ktravula – a travelogue!

A Visit to the Old School

No return visit to the old hall of residence would be complete without a visit to the old rooms that played host to my errant self during those five gruelling years.

So when I went there during the week, I stopped by room A41 where I spent my first year, meeting new people, learning to play chess, and discovering Don Williams.

Then I went to room A52 where I met even more people, ate more food, listened to more music and read more books. The walls of that room is witness to so much history. My last room was D20, and I went there too. I did not go in because the current occupants do not know me and I was not in the mood for introductions.

I also visited the reading rooms, the toilets, the cafeteria and the new basketball court behind the warden’s office. In some way, it was as if I never left. In other ways, it looked like an old prison cell housing a bunch of inmates just waiting to burst loose. There are no monuments to my stay in the hall, fortunately, and I slipped out just as I slipped in, anonymously, taking the memory again with me as I left.

On “Behind the Door”

My short story – Behind the Door – appeared as one of the eleven short stories in the premier anthology of fictions from Africa titled African Roar. That’s no news anymore, right?

What you didn’t know is that I wrote the story in about two hours after a moving experience in a local hospital. The events in the story, though fictionalized, were derived from a real life experience.

So what’s the reason for this post? I want to share with you a few of the reviews of African Roar, especially those that focused on my short story “Behind the Door.” Enjoy.

Powerful in its simlicity: Review by blogger Solomon Sydelle

Humorous without being frivolous: Review by Elinore Morris

Controlled and well-handled characters: Review by Novuyo-Rosa

The book can now be bought on Amazon, Lion Press, Barnes and Noble, and on the Kindle. Soon enough, we would be able to have them in physical bookshops all around. Until then, what are you waiting for to get an anthology of eleven powerful stories written from all across the continent?

Confessions

The Nigerian Blog Awards 2010 have been giving me sleepless nights. Seriously! 😮

I try to think of what else to blog about, and I can’t get it out of my head that I’ve been nominated for the most number of categories in this year’s awards. This is too emotional for me. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not averse to awards or honours. I welcome all that they represent and all the responsibility they bestow on the nominee/winners to behave in a particular way worthy of the trust. Still, I was awed, humbled, sometimes swollen-headed, and then humbled again by the what it must mean to be considered worthy of those nominations. Give me the tissue, someone!

So I’ve thanked all the (invisible) people who nominated my blog, but it doesn’t seem enough. I want to go out on a tall building and shout out my appreciation, just go get the point across. Let me do so again here. I appreciate the love. Very much. Thank you. This blog – my own social network, my sounding board, my blackboard, my confession box, and all that it has been over the last ten months – won’t be what it is without the committed readers, commenters, guest-bloggers, fans and friends. It is you for that the drums roll.

KTravula.com was nominated for these categories:

– Best Daily Read
– Best New Blog
– Best Personal Blog
– Best Photography Blog
– Best Poetry Blog
– Best Student Blog
– Best Travel Blog
– Best Use of Media, Including Social Media
– Best Use of Theme
– Most Intellectual Blog
– Nigerian Blog of the Year

Now I can’t wait for the voting season to come and go (voting starts on 31st and ends on the 6th), so that I can get on with my life and resume the pattern of a sound sleep. This suspense is killing.

In the next couple of days, I hope to try to show you a few of my old posts that I often find myself reading all over again, for different reasons. For visitors coming to this blog for the first time because of the mention in the Award Nominations, the posts might give you an insight into why the blog might actually have possibly deserved those nominations. For old readers, they might refresh your memories. But tell me, what are some of your favourite posts, and why?

PS: Today I took a long overdue tour of my old Hall of Residence in the University of Ibadan. The structures are old but there are traces of renovations. There is also a new basketball court behind the Warden’s office. I took pictures. I will share them shortly.

The Fig Tree and the Wasp

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

Book Review

I’ve been reading the book Cultural Hybridity by Peter Burke, a book that explores much of the concepts of hybridity in human cultures and relations. There are ample evidence from the history of humankind that prove hybridity, even more than we always immediately recognize. From the old Yoruba, Igbo and even Hausa cultures of Nigeria to that of old Rome, Jewish, Brazilian, Spanish and much of Europe, the author cites very many instances of cultural hybridity (also called “borrowing”, “syncretism”, “assimilation”, “adaptation”, “fusion” and even “homogenization” among others) and the way attitudes and opinions to such hybridity have evolved over the years.

One memorable quote from the book was from Edward Said: “the history of all cultures is the history of borrowing.” I find that apt, and the book confirms it with very many instances of both rebellion against and acceptance of cultural exchange by different cultures and societies of people across the times.

Published in 2009 by Polity Press

142 pages.

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