We the Longlist

At the longlist party yesterday.

Boko Haram and Nigeria

A police chief once said that he hoped Boko Haram would soon run out of fools to blow up. He said so in that characteristic way in which we Nigerians vent our frustration by telling slightly tasteless jokes. Black humour always come to our rescue. Under Abacha we joked.  During Occupy Nigeria, even as bullets strayed into the crowd, we joked. And this police chief, confronted with the ineptitude of his force and the foreignness of the mode of attack (but Nigerians love life too much to be suicide bombers), he too he joked. The bombing of schools, churches, mosques, UN buildings, police headquarters, it is not a laughing matter, yet still we joke and I think in the end, it is this that will save us.

Boko Haram is not strong enough to overwhelm Nigeria with force. They have neither the arms nor the funds to stage a military invasion of Nigeria. So what we have instead is a war of attrition. They strike here, strike there and hope that they will wear us down. I have not yet seen the power or calamity or disaster that is capable of wearing the Nigerian down. We can be angered, we can be pained, we can suffer but tomorrow we rise at 4am, rinse our faces and we start again. Not in an automated, mechanic way but in a matter of fact, practical way. And when the pressure builds we fight. And when, that is not enough, we burn each others houses. And if still, all is not released, we will  kill each other. But then we start again and all the while, while we fight and burn and kill and die because the hospital had no drip and the road was not tarred and the light was not working, all the while, we joke. And then we start again not in an automated, mechanic way but in matter of fact, practical way.

This is what suffering has done to us. Perhaps it has made us easily trampled on. Sparks that would ignite a population elsewhere, soon flicker out. Forest fires that would explode another country, flare briefly and die away. Yet, this suffering has also made us very difficult to wear out. In a war of attrition, I will bet on Nigeria every time.

My hope for my country is that we learn to get angry in a constructive way; we learn the angers that builds roads and schools and credible elections and power plants and an honest police force. But I also hope that when finally, the people are aroused, we will not forget how to deal with suffering. It is not to be crumbled in front of, nor cowed by but to be joked at. And when it has done its worst, we start again, not in an automated, mechanic way but in a matter of fact, practical way.

May the souls of all those murdered by Boko Haram today rest in peace.

SKD Longlisted for the 2012 Desmond Elliott Prize

The Spider King's Daughter has been longlisted for the 2012 Desmond Elliott Prize. It's for debut authors published in the UK and I'm well pleased. We thank God. For the rest of the longlist, click here. I'm in very good company. :)

Once Upon a Time

I stumbled across this beautiful poem on the internet by the Nigerian poet called Gabriel Okara. His book, 'The Voice,' has gone straight onto my to be read list. Anyways, here's the poem.

Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time, son,
they used to laugh with their hearts
and laugh with their eyes:
but now they only laugh with their teeth,
while their ice-block-cold eyes
search behind my shadow.

There was a time indeed
they used to shake hands with their hearts:
but that’s gone, son.
Now they shake hands without hearts
while their left hands search
my empty pockets.

‘Feel at home!’ ‘Come again’:
they say, and when I come
again and feel
at home, once, twice,
there will be no thrice-
for then I find doors shut on me.

So I have learned many things, son.
I have learned to wear many faces
like dresses – homeface,
officeface, streetface, hostface,
cocktailface, with all their conforming smiles
like a fixed portrait smile.

And I have learned too
to laugh with only my teeth
and shake hands without my heart.
I have also learned to say,’Goodbye’,
when I mean ‘Good-riddance’:
to say ‘Glad to meet you’,
without being glad; and to say ‘It’s been
nice talking to you’, after being bored.

But believe me, son.
I want to be what I used to be
when I was like you. I want
to unlearn all these muting things.
Most of all, I want to relearn
how to laugh, for my laugh in the mirror
shows only my teeth like a snake’s bare fangs!

So show me, son,
how to laugh; show me how
I used to laugh and smile
once upon a time when I was like you.

Gabriel Okara

Book Launch!

It was on Monday March 19th and I had a wonderful, wonderful time. It was hosted by my university, King's College London. They've been ever so supportive. First they put me on the cover of the alumni magazine, then they organised my first reading and now the launch. Big up to Kings! My sister took a thousand and one pictures but I'll only put a few up here.

My cousin Opeyemi who was an excellent MC. She came straight from work as well, instantly slipping from corporate high flyer to relaxed MC.

Ellah Allfrey, Deputy Editor of Granta, who asked me some questions about the book that  challenged me I must say.  Also, I look like a giant in this picture.

My friend Jibs, with her pile of books.

Girls are smiling.

I promise I don't know them :)

The support from family and friends was amazing. People came from Ibadan, Lagos and London and they bought books ehn. It was the most books ever sold by Faber at a book launch. We thank God :) I didn't want to leave when the evening was over. I felt like Cinderella going back home after the ball.

PS
I've put more photos on my fanpage album.

E ma Binu

The title of this post, when roughly translated from the Yoruba to the English means, 'don't be angry.'

There are few things more unpleasant than a writer who only blogs to promote their books and has nothing to say but buy my book, read my reviews, like my fanpage. So e ma binu.

I've been very busy though. One 10,000 word essay just handed in on Friday, a 5,000 due in 22 days and another 10,000 to be done before the month runs out. If you think this is scanty excuse, e ma binu.

And of course the novel just came out. Southbank, Radio 3, Oxford Literary Festival, World Service, Black Book Swap, I've gone to all these places talking about my book and hoping to find new readers. They've all been wonderful and I've enjoyed them so much but sadly they've  not left much time for blogging. So please, e ma binu.

And then we have the finals. May 18, the last exam I'll ever write as an undergraduate student and now less than two months away. 

So in the meantime, please buy my book, read my reviews and like my fanpage and as you do, ejo o, e ma binu.

Join me at SOAS this Thursday

 

I'll be in SOAS on the 29th of March from 6-8pm discussing my book with Ore Disu and Tricia Wombell.

The full venue address is Khalili Lecture Theatre, SOAS, Brunei Gallery, Thornhaugh St, Russell Square, London, WC1 H0XG.

The nearest tube station is Russell Square on the Picadilly Line.

Full details are here.

Also, a review in the FT. Read here.

And I've uploaded some pictures and reviews I can't post here to my facebook fan page here.

Tabia Princewill Speaks

Musings of a frustrated Corper

To face up to the glaring deficiencies of the dinosaur we call NYSC, government needs to implement more than surface reforms. For many today, NYSC is an ordeal; a necessary evil; a rite of passage whereby one learns to adapt to the flawed codes of conduct in our society. Indeed, NYSC is a foray into the real world which ideally should teach best practices and attitudes conducive to our development and progress as a country. Ironically, the scheme in its current configuration does quite the opposite.

Corpers are regarded as cheap labour by the organisations who employ them and one very often spends the service year running errands, some highly degrading others simply pointless and non relevant to the job at hand. There is no obligation for the corporate world or even the public sector for that matter, to train the corpers they take on. Rather, youth service becomes a sort of demeaning servitude. Let us speak plainly about the real issues at stake and go beyond surface reforms: female corps members are harassed not because they have no martial arts training (contrary to what proposed reforms would have us believe) but because there is little to protect them from sometimes predatory and unwanted attention. Their inability to mimic Karate masters is irrelevant. It is the very philosophy of NYSC, the unequal relationships between corpers and their would be co-workers that is the problem.

Different sets of rules apply for individuals depending on their class, social status or occupation. Corpers, hard working graduates called to serve their country, are perceived as being at the very bottom of the social pyramid rather than the nation’s pride. So they are ridiculed and taken advantage of. Despite the present reforms there is still nothing to protect corps members as concurrently there is no social security net to protect the poor, the elderly and the weak in our society. NYSC currently is an exercise in adaptation to the functioning of a dysfunctional society: a way of learning in practical terms about inequality and injustice.

So what is the point of NYSC? Beyond the objective of national integration, what is a corper meant to gain at the end of his or her service year beyond an often thoroughly degrading and sometimes even traumatizing experience where girls face the lewd advances of men in a position of power and young men are frustrated and angered by the fact that after being used in all sorts of ways, most companies will not retain them? Our government asks Nigerians to love their country, serve it with all their heart and mind, respect their leaders and the laws of the land but gives nothing or little in return. No modern society is based on such unequal dealings. The National Youth Service Corps must provide young people with a career path, a set of skills from which they can earn a living. This should be the core requirement of the scheme, a key term of the contract between the Federal Government and all organisations in both the private and public domain.

NYSC can not be a success, will not add value to both corpers and organisations if there is no training process or clearly defined tasks for corpers to undertake during their service year. As for being retained, so few companies do. This should not be so. Abroad, many organisations hire interns for the year and review their performance at the end of said year. It is impossible to offer a job to everyone, but it is unheard of to offer a job to virtually no one besides the children of those who have family or friends in the organization. As for corpers in the public sector, for them too there should be the possibility of a career path beyond NYSC.

 The current reformist idea is to post corpers mostly to rural areas in dire need of the manpower to develop these communities. The problem here is that corpers are regarded as ‘manpower’ and not as individuals with dreams and aspirations and who deserve, just like anyone else, to have a fighting chance at achieving their potential. Should corpers pay for the inefficiencies of governments who were not able to develop rural areas? Serious reform is not to decide that corpers should solely be posted to rural areas where they can serve their country as teachers and doctors when they might have no desire, interest or more importantly ability to do so, thus creating another generation of dissatisfied Nigerians who take out their frustrations on the future youths they encounter!

The path to real reform is to ensure that corpers in different sectors are properly trained for a job and acquire skills and prospects. A nation which fails the youth by its inability to provide them with a decent future is surely failing in its developmental objectives. I would also like to remind government that “without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed and no republic can survive” (John F. Kennedy) so rather than believe criticism to be the work of enemies, real, spiritual and imagined I would like to urge government to act. As the grunt of Nigerians continues to suffer government’s inaction in silence, as some members of society respond to their frustrations through violence, one can only hope that we are all able to rise to the responsibility and challenge of creating a better Nigeria.

                                                                                                Tabia Princewill

Tabia Princewill is currently a corper in Lagos. 

Blog for the Thought Fox

 

"I started writing The Spider King’s Daughter when I was 17, got an agent at 18, signed with Faber at 19, finished editing while 20 and got published at 21. Condensed into this sentence, the whole thing looks incredibly neat and simple. That’s what summarising things does and this is why in my first cover letter to my agent, I refused to write a synopsis of my book. With only thirty-three pages written, I technically couldn't have produced a summary. However, as I was also ideologically opposed to the synopsis, I informed my future agent: “I usually miss the point of summaries so I have enclosed the first three chapters for you to read and find out what the novel is about.” I am quoting from memory but the obnoxious sentiment is accurately transcribed."


Read the rest here. 

 

Also, I'll be at the Southbank tomorrow with Noo Saro Wiwa tomorrow.. Join us if you can. More details here.

BBC Radio Scotland

On BBC Scotland's 'The Book Café' tomorrow at 1.15. Tune in if you're free. You can tune in online here. You can also catch my short story Easter Sunday on iplayer until Thursday this week. Click here to listen. My story starts at about 32 minutes but the entire show is great so I'd listen to all of it. :) Have a lovely week.

Short Story on Radio 3!

My reading of my short story Easter Sunday will be on Radio 3's Verb tonight at 10 pm. To listen live online click here or do it the old fashioned way and tune in on your radio.

N.E.P.A

Growing up, many evenings and nights were spent in darkness. I did not mind too much when the power was cut off in the afternoon. Though the house became dim, there was still enough light to read and play Ludo and hopscotch. It was around 6pm when N.E.P.A had still not brought light that the absence of electricity became annoying. There were candles but reading by candle light had been embargoed by my mother for fear we would be partially blind before we reached our teenage years. So between 7pm when we ate and 9- 10pm when we slept, there was a lot of time to kill.

Sometimes we played with fire. This could take up a good half hour. We started by running our fingers through the candle flame. There was no winner in this game but the slower you passed your finger through the flame, the more of a pro you were. If you ran your finger through very quickly, you didn't feel anything and chicken that I was, I always took this option. Also, there was the two finger candle game where you tried to put out the flame by pinching it between your thumb and your index finger. I never attempted this round but some of the maids would show off  by putting out the flame in this fashion. Then of course there was the candle wax game, which entailed spilling the molten wax on your hands and then scraping it off when it cooled.

However, my personal favourite was the matches game. You took a match, held it to the flame and let it catch fire. You then held it for as long as you possibly could. The further down the match the flame burned, the more proficient you were at this game. One of my proudest moments was when I managed to burn the whole match stick, right from its sulfuric head to its wooden stump. Usually, I could only burn the match for a few seconds before the heat got too close to my fingers and I dropped it. Then one day, I realised that if I held the charred end, I could burn the whole match with ease. After I'd beaten the system, I grew tired of the match game.

I tell this story because over the weekend I went to a seafood restaurant which was mostly lit by candle light. And it wasn't any of those fancy scented candles but the thick, white wax ones that I grew up with it. Of course, we began playing with the flame. I would break off pieces of wax and liquidize them in the blue part of the flame. I would spill the melted wax down the side of the candle. My friend opposite me even ran her finger through, a feat I found I no longer had the liver for. I don't know how but at some point, I tipped the candle too far and the molten wax that builds up under the flame spilled onto the back of my hand. I flinched but to my surprise I was able to chest the pain and even enjoyed scraping the wax off when it hardened.

After we got tired of playing with the flames, we made shadow puppets. I wasn't very good at this, my fingers are quite clumsy, but my cousins could do some wonderful shapes. I never progressed past the perfunctory butterfly but others could act out complete dramas on the walls. When we tired off puppets, we moved to singing. I played the piano, my sister would drum on our much bruised dining table and we would all sing, soprano, alto and tenor. I can still play with my eyes closed because of this training in the half light of the candles.

Sometimes we would go to bed without them having brought light. Other times the light would come suddenly, mid-song. The electricity would startle us, our eyes would squint at the artificial brightness of it and the flame would suddenly lose its magic.  "Up NEPA!" we would shout but we didn't mean it entirely. We had been enjoying  the camaraderie of the candle. With electricity there was no excuse for sitting together and singing. To switch off all the lights and continue making shadow puppets would be foolish when work clothes had to be ironed. And why play with wax when you could watch TV. So we would disperse until the next time NEPA had not brought light by evening and there was not enough diesel to power the generator.

A few months ago I was in America during a storm and the power was cut off. In the evening, candles were lit all over the house that only a day before had consumed an entire village's supply of electricity. It was my favourite night of the trip. This is how things should be sometimes, I thought as I played my uncle's piano with my eyes closed. This is how it should be.

An Evening with Chika Unigwe

Photo Courtesy Ike Anya

The reading was in a swanky South Kensignton hotel called The Gore. The event was organised by the Dutch Embassy and was billed to start at 7pm. At 7:15 I rushed breathless into the hotel lobby and was  pleased to discover that the Dutch are as flexible with their time as their Nigerian counterparts. There was a nice, dim waiting area and the main event was downstairs.

It was an informal space, with a few sofas against the walls and a wide floor space in the middle. Nigerian that I am, I sharply found a sofa arm to perch on. Sitting on the floor outside your house is just not done. Before the reading began, Chika mingled with her fans. She was gracious, greeting people like me who she's only met once, very warmly. By the time we were ready to start the room had filled up.

She read from a short story called The Love of a Fat Woman. It was about a Nigeriam man who'd married a woman he found unattractively and nauseatingly fat, in order to get immigration papers in the Netherlands. It's a common story that most Africans are familiar with. Interesting, however, was the manner in which this story was told. Chika neither condemned nor condoned the practice but rather wished to humanise it and did so in a very humorous way. The anti-hero prefers his fiance's svelte and attractive friend but she doesn't not notice him. So he settles for the papers that unfortunately come with a corpulent bride attached to them. When he takes her home he promises his mother that he will marry a 'real wife' later on.

 We felt for the main character's over weight and insecure fiancé who believed that their love was genuine. But we also understood why the main character felt that this deception was the only way. We were moved by his close relationship with his family and because of that, it wasn't so easy to write him off as a cruel and unfeeling paper hunter.

The next story she read was  told from the perspective of his relatives at home and their reaction to the Agaracha's new wife. I found this different outlook on events hilarious. His brother's wife, speaking of the Dutch bride's size, described her as a 'room and parlour.' Her earrings which were wooden had to be African because they did not look like they came from anywhere else and there was a lot of wood in Africa. They tried to offer her Western food but she refused insisting on eating pounded yam and even worse, insisting on eating it with her hands. Her in-laws rather uncharitably concluded that she was trying too hard.

Chika and her fans. :) Photo courtesy Tokunboh @toksy27

Too soon the reading segment ended and we had reached the QandA. In the second short story she read, she had written in English, Dutch and Igbo and one member of the audience asked how she found the process of moving through those languages in her writing. She spoke of how and why she learnt Dutch. She used to suffer panic attacks because after she moved to Belgium with her husband, she couldn't go anywhere by herself because she didn't understand a word of the language. And when she met her in-laws, she couldn't understand them either. So she had to pick up the language quickly.

She spoke about Belgium and why she had felt compelled to write 'On Black Sisters Street', her novel about Nigerian prostitutes working in the red light district. She described the Catholic home she had grown up as one where sex was rarely talked about. One of her favourite songs in her childhood was 'Let's Talk About Sex' by Salt and Pepper. However, the word sex was such a taboo that she substituted it with 'bread.' So whenever she sang it, the song became,  "Let's talk about bread baby." I can imagine that the next line would be, "Let's talk about yeast and dough."
 Dry.
 I know.

So anyway, coming from this background, to get to Belgium and see sex everywhere was certainly a different experience. She described women in their lingerie, posing in glass windows waiting for their customers and she discovered that many of the girls were Nigerian and in particular from Benin. So at first, she tried to write the story without meeting the girls and on showing it to someone, they advised her to meet the women if she wanted an authentic story. So she put on her mini-skirt and took her husband with her to the red light district to meet them. The stories she heard were harrowing. One girl had been invited to Germany by her estranged father who had then sent her to live with a 'friend' in another European country. This 'friend' had run a brothel and the proceeds of her work had been sent to her father in Germany. She told of women without papers arrested by police and allowed to leave on the condition that they slept with the police men first.

She also, very excitingly, said that her next book was coming out in June. It's set in Nigeria and is about a relationship between a mother and a daughter. And her next-next book is going to be a work historical fiction set in the eighteenth century. I'm very, very excited about that one, being a history student et al. It's just been delivered to her agent so hopefully, we'll see that on the shelves soon as well.

And then just like that the evening was over and it was time to go and face the more mundane things of life like grocery shopping and dissertation writing. Chika closed to applause and flowers, which was exactly what you would expect.   

Black Book Swap

So this Saturday I'm going to be reading at the first ever Black Book Swap. It's free, so do come along if you're not busy this weekend between 1 and 5pm. There's a great line up, including Colin Grant, Sonja Lewis and Bim Adewunmi of Diane Abbott twitter fame among other things. It's going to be in the fabulous Jamaican restaurant Cottons, (70 Exmouth Market, London EC1R 4QP) so come if only for the jerk chicken. To reserve a place email blackbookswap@gmail.com. I've updated the events page on the blog to show all my upcoming events so even if you can't make this Saturday, there'll be other readings. Hope to see you at one of them.  

Full details here.

Awoof Tales

I do not intend that this post serve as an analysis of  the Nigerian behavioural pattern known as 'awoof'.' Neither do I want to discover the etymology of this word, interesting though such a process might be. What I am concerned in documenting, is three instances where this behaviour has risen to the surface of the cultivated exterior that I and my close ones often try to exhibit. I leave analysis and explanation for another more appropriate forum.

1. A few weeks ago, whilst perambulating down my university corridors, I noticed a rather large crowd gathered in a rather large room appropriately called the Great Hall.
"What's going on?" I asked the lady making sure that only those who attended King's were admitted access into the usually unmanned Great Hall.
"It's a law careers fair."

I was on my way somewhere but hearing that a careers fair was in town, my plans for the day were suspended. This of course would make sense if I was interested in pursuing a career in the law. But I am not. I rescheduled my plans for the day because I knew that wherever a careers fair is, freebies must also be there. So I presented my student ID and was let into the hall.

And what a hubbub of law firms all welcoming passing students to their stalls. In the corner, I spied some snazzy pens. On the far right were mugs. To my left were water bottles. Where to begin? I took a step forward and stopped. What was my strategy? After all, I couldn't just walk up to a stall, grab its free goods and run off to the next one, only to do the same. A pattern would soon be observed. A girl of African descent, sidling up to a desk, snatching a highlighter and then making a dash to the next table two feet away. I realised that I would have to strike up conversation at every law firm whose freebies caught my eye in order not to give my people back home a bad name.

What a boring task it was. These lawyers can talk. And talk. And talk. At first I just made mmmm sounds, waiting for their monologues to be over so I could ask,"Please may I have a five-headed highlighter?"

Quite by accident, I struck on a way to make these talks more interesting. One lady, who intended to make me work for my gel pen, asked at the end of her speech, 'Do you have any questions?"
 "Umm. Do you have-- Umm, do you guys do any human rights law?"
"Umm. No. Not really. We have some clients in Africa though."

Each law firm rep, took a different approach to this question. Some, like the first lady were embarrassed by their firm's lack of altruism. Others looked at me like I was stupid before replying, "Of course not." And one lady said to me, when I had walked through the halls and by this time was laden with my loot and a little weary, "To be honest, you won't find anyone who does human rights law here. I wanted to go into that for a while and the best thing to do is to look online." Ah, honesty from a lawyer. How refreshing.

Eventually, I struggled my way through the doors, carrying almost half my weight in freebies and law brochures. I left the brochures on a College Bench for anyone who was interested and went on my merry way, eating my giant lollipop.


2. My sister was fortunate enough to get to the final stages of an interview with a large multinational. Lucky for her, the interview was in luxury hotel in the country. She gushed about how beautiful the place was. The large rooms, the excellent breakfast and of course, the bathroom. For some reason, of all rooms in the house, Nigerians are most enamoured with the bathroom. Perhaps it is because our heavy diets ensure that we spend large portions of our time in there. Anyway, my sister oohed and aahed over the wide mirrors, the deep tub, the towels and then she spotted the soap. It was the same colour as cognac: dark liquid orange and it was kept in a glass carafe.

Needless to say, my sister came back with one. Now before you start shouting and saying, "We knew it! Awoof runs in their family!" let me explain how my sister returned with this rather weighty souvenir. At the end of her stay, she had considered taking the carafe. It was beautiful, stylish, just the right thing to improve the tone of our bathroom at home. But then she thought better about it. This was not like taking a plastic bottle of shampoo or a face flannel, this was more akin to stealing. So she left the hotel as she came, awoof free.

On the train journey back however, she sat with her Nigerian friend from primary school who had also incidentally been called for the interview. Of course, they spent ten minutes gushing about the room. Then the breakfast, those scrambled ehn, freshly laid by a chicken that morning.Then they got to the bathroom. Oh the bathroom. That wonderful place. My sister expressed regret at the morals that stopped her from permanently borrowing the hotel's beautifully packaged shower gel.

Her friend laughed long and hard and then opened her bag. Inside were not one but two glass bottles. One with shampoo, one with shower gel. This friend was generous however, and gave one bottle to my sister. It still sits on our bathroom rim till this day and we refill it and ooh and ahh over the lovely way the glass displays the different colours of shower gel we have poured into it.


3. I have an aunt who was on extended stay in America. We visited her and at some point, went shopping at a well-heeled supermarket. When we got to the till, she declined the woman's offer of bagging and said that we would do it ourselves. Meaning I would do the bagging. As the goods were passed to me, I began to put them in a single bag.
"Double bag them," she said. Some of the goods were quite heavy, so her request was understandable.
I double bagged, and moved on to the next items.
"You're putting too many things in one bag."
I thought the amount of around five items per bag was quite reasonable but clearly my aunt didn't think so. She shoved me aside and I watched as she put a tin of sweetcorn in a plastic bag and then double bagged that. A cabbage was triple bagged, a pack of chewing disappeared into four plastic bags.

The till lady was staring at us but my aunt did not seem to notice. When all the items had been scanned she paid. I went behind the trolley, ready to go when she grabbed a handful of about twenty plastic bags and shoved them into a double-bagged bag of peanuts.
"For good measure," she said as we walked back to her black, SUV.

Now that ladies and gentlemen is how you do awoof.

N.B
Awoof does not directly translate to freebie but nothing reasonable came up when I google imaged 'awoof Nigeria'.