African writers

[أبن مدني]

African writers


BCountless African writers have tackled the brutal years of military rule that still haunt contemporary Nigeria in their work. From Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe onto Ben Okri and Chris Abani, stories of persecution, imprisonment, torture and exile under repressive West African juntas are nothing new. With his recent novel Waiting For An Angel, 2001 Caine Prize winner Helon Habila revisits this emotional era from a remarkably youthful and fresh perspective with a poet's candour, a journalist's eye for detail and a novelist's craft.

Born in Kaitungu, Gombe state in 1967, Habila is no stranger to pathos, pain and struggle. When he was just 22, and in the process of finding himself after dropping out from university, he lost both his father and brother to a road accident. It was this tragedy and the subsequent soul-searching that led Habila to begin voraciously reading literature and taking the dream of becoming a writer very seriously. So far that noble path has had both its ups and downs. From self-publishing a book that he was forced to write at night-times under candlelight [because of a broken generator] to winning the Caine prize or 'African Booker' as it is known, and later being published by Hamish Hamilton and receiving $15,000 prize money as well as a forthcoming literary University fellowship in England. With the subsequent exposure, interest and publicity following his Caine prize award those painful days of loneliness and sacrifice should now be long behind him.

"This book is about a young writer in Nigeria. A journalist in Lagos during the years of Sani Abacha," he explains. "He was imprisoned for 2 years and had no access to lawyers or friends. But one day the superintendent of the prison comes and takes one of these poems and gives it to his girlfriend. She likes it, so he makes this young man write more poems until the lady realises that it is not her boyfriend writing these poems. She insists that she wants to meet the real writer and he takes her to the prison. Basically that is what the story is all about. What really inspired Waiting For An Angel," he continued ",was that I lived in that time and saw how young people were suppressed. It was very bleak and a very bad time for young people. I was one of them. So writing that book was purgation for me. Just trying to get that weight off my chest."

The images that Habila paints with his lyricism are sad, harrowing and often plainly disturbing. Such as how a journalist reporting on a political demonstration can realistically be imprisoned for two years without trial and in some of the most offensive conditions imaginable. Pencils, papers and other materials considered contraband actually have to be smuggled in prisoner's anuses. "The story that won the Caine prize is called Love Poems," Helon reveals. "Actually Waiting For An Angel originally came out as a collection of 7 short stories. They were all socially connected and located in Lagos and some of the events overlap and interweave. "I was going to write a novel but I couldn't do it because I was living under very difficult circumstances. I had to go to work in the morning and come home and write at night. There was no light where I was living so I just wrote short stories and Love Poems is the opening story in that collection."

Despite shedding so much light on the repression faced by those under the yoke of the Nigerian authorities, Habila readily admits that he has not yet faced any reprisals from the Nigerian regime. "No, I have never experienced that. I was never arrested. I was never harassed by the regime. But then all of us were repressed in a way because we couldn't be what we wanted to be. So you don't have to be put in prison, killed or shot. As long as you can't be what you wanted to be you are a victim of the system." Habila, however, remains extremely critical of the state of literature in Africa as a whole. He believes it will take several years before the scene is even considered decent. 'The current state of African literature is deplorable. "Very, very bad. The only place that seems to have any type of literary activity on is South Africa. But when it comes to West African and East African countries it is very bad. The publishers are just not willing to publish. Maybe because there is no audience as most people don't buy books in Nigeria anymore," he rages. "We have the oral culture and don't believe in reading for leisure. The African literature scene will take some time for it to develop. You have to have more people who are literate." He does hold out more hope for the rising crop of female African writers coming out of Nigeria and elsewhere. "I have a few friends who are African women writers. In Nigeria they have their own literary organisation and could do a lot of what they wanted to. But it's not easy because the society itself does not allow women to behave like men. It does not allow women to grow in the way that men do, especially if they are married. But a few of them are quite determined like Buchi Emecheta and young writers like Angela Agali. Its not easy for them although we do have a few of them wining awards." by Raymond Enisuoh

[أبن مدني]

Buchi Emecheta

I've always wanted to write. When people asked me when I was little I used to say that I would like to be a storyteller because I just liked listening to stories. I would sit there and listen and imagine what people went through. I think I was born a communicator because I love listening." Buchi Emecheta

Black Britain possesses few women writers of the stature of Buchi Emecheta. I can't think of anyone as pioneering or prolific as she has been. She has written no fewer than 19 novels, numerous children's books and received several awards and honorary doctorates from Britain and abroad. Recently she was named as one of Britain's writers of the century. Even a brief look at Buchi's extraordinary career shows why so many people revere her. She began her writing and university career as a single mother of five children at the age of 22. Taking a sociology degree and working to support her family, she would rise at dawn to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. I ask how she managed to juggle the roles of mother, student, worker and writer and Buchi admits that looking back she wonders herself how she managed. She describes those early days as being "a very, very hard life, both financially and emotionally". Pressed on the issue of how she coped she admits that she is baffled, "I look at women now with one or two children and I am in awe of how they cope. I really don't know how I managed. But I always knew that if I was not to perish here, I would have to find something I was good at. My books are about survival, just like my own life. How did I manage to write with the children? I had to write because of them." In some circles Buchi's early years are somewhat distorted. The picture is painted of a woman who, once starting to write was instantly successful. But that Buchi insists, is far from the truth. "Don't mind them! I got a lot of rejection. I would religiously post out manuscripts every Monday but by the Friday they had usually been returned to me. In the end I just said OK, if this is rejected I will just send another one. It never occurred to me to give up." Around this time The New Statesman decided to use her essay 'Observations of the London Poor' which eventually became the novel In the Ditch (1972). Here Buchi chronicled her own life through the main character, Adah who is forced to live in an housing estate set aside for problem families. The estate is known as Pussy Cat Mansions and it is a place filled with women. Adah can not identify with the women of Pussy Cat Mansions and her dignity is wounded because of the charity she is forced to accept. The main focus of the novel is on the importance of initiative and determination, for these are the only tools which help Adah get out to the ditch. The groundbreaking way that Buchi dealt with poverty and the difficulties of adjusting to a different culture, hit a nerve with many. It is work that Buchi is still immensely proud of: "In retrospect I think I was writing as much for myself as anything, it was a way of releasing my anger. I was charting my own social reality." In her second novel, Second Class Citizen (1976), Adah is being denied a Western education because she is a girl. This novel again characterises Adah as having the initiative and determination to get what she wants - the Western education being denied to her. Again parallels with Buchi's own life are clear: "I used to have to work long hours to get money together. When I applied for a grant from the Inner London Education Education Authority they accused me of 'toying with culture'. This was the early 1970s and they didn't encourage writing like they do now. They also couldn't understand why a mother of five would want to go back to study. It was a long time before I convinced them I was serious." Possibly Buchi's most critically acclaimed work, The Rape of Shavi (1983) is widely different from her earlier writing. Often critiqued as a 'philosophical novel', it is about the encounter between Africa and the West. In it, the residents of Shavi, a fictional African country, are visited by a group of whites who survive a plane crash. Writing children's books, and telling children stories has long been a passion of Buchi's. "I wrote children's books because I liked to do it. Before I began I used to take my children to the local library when there were storytellers there. I wanted to learn the technique. The storyteller would have thought I just brought my kids along, they wouldn't have realised that I was spying too!" Though Buchi is still writing, gone are the days when she is producing faster than her publishers could print her books. 'I am writing a little less now. I'm concentrating on delivering talks. I want to promote Black writing now. I'm going to Nigeria soon to establish a Black writers workshop. It will involve the work of a whole number of Black British writers. At universities there they study May Angelou and other African- American writers but there is a wealth of literature coming out of Britain, that needs to be recognised." However Buchi is somewhat critical of the climate of publishing in Britain at the moment. "Publishers here only seem interested in Black books that have prostitution, guns or drugs as a main theme. That is such a tiny part of our experience - our people are about a lot more than that. Writers need to be given the opportunity to reflect that"


by Andrea Enisuoh

[أبن مدني]

Maureen Roberts

Maureen Roberts was born in Grenada, grew up in West London and returned to the Caribbean to teach, working in Jamaica and The Cayman Islands before returning to London. She has an MA in Education from Western Carolina University and an M.A. in creative writing, from Goldsmith College. Her first collection of poetry, My Grandmother Sings to Me, will be published in 2003 by Bogle L'Ouverture. The collection has been described as 'a wistful mixture of , moving memory pictures. Built on the exploration of the themes of memory, belonging, and strength.' '.identifiable comments and sentiments on the passage of time and the circle of life.'

[أبن مدني]

Prisoner of Conscience

Born in Nigeria 36 years ago, poet Chris Abani doesn't fit the usual stereotype of an exiled former political prisoner. His warm persona, mysterious aura and softly spoken words wouldn't be lost on a schoolteacher or pastor. But behind his amiable demeanour and piercing eyes, lurks an artist who has already suffered excruciating pain for his talent. Abani's first novel, Master's Of The Board, led to him being imprisoned at the tender age of 18, after it was deemed a blueprint for the failed Nigerian coup of General Vasta. His second novel, Sirocco, two years later was seized by the Nigerian government and, combined with a series of anti-government plays, once again led to a lengthy detainment in horrendous conditions. In 1991 Abani was sentenced to death row.

Now over a decade later, with his latest poetry collection The Kalakuta Republic, Abani has finally found the courage to confront his penitentiary demons. 'In 1996 a friend of mine Adrian Dutton, who did the cover painting of The Kalakuta Republic showed me a portrait and I immediately just started crying. We started talking about my prison experiences and he told me that he thought it was really important for me to confront them,' Abani reveals. 'He suggested that we do an exhibition together with twelve paintings and twelve poems. Once these had been written, other poems began to emerge and soon I had the book. 'The Kalakuta Republic was both extremely difficult and extremely easy to write,' he continues. ' A lot of the stuff was pent up and just waiting to come out. But if you know anything about Nigeria you'll know that we believe in looking the other way and not confronting things.' The stories conveyed in Abani's new collection are harrowing to say the least. They include sombre recollections of torture, imprisonment and even the brutal murder of his fourteen-year-old cellmate. 'There are so many children in prison in Nigeria that we don't talk about,' he admits in reference to John James, which the author considers one of the The Kalakuta's Republic's most important poems. 'There's a whole culture of street children who get rounded up and put in prison. There's a whole book there, hopefully, waiting to be written by someone. 'In Nigeria we have a country where Babaginda (former Nigerian President) still runs around and has a powerful say. He's one of the worst dictators that we've ever had. So it's important to balance things out and remind people,' he insists. 'When you leave Nigeria to live in the West you lose part of your rights to make overt comments about Nigeria. But I have still have serious concerns because there are issues that we need to address which are not being addressed - such as ethnicity. 'I don't see how Nigeria can last if these issues are not addressed,' the poet muses. 'There is always a threat of war and that frightens me. I would like to return but right now the book has come out. There are people who are not happy there right now. It's a country where you can enter and disappear very easily. ' Abani first began writing at 8 years of age and soon after had a story called The Lion published in a local newspaper. Between the ages of 15 and 16 he started work on his first novel and began his practical education in literature, politics and imprisonment. Nonetheless, Abani freely admits that he is also indebted to London's black arts scene for where he is today. The standout chapter in The Kalakuta Republic, entitled Postscripts London, is heart-wrenching as it evokes lucid descriptions of the struggles and isolation Abani experienced on his arrival in England. But after attending workshops and meeting friends, like writers Jacob Ross and Bernadine Evaristo, he became engrossed in the local literary scene. 'When I moved to London I just kept writing and writing. I had a lot of encouragement and people like Ben Okri, who I already knew, were very supportive. But it was the black poetry scene that developed in the 1980s that showed me an incredible group of black writers who in the face of all the odds produced quite amazing work.' With his new poetry collection, including an analytical essay by Kwame Dawes, Abani himself has produced art that is both amazing and emotionally disturbing. But it is still unlikely in these days of sensationalism and throwaway fiction, despite receiving a scholarship to study a Ph.D. in America, that Abani will receive the full rewards that his work and struggles deserve from the British mainstream just yet. However, he remains upbeat. 'Knowing that despite what the mainstream might be saying about your work, there is always a core of people validating what you are doing.'

The Kalakuta Republic is published by Saqi books.



By Raymond Enisuoh

[أبن مدني]

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Assia Djebar is the pen-name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen (born August 4, 1936), an Algerian novelist, translator and filmaker. Most of her works deal with the obstacles faced by women, and she is noted for her feminist stance. Djebar is considered to be one of North Africa's most famous and influential writers, and was elected to the Académie française on June 16, 2005, the first writer from the Maghreb to achieve such recognition.
Early life
Djebar was born in Cherchell, a small coastal town near Algiers. She attended the primary school where her father taught French, and attended secondary school elsewhere in Algeria. She was the first Algerian woman to be accepted at the École Normale Supérieure, an elite college in Paris.


Career
In 1957, she published her first novel, La Soif (The Mischief). (Fearing her father's disapproval, she had it published under the pen name Assia Djebar.) Another, Les Impatients, followed the next year. Also in 1958, she and Ahmed Ould-Rouïs began a marriage that eventually ended in divorce.

In 1962 Djebar published Les Enfants du Nouveau Monde, and in 1967 Les Alouettes Naïves. She remarried in 1980, to the Algerian poet Malek Alloula; they live in Paris.

In 1996 she won the prestigious Neustadt Prize for Contribution to World Literature, and the next year, the Yourcenar Prize.

As of 2005, Djebar is the director of the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Louisiana State University.

[nazeer]

آسيا جبار هي الجزائرية الشهيرة التي جعلت من معاناة المرأة خلفية ساطعة لكل رواياتها .

[ودالشقلة]

Yes Assia Djebar is the pen-name of Fatima-Zohra Imalayen as approval of the family and the society that prevent woman take her life as she wants.So she deserved to acheive her aim through ASSIA DJEBAR and put all the complain and all proplems that face the woman as a human being as a back curtain of her novels and through it could tell us what she wants to say.

[ودالشقلة]

(Countless African writers have tackled the brutal years of military rule that still haunt contemporary Nigeria in their work.)
Yes , they have tackled severe years inorder to express themselves and write a very fighting works that still subjects for more studying.
Thanks WADMADNI posting such important issue..

[أبن مدني]

It is a good idear to concentrate on African Studyies.
Thanks

[ودالشقلة]

"Just so I could have worries that never change whether it's peace or wartime, so I could wake up in the middle of the night and question myself on what it is that sleeps in the depths of the heart of the man sharing my bed... Just so I could give birth and weep, for life never comes unaccompanied to a woman, death is always right behind, furtive, quick, and smiling at the mothers..."