American Author  Téa Obreht with her debut novel The Tiger's Wife (Weindedfeld and Nicolson). At 25, Obreht becomes the youngest-ever author to win the prize.

In its sixteenth anniversary this year, the Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing from throughout the world. This comes timely as Naipaul in his ever caustic remarks has recently indicated that women authors, including Jane Austen, are inferior to him. Or so he was supposed to have said and this has generated a lot of heat in the literary blogging world, to which I have added my two pesewas, in the form of comments, here and there.

At a ceremony at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London, the 2011 Chair of Judges, Bettany Hughes, presented Obreht with the £30,000 and the 'Bessie', a limited edition bronze figurine. Is this 'Bessie' in honour of Bessie Head? The South African who became a Botswana citizen? If so then this figurine is worth winning.

According to the Chair of Juges, Bettany Hughes:

The Tiger's Wife is an exceptional book and Téa Obreht is a truly exciting new talent. Obreht's powers of observation and her understanding of the world are remarkable. By skillfully spinning a series of magical tales she has managed to bring the tragedy of a chronic Balkan conflict thumping into our front rooms with a bittersweet vivacity. ... The book reminds us how easily we can slip into barbarity, but also of the breadth and depth of human love. Obreht celebrates storytelling and she helps us to remember that it is the stories that we tell about ourselves, and about others, that can make us who we are and the world what it is.

About the Author: Téa Obreht was born in 1985 in the former Yugoslavia and raised in Belgrade. In 1992 her family moved to Cyprus and then to Egypt, where she learned to speak and read English, eventually immigrating to the United States in 1997. After graduating from the University of Southern California, Téa received her MFA in Fiction from the Creative Writing Program at Cornell University in 2009. Téa was featured in The New Yorker's Top 20 Writers under 40 Fiction Issue (June 2010) and at 24, was the youngest on the list. Her short story, The Laugh, debuted in The Atlantic fiction issue and was then chosen for The Best American Short Stories 2010, a further short story, The Sentry, featured in the Guardian Summer Fiction Issue. Her journalism has appeared in Harper's magazine and she lives in Ithaca, New York.


Read the full announcement here.

This wasn't my post of the day. For my post of the day, which is a review of Mia Couto's Every Man is a Race click here.