ktravula - a travelogue! » Fiction

On Teju Cole’s “Open City”

Kola — Wed, 23 Feb 2011 21:20:01 +0000

Here’s a few words on Nigerian writer’s American debut novel published by Random House books:

In Teju Cole’s novel “Open City” (Random House, 259 pages, $25), the narrator, a Nigerian émigré named Julius, says that he has developed the habit of “aimless wandering” through New York City. He is not being coy. “Open City” obediently follows him as he ambles through Central Park, browses in bookstores, strolls through museum galleries and tours the sights around Wall Street. He is in America on a fellowship to study psychiatry; when he takes a vacation, he goes to Brussels and wanders aimlessly there.

Julius finds that the more he roams the “solitary but social territory” of the streets, the more invisible he becomes. In part because he’s an expatriate and in part because he’s attracted to an existential philosophy that exalts “being magnificently isolated from all loyalties,” Julius feels alienated from the busy neighborhoods he passes through and the garrulous people he meets. Yet there remains a vague purpose to his purposelessness, a low-simmering desire to recognize himself in his surroundings: “I wanted to find the line that connected me to my own part in these stories.”

Not having read the book yet, what fascinates me the most about what I’ve read is the premise on which the book is based – the very nuanced nature of cities (and towns) and what they can offer us either at the level of imagination, or merely at face value. A new short story set in Edwardsville? Why not?

More on the book here and here in the New Yorker.

Two Short Stories

Kola — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 00:43:11 +0000

Birdsong by Chimamanda Adichie.

In Memory by Emmanuel Iduma.

Enjoy

Weekend in a Little Village

Kola — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 23:41:24 +0000

There hums a fan four feet behind the chair in a closed office. Outside, the sun recedes into the end of where the eyes can reach and heat pervades the day. The bustle of traffic is as unpredictable as the flight of the geese around the neighbourhood and on the surface everything goes on as it always does, this time only with a little more gusto as commuters disperse with the wind heading somewhere, heading nowhere.

There, as usual, is a magic to the simpleness of the atmosphere, something about the order and ordinariness of the programmed chore of day in a working metropolis. In the middle of such broth of movements is a yet unknown idea bubbling around the edge. Everyone seeks it in some way or another. Some find it, and some don’t. And some don’t collide with it a few times in a day’s work. And in many other parallel worlds, there are replicas in this rote and eventuality. Only one thing stands out of the urgency of each second: the futility of it all.

There now hums more than just a whirling fan. There is music, and company, and noise – the same old rote of living.

The Text Part of Growing

Kola — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:31:26 +0000

The evolution from picture books to text-only materials was gradual, but memorable. There seemed to have been an unwritten disdain for picture books that manifested after each birthday, each disposed oversized pyjamas and each replaced tooth. It wasn’t self-wrought however, but acquired, either from older peers with fancier stories of intimate relations with the written word resulting in inspiring encounters, or jealousy of even fancier ones with fantastic tales of their reading prowess. Something gave, however, for sure, little by little, and the young reader emerged, ready to take on the reading world without accompanying images.

The most memorable of such recollection could be the singular, but eventually impossible task of reading the first chapter of The Tiger by the Tail during a bus ride from home to school. It didn’t matter to him in the least that he couldn’t make any sense of it yet, never having even applied himself to more than just a few words on each page he flipped. It matter though that people saw him with a book that was bigger than a storybook, had no pictures in it, and moved from page to page as if passing through the patient and critical eyes of an avid reader. “Hey, nice book. How’re you finding it?” Someone would ask sometimes during the day, and he would respond: “Oh, very nice. Chase is such an exquisite writer”, and move on before the probing went far beyond the familiar. Oh the days.

The blog, now splattered with colours and images, flesh and blood, of ordinary and extraordinary people of various places, beliefs and convictions, could only remind of such trivialties; of days when colour meant ordinariness, and a lack of sophistication needed for the rites of adulthood. Now only a smile remains, and a longing for such a not so distant past of innocence and silliness.

Welcome September, and the year of birth.

New Publication

Kola — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 03:02:31 +0000

Those interested in new Nigerian writing will do well to check out the latest issue of Sentinel Nigeria magazine. It has a poem of mine among several refreshing works of Nigerians of different age and convictions. There are also some two poems from Peter Akinlabi whom I’d interviewed for the particular issue. All comments welcome. Enjoy.

Find it here.

New Review

Kola — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 22:31:02 +0000

“I feel it’s best to look at this story critically from two angles. The first is the merits of the writing, which should of course remain paramount. In this, Tubosun does very well. He captures the dry absurdity of a potentially terrible situation, and the ending is remarkable in its pathos. I believed both the matter-of-fact and slightly sympathetic tone of the nurse, and I believed the narrator’s feelings when he hoped he did not have the illness, but suspected that, because of his life and where he lived, he might. Tubosun alternates between writing with very plain, ordinary language, such as when a conversation occurs, and larger, quite grand sentences which seek to encompass the tumultuous shifts of emotions experienced by the narrator. He is adept at both, and perhaps most importantly, knows when to use which. When the narrator talks to the nurse, the writing becomes short and sharp because the narrator himself is tense with anticipation, he must be calm, because if he is not – collapse. When he retreats within himself, his conscious is allowed to expand, and so, too, does the writing, Tubosun’s sentences uncoiling like languorous snakes willing to take their time to reach their destination.”

Culled from Damian Kelleher’s review of my story in African Roar. Read the rest here.

The Fig Tree and the Wasp

Kola — Fri, 28 May 2010 07:38:05 +0000

A short story by Brian Chikwava in the Granta Magazine, here.

Full Circle – Short Faction

Kola — Fri, 14 May 2010 05:01:17 +0000

Written at Cougar Village.

Looking up into the predictable night sky, he saunters home. In other climes, he might have been a little high on the freedom of the night to surprise, and to appease his seething exhilaration and bubbling fears. Here, he just paces home in little steps that completely ignore the need for caution, yet a buoyancy remains. Even the geese have gone to bed, and the road is free of any surprises. Only the warm wind blows from all directions, and his open shirt blows with it opening spaces around his armpit and exiting through his similarly open cuffs. From afar and against the background of light – except for the colour of his shirt or the size of his frame – he could have been mistaken for a waving flag, or a moving scarecrow.

Once upon a time this was home to more shuffling feet and heaps of snow. But that was then. Once upon a time, trees and their leaves that now whistle with the night shedding grains of white pollinated flowers were only high and dry, and winter shook the alien city to the barest limit of its own survival. Then there was nothing but death and dryness, and a certain music to the melancholy of heavy and seemingly wounded trees. It was seasonal. Hope had sprung up later like the flowers that now scatter on his head from on top of the tall pine trees. All in one night the change came, suddenly and without warning. Even to him a traveller, it was an unexpected miracle of a seasonal revival.

Like a visitor in a now growing market place, he looks around again with a certain brightness. The fears that returned were about how in a different place and a different time this might have been unwise, coming home at this time of the night. In his mind was something similar to a mother’s scoff of a rage: “Bloody fool, you toss your life around like a game of cards.” The delight in mischief of such confrontations has gone now, and only a nostalgic smile remains drawn on the face of the dark night sky that breathes on his upward gaze. Like looking at a mirror of one own smeared reflection, he muses, head up towards a direction that could only be east, judging by the position of the crescent moon. Home lies there, he whispers.

Introducing African Roar!

Kola — Fri, 07 May 2010 01:48:17 +0000

In a few days time, a new book will hit the shelves all over the world. It’s African Roar! It is a collection of short stories written by authors from different countries in Africa. As the name suggests, it is an African roar! Do you hear the rumbles?

My first published story, first titled The First Test has now been published in the anthology as Behind the Door. It is a story of one man in contemplation while going through the aisle of a private hospital.

But African Roar has more than just one story. From Novuyo Rosa’s Big Pieces, Little Pieces to Ayodele Morocco Clarke’s The Nestbury Tree to Beaven Tapureta’s Cost Of Courage, Chuma Nwokolo’s QuarterBack & Co and Ivor W. Hartmann’s Lost Love, the collection takes you onto imaginative plains and hills, and all the eleven stories leave you with an exhilaration that you can only get from the little pleasures of the other person’s imagination. Other stories in the collection are Yesterday’s Dog by Masimba Musodza, Cost Of Courage by Beaven Tapureta, A Cicada In The Shimmer by Christopher Mlalazi, A Return To The Moonlight by Emmanuel Sigauke, Truth Floats by Nana A. Damoah’s and Tamale Blues by Ayesha H. Attah. Each of the stories tells something of the African experience, and more.

The stories that make up the work were all drawn from the very best stories published from 2007-2009 on the Story Time website. The anthology is published by Lion Press Ltd UK, and is edited by Ivor Hartmann and Emmanuel Sigauke. It will be available on Amazon, Barnes & Nobles and some physical book stores worldwide in a few days. It will also be available on the Kindle.

You may follow the twitter feeds of African Roar at http://www.twitter.com/africanroar and on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/African.Roar for more information. Autographed copies will also be available, I’m sure, as soon as possible.

I’m ex… ex… excited. Are you?

Abayomi and I

Kola — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 11:21:49 +0000

In this guest post, children’s story writer Ayodele Olofintuade writes a autobiographical account of growing up with her brother in Nigeria. It’s reproduced her as cross posted on her blog totallyhawaya-haywire.blogspot.com.

_____________________________________

… At five years old

“What’s the west of the stowy?” He asked staring at the pictures in the comic book

“The oko baba dudu first!” I said making a grab for the sweet.

He clutched it tighter, “Who is that man standing behind Spiderman?” He pointed at the comic.

“Oh he’s just there.” I said dismissively. “You promised to give me the sweet if I read the comic to you.” I said eyeing the oko baba dudu anxiously. In spite of the fact that I am three years older than Yomi he’s always one step ahead of me.

“What is this man doing there?” he repeated holding up the comic.

“How will I know? There is no balloon coming out of his mouth.” Then it dawned on me that Abayomi has no intention of giving me the sweet, so I made a grab for it . Abayomi gave the loud screech that always fetched our mother from wherever she was … I snapped my fingers at him. “I will show you! Mcheew!!” I know when to run …

“Wale! Biodun!!” he called his friends. “I have finished weading the comic. But you have to give me one oko baba dudu each before I tell you the stowy … is it me that said you should not know how to wead like me? … This is spiderman and the other one is emm… emm, …superfly…!”

***

… And then he turned eleven

“But why is your cousin not talking now?” Jide said, eyeing my ‘cousin’ who is dressed up in a black mini skirt with a pair of very high heels and a big afro wig.

“I told you she’s mute, she can hear you but she cannot talk.” I said smiling at my ‘cousin’ as she applied … no smeared… more lipstick on already blood red lips and added powder to a ghostly face.

“But that your cousin looks like Yomi.” Jide said staring at the huge boobs straining at the tee-shirt.

“Wo Jide, I’m tired of this jare, do you want a girlfriend or not? She will allow you touch one of her breasts, just pay up.” I held out my hand for the twenty naira. Jide reluctantly handed over his life savings to me, his eyes still glued to my ‘cousin’s’ balloons… “Are you sure she will let me touch th…the…them?”

“You can take your 20 naira back if you don’t trust me.” I watched with disgust as Jide started squeezing one of the big pimples on his face … no wonder he doesn’t have a girlfriend.

“Where is Yomi?” He asked as he dipped a finger inside one of his nostrils.

“He’s in Lagos.” I said haughtily. “Come back around 8.30pm, my cousin will wait by that door.”

“It will be too dark.” He whined

“You did not say you want to see a breast you just want to feel it, so you don’t need light. You have to leave now, mummy is back.” I said pushing him through the door.

“Good afternoon ma. Bye-bye.” Jide said as he ran off.

“Abayomi what are you doing in my shoes … my wig and my make-up?” Yomi stood up from the chair and nearly fell off the heels he was wearing.

“Get that muck off your face. Go and change. What’s that on your chest? The balloons I bought for Oba’s birthday abi? Don’t worry; I’ll get to the bottom of this later. I hope you’re done packing because the taxi that will take us to Lagos is waiting outside…”

***

… Yomi at 34

What fun we had in those days didn’t we?

_____________________________________

Ayo is the author of a forthcoming socially-conscious children’s storybook titled Eno’s Story scheduled to be published by Cassava Republic.

ktravula - a travelogue! » Fiction

On Teju Cole’s “Open City”

Related Posts

Two Short Stories

Related Posts

Weekend in a Little Village

Related Posts

The Text Part of Growing

Related Posts

New Publication

Related Posts

New Review

Related Posts

The Fig Tree and the Wasp

Related Posts

Full Circle – Short Faction

Related Posts

Introducing African Roar!

Related Posts

Abayomi and I

Related Posts